Walking through the hallway of James D. Middle School, I prepared my mind for the worst class of the day, science. But today it wasn't just science. It had to be two whole periods of science today. Almost 90 minutes. I dragged my feet sloppily into the room and nodded at my friends. I can barely talk once I reach period seven and eight, especially if it is a double science day. I sat down in my seat and slammed my things onto my desk. I ripped the chair from under the desk and sat down. Suddenly, the teacher came in and began the lesson. Like always, I lay my head on the desk and put my head to the right. As I opened and closed my eyes, I saw something towards the corner of the room. It was a little brown square. I waited until the three minute break between the first and second period of science class to walk over to the corner and see what the mysterious item was. I picked it up and it felt leathery. Once I looked at it up close, I realized it was a wallet! I couldn’t believe it! It had taken me until my last year of middle school to find anything of value in this place. Before I got the chance to see what was inside, the bell rang for the second period. I shoved the wallet into my pocket and sat down.
***

Later that day, I sat home in my room looking at the still unopened wallet. I have always been someone interested in money. I always wanted to make money, save money, and spend money ever since I knew what money was. With this in mind, I had a rough decision. Do I return the wallet to the school or keep what’s in it (still unknown) for myself? I fidgeted on my table while I thought. Finally, I decided I would make my final decision after revealing the contents of the wallet. I looked long at the wallet, something looked strange. Then it occurred to me, it looked exactly like MY wallet! I chuckled and took out my wallet from under my bed. It was the exact same wallet! “Enough messing around”, I thought to myself. I finally opened up the wallet and fingered through the contents. My eyes lit up at the four one-hundred dollar bills sitting in the bill pocket. There were also a few credit cards and other things. Now came the hard part, trying to find a drivers license or some form of I.D. My hands began shaking as I looked back at the bills. Suddenly, I found a drivers license. “Oh no”, I thought to myself again, now I have to return it. On the name section of the card it said “Raymond Hollister”. I almost dropped the wallet on the ground in shock. It was my principal’s wallet! Now I knew if I didn’t return it, I could get expelled! I tapped my hand in frustration, considering I will now have to give away $400 dollars worth of bills. I glanced at the clock, it was time for me to sleep. I took Principal Hollister’s wallet and my own wallet and shoved them under my bed. Then I plopped into bed lazily, preparing for tomorrow’s disappointment.
***

The next morning, I took the brown wallet from under my bed and put it into my jean pocket. My bus arrived at the school five minutes late. Therefore, I had no time to give the wallet back to Hollister. I rolled my eyes at what had seemed like good luck yesterday but had just turned out to be an annoyance. After first period, the announcements came on. After the announcements nobody listens to, Principal Hollister came on the PA, suddenly my head whipped up from my desk. I heard: “Attention students and staff, in the past two days I have lost my personal wallet. If you have found it, please return it immediately. Thank you.” “Oh no!” I thought to myself. Now, I couldn’t wait for lunch to come. After what seemed like five hours, it was time for lunch. I jogged into the main office (this was the most activity I have ever done in school). Once I arrived in the office, I asked for Principal Hollister and said I had found his wallet. The lady rang for him and before I knew it, he was standing in front of me, staring. In that very deep principal voice, he said, “Thank you young man, you have saved me a lot of trouble”. With that, he grabbed the wallet and went back into his office. I thanked the desk lady and jogged back to lunch, prepared to eat.
***

When I got home, I felt pretty good about myself. I told my Mom what happened, she said it was a very good deed and that she was proud of me. I decided I owed myself a treat. I grabbed my own brown wallet from under the bed and began walking into the town near my house. I soon arrived at the corner store and picked up a Baby Ruth bar, my favorite. The lady at the front mumbled “$1.50”. I shook my head slightly at her lack of enthusiasm. I blindly took out two bills from my wallet and placed them on the counter. The women looked at me strangely. Wondering what was wrong, I looked down at the counter and saw two hundred-dollar bills sitting there. I slowly opened the wallet in my hand and saw that not only were there two other hundred-dollar bills in the bill section, but there were credit cards and a license that said “Raymond Hollister”. I couldn’t believe it! I still had my principal’s wallet. I through the chocolate bar onto the counter, took back the bills I had put out, and shoved the wallet back into my pocket, all in one slick stroke. I ran home and said to my Mom: “Mom, I need you to drive me to school, quickly, before they close”. My mom kept asking me questions, so in a frustrated voice I explained to her what happened as quickly as I could speak. We raced over to the school and I jumped out of the car. I ran through the doors to the main office and asked for Principal Hollister again. The same lady who was at the desk before was there, and she looked unusually tired. She rang for Hollister and before I knew it he was staring at me again. I thought to myself, “Isn't this familiar?”. I explained to my principal what happened and hoped he wouldn't think that I did this on purpose. We traded wallets and he said: “My, haven't I put you through a good amount of trouble?” I smiled and shrugged. He said, “Regardless, here is a little something for your trouble”. He shuffled through his wallet and pulled out one of the hundreds and placed it in my hand. I was in shock. I thanked him very much and silently walked back to my Mom’s car. I imagined I looked like a zombie, walking the way I was. On the car ride back, I thought about how wealthy someone must be to be willing to give one hundred dollars to some random kid. That made me think to myself, “That’s where I want to be someday too”.