Miranda's Vacation

Part 9

After they finally settled down in their hotel room. They discussed the way the antique dealer just switched from being so helpful to practically kicking them out.

"Yeah, that was strange," Joey said.

"I wonder what he knows that we don't," Ben said.

Joey shrugged and simply said, "I dunno. But let's get this thing opened and just see."

He took the tools they brought with them and started beating on the box with a large hammer. After a few well-placed hits to the front of the case, it started to cave in and soon the entire box turned into shattered pieces. Dust flew out in every direction after it shattered.

Under the rubble, they dug out a small leather bag. "Open it, man. What do you think it is?" Ben asked. "Do you suppose we're gonna be OK? Since they said it had warnings written on it. Maybe we're not supposed to open it."

Joey shrugged and pulled open the leather strings. He poured out the contents on the bed. To their amazement, there was what looked like a hundred diamonds glittering in front of them.

"Oh, no! This can't be for real!" Ben shrieked with excitement.

"Yeah, man, I think it is," Joey replied dumbfounded. "We're gonna be rich!  We have to get home to figure out how to sell these babies," he continued.

"For sure we do!" Ben said."

"Tomorrow we go home and see what we can do," Joey said and he held his hand up for a high-five from Ben.

"Maybe there's even a reward for them," Ben said.

On their way home, they decided that it would be safest if they split the diamonds up between them and hide them in separate places. They counted 32 diamonds and split them. Ben went home hid his in his special hiding spot under the stairs of his house and Joey just hid his in plain sight in his room.

The next day they met up at Joey's and discussed selling the diamonds and to whom. Joey told Ben about the emails he'd gotten from Mr. Master and that he had upped the amount he'd give them for the box.

They discussed it and decided to let Mr. Master know that they'd opened the box and wanted to sell the contents. They figured a cool million would be enough for the 32 stones.

Joey said, "I got an idea. We might need to see if there's anything about there being a reward like you mentioned. Surely it's been documented or someone's interested in them. We might be able to make even more money."

They surfed the net for a short while until they came across and old article titled "32 Cursed Diamonds, Fact or Fiction". As they read the article they found that the markings were from the Mayans in Cozumel. And it appears the curse might possibly be very real.

Just then they both heard a racket outside the door that made their hair stand on end. They looked at each other in fright. "Curse?!" they said together. Then they thought that maybe someone was there to steal the diamonds from them.