Hey! Ch. 4! And this one is about Riley.
Ok, well, here goes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing that has to do with national Treasure.
"Alright Mr. Poole, Mr. Edwards (Jonathan), are you ready to open the safety deposit box?" the stiff and proper bank teller asked politely.
The two exchanged looks and nodded. He put the key into the box and opened it. He nodded at them, "Well, I'll leave you two to it, if you need anything at all just call for me,"
"Will do," Uncle Jonathan said tiredly.
Left alone to look at the contents of the box, they exchanged looks again and took the deep plunge. Riley pulled out a letter addressed to "My Family."
My Beloved family,
I am assuming that right now, "my beloved family" includes my favorite grandson and my best friend, since you are about the only family I have left. Please don't waste your time mourning for me because I'm truly happy with how my life has turned out. I never wasted a day or regretted any of my decisions. I am happy to say that all the wrinkles I have are from happy moments. The only thing I wish I could have done before my death is to reconnect with you Riley. I want you to know I've followed your career very closely and am your biggest fan. I have something for you my boy; I'm leaving you the book store. You and Jon are officially charged with taking care of it and making sure it stays open. I know this is probably not what a bright, head strong man wants to do with his future and I'm not asking you to drop everything and run it, no I think Jonathan is capable of that for now. All I ask of you is to stay interested. And stay involved. That store meant a lot to your Grandma and me. Take care of it.
And Riley, your dad would be so proud of you. I'll give him your best shall I?
Jonathan, you are my best friend. Stay strong in the years to come, I'll always be with you. You have been by my side ever since Margaret died, and for that I thank you. You have indulged an old man's needs to have a friend with him.
Good bye my friend.
On a final note: all of my worldly possessions are to be left to the two of you. Divide them up however you wish, and be nice. Take care of the things in this box, they are important.
Love,
Ricky Poole (Your beloved friend and grandfather)
Riley felt his eyes tearing up, but swiped furiously at them. Riley Poole didn't cry. He looked over and his uncle seemed to be doing the same thing.
"He left me the store," Riley said, sounding somewhat shocked.
"I can read, you know." the old man replied swatting at him. He surveyed the rest of the contents of the lock box, "Let's see what else is in here,"
They both reached into the box and pulled out items. Riley pulled out a small box, and he looked at it with a small smile. He opened it, and his suspicions were confirmed. It was his grandmother's engagement ring. "Hey Uncle Jon, can I have this?" he asked holding it up.
A smile wrinkled his face and he smacked Riley on the back, hard. "Son, that ring is yours, as long as you promise me that you'll use it one day, and not just keep it as a keepsake. I would really like a Great niece or nephew someday. I'm not going to stay young forever,"
"Oh, well then, since you're in such a hurry I'd better just walk out into the street and propose to the first charming lady who smiles at me…and since when have you been young? The last time you were considered young was probably in like 1891."
His uncle rolled his eyes at him. "Funny. You're a real smart ass, but I don't see the ladies falling all over you; you'd probably be lucky for one just to look at you."
"Ha ha," Riley retorted. "Hey, what do you have there?"
Jonathan looked at the item in his hands, it was a picture album. "What does it look like I'm holding?"
Riley resisted the urge to smack his head on the table in front of him, "Well what are the pictures of?"
Jonathan smiled fondly, and patted the old book. He flipped it open and his smile grew wider, it was a young picture of the four of them at a restaurant for New Year's Eve. It was Ricky, Margaret, his Anna, and himself. "This little book holds a lot of memories,"
He passed it over to Riley who took it eagerly and looked through it. He stopped on one of the last pictures. It was of him and his dad, in front of the bookstore posting flyers for some sale or something. It was possibly the last picture he had taken with his dad. He blinked back the tears for a third time in 24 hours.
"Hey, look at this," his uncle beckoned him with a hand, and he hastily set the photo album aside and moved closer to see what the man next to him was holding. It was a very old, very antique looking, yellowing and faded document on a piece of parchment.
"What is that?" Riley asked with a frown. The words weren't even in English; they looked like hieroglyphics to him, Egyptian hieroglyphics if he was right. He had taken an ancient languages class in college, partly on a whim, and partly because he needed a language credit and this seemed easier than learning the languages themselves.
That was beside the point though, what was going through his mind was, 'why would grandpa have an ancient Egyptian document?'
"What is this? Is this Chinese or something? Those commies, they're everywhere..." his uncle began; a tangent was soon to follow.
But Riley cut him off at the pass, "No, no, Uncle Jonathan it's not Chinese it's Egyptian I think; And calling members of the communist party 'commies' is politically incorrect and mostly frowned upon these days. It's something like racial profiling, and you could get locked up for that, you know? Plus, it's just downright rude. I mean how would you like it if someone was like, 'Those darn…whities!'?"
His uncle glared at him, and quipped: "How would you know what language this is sonny? I don't recall you ever learning Egyptian or any other foreign language. You can barely speak English as it is."
"I took a class about ancient languages in college, you'd be surprised what they teach there." he smirked.
"Well then, Mr. Smarty pants, what does the document say?" he asked eyebrows raised.
Riley sighed, "I never said I could read it, I just said I knew it was Egyptian. I'm not very skilled at it, I only know a little." he took the document and examined it, all the while smiling. Abigail would have a fit if she knew he was handling an ancient document without wearing some kind of protective gloves. He'd have to be sure to leave that part out of his tale when he told her.
"It says something about two princes (or Egyptian equivalent) and betrayal. I…can't really tell after that. This is weird, why would Grandpa have something like this?" he thought for a moment, "Hmm…we need to get this translated, I hate to do this, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't call and interrupt Ben at least once during his honeymoon." he grinned evilly.
He hit his speed dial number 2 and waited to hear the ring.