Side Story - Treasure Hunt with Max

    "It's a treasure map!" Denzel said excitedly. Max pulled the map away, looking at it skeptically. Holding it out and squinting his eyes his voice was surprised.

  "Oh wow, it actually is a treasure map," Denzel looked proud of himself. "'Course it is, I'm not dumb."

  Max and I shared a look but didn't comment. Denzel seemed pretty happy with himself.

  Denzel wasn't dumb, but having seen some of his more... Questionable moments had me siding with Max just a bit. Who sets three toasters on fire in one month? He and Cloud should never be allowed in the kitchen, ever.

  "So do we go find the treasure?" I asked. It was midday and our parents had brought us to the park, we needed an activity, so this seemed like a pretty good thing to do.

  "We should ask Dad and Mister Goofy to help us too," Denzel suggested. Max shut him down, "No. If we have Leonhart and Dad help we'll have to split the treasure with them."

  "We don't even know what the treasure is, though," I reasoned. "How do we even know it's good treasure?"

  "Eh, we'll find out when we see it, won't we?" the ten-year-old shrugged. Denzel nodded, "Yeah, we should totally find the treasure ourselves!"

  I exhaled, "Okay, where do we go first?" Max looked at the map and then up, surveying the playground.

  "The first location is under the slide," We started walking over to it, the slide was little, intended for my age group and lower, as this was a tiny, add-on part to the playset. It had little activities on it like tick tack toe and for some odd reason, the alphabet for sign language.

  "The next thing on the map is the oak tree over there!" Denzel pointed to the large tree, I looked at the map, the dotted line made a loop around the tree, and went towards the bench where our parents were sitting.

  I took the map from Max, looking at the paper as a whole. Finding that we were going to walk around the whole playground just to loop back around to the Oak Tree, the X marking the spot just feet away from it.

  "The treasure's hidden by the tree," we walked over to it, around the place it would be. I pointed, "This is where X would mark the spot."

  Denzel looked down, "I think it's buried."

  Max looked at him funny, "Of course, it's buried, it's treasure. That's why they make maps." Denzel glared at him. "I know that! I was just saying!"

  "We'll need shovels if it's buried." I point out to the boys.

  "I can go grab the ones by the sandbox," Denzel offered, ready to get them when Max stopped him.

  "I got this." He moved us both out of the way and started digging with his paws, expertly and efficiently fast. I hummed, I know Max is a dog, but I didn't know he actually dug things up. He usually hates it when he's compared to his less humanlike brethren.

  "Guys? I think I found it," he said, pulling up a dirty tennis ball.

  "Aw, are you kidding me?!" Denzel complained, taking it from Max. The disappointment was evident from him. Max also seemed upset.

  "Well, what'd you expect, it was a pretty easy map to find." I held it up, it looked like one of those maps they use to placate kids at restaurants, I hardly expected to find anything at all, so this was a pleasant surprise.

  Denzel looked down at it, sighing. "Yeah, guess your right." He moved it around in his hand before I could visibly see the lightbulb go off in his head, he looked from the ball to Max to me.

  I caught on immediately, "Denzel don't."

  Max caught on too, "You wouldn't."

  Denzel looked at Max before chucking the ball in the opposite direction. Max sneered at him, "I hate you." He stated before rushing after the ball.

  Goofy came up to us, as well as Squall.

  "Dad," I greeted him, taking his hand. He smiled, "Hey, what're you guys up to?"

  I held up the map, "We found this."

  Goofy took a good look at it before his face brightened. "Oh, that's the map to my favorite ball, you found it?"

  It was silent for a moment, then Max returned. Denzel broke the silence by breaking out into laughter, and soon we all followed.