Liam visits his Grandpa’s neglected grave to say goodbye and finds cryptic coordinates engraved on the tombstone. He follows the trail to a railway station’s cloakroom and uncovers an unpleasant truth: In the last years of his life, his grandpa tried to fulfill Liam’s dream when Liam’s sneaky father almost ruined it. But the final chance is in Liam’s hands now…
18-year-old Liam’s heart pounded as he approached his late Grandpa’s grave with a bouquet of white roses. He had gone to say goodbye that breezy autumn afternoon and nothing hurt him more than the thought of abandoning the town he grew up in.
“I’ve come to say goodbye, Grandpa,” Liam gingerly knelt beside the tombstone and whispered. “Dad’s lost all the money in gambling. We’re moving into a trailer out of town…fifteen miles west. Dad promised to get me a job as a mechanic in a garage. I’m sorry, Grandpa… I’ll never be able to achieve my dream…I’m not going to build airplanes and fly around the world. It’s over!”
As Liam cried his heart out and talked to his Grandpa while scraping off the moss on the tomb, he discovered strange numbers engraved in a peculiar format on the marble…
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Liam hastily scraped off all the moss and stood back, surprised. The etchings on the tombstone looked like coordinates. He recalled how he and his late Grandpa Robert used to play treasure hunts using such codes. Suspecting the etchings were some kind of hints his Grandpa wanted to convey to him, Liam searched for the coordinates on his phone.
“A cloakroom?” he exclaimed when the code indicated a baggage room at a railway station in town. “Is Grandpa trying to convey something to me?”
At first, Liam thought it could be a prank. But when none of his assumptions made sense, he bicycled to the railway station to find out.
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“Good afternoon!” Liam approached the receptionist. “I wanted to know if there’s any locker registered under the name R. Hudson…Could you kindly check?”
The lady scoured through the records and looked up at Liam. “Ah, yes, sir! It’s locker number 417…One with a combination lock. It’s been in use for over a year.”
Liam was baffled as he thanked the receptionist and marched to the baggage room to check the locker.
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“What is the code to open this thing?” Liam mumbled as he tried different combination codes to unlock the locker. But everything failed.
Eventually, the boy realized that whatever the code was, it had to be a combination of numbers only his Grandpa and he knew. But nothing struck him until he heard a faint rumbling sound of an airplane in the distance.
“That’s it!” Liam’s brows shot up in excitement. With trembling hands, he entered the digits 1-7-1-7. It was the model number of his first toy airplane that he and his Grandpa Robert had made 12 years ago.
Liam’s heart started pounding when the locker creaked open. “No…this can’t be true!” his jaw dropped at seeing wads of hundred-dollar bundles and an old brown diary.
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As Liam turned to the first page of the diary, his eyes grew moist at reading the words:
“Dear Liam, if you’re reading this, you’re a wonderful grandson who truly loved me! And I’m glad you haven’t forgotten about your Grandpa.
This is where I met your grandma and realized the true purpose of my life. I want you to accomplish great things in life as well. And I hope you haven’t abandoned your dream of becoming a flight engineer.
Before you decide the fate of the $150,000 in this locker, you must know something about your father.
12 years ago, in the summer of July 2005…”
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It was a pleasant Saturday afternoon, and 6-year-old Liam was painting his wooden toy airplane in his Grandpa Robert’s garage.
“There…Flight L-1717 is ready for take-off, Captain Liam!” Robert chirped.
Little Liam was so excited as he loaded his Superman and Batman action figures on his toy plane and excitedly ran around. Sadly, the boy’s happiness was short-lived as soon as his father, David, burst into the garage.
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“What the hell…you look like a mess!” David barked at his son and turned to his father, Robert. “I told you not to teach him these stupid things. This idiotic hobby isn’t gonna bring money into the house. Why don’t you teach him to paint the wall…fix the car…and mow the lawn?”
Liam was startled and hid his toy plane behind his back, afraid his Dad would snatch it away.
“David, enough! You stop right there, son,” Robert interrupted as he left the garage and returned with a box in hand moments later. “Look at all this money I’ve saved for my grandson. He dreams of planes, and I want to send him to an aviation academy. By the time Liam turns 18, I would’ve saved enough to fulfill his dream.”
David’s eyes gushed with greed at seeing the box full of money. “You can just give me the money instead, Dad. And you didn’t even tell me you’ve saved so much!”
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“Give you the money I’ve saved for my grandson? So that you gamble with it? Never!” Robert scowled as he closed the box and took it away.
David boiled over at those words. “Liam is my son, and I will decide his future. Do you hear me, Dad?”
He snatched Liam’s toy airplane and smashed it on the wall, shattering it to bits and pieces. “Liam’s dream ends right here. You see that, Dad? No more flying around!” he yelled, carrying the frightened little boy home.
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Robert was so heartbroken, and on a Sunday night, two weeks later, he woke up to a loud crashing sound in his house.
“Who is there?” he called out, only to see a silhouette of two masked men running out of the gate with a bag.
“Oh, my God…No…the money!” Robert bolted to the garage. He found some of his repair tools and machinery missing. And his heart skipped a beat when he saw the money box with half his life savings gone.
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“No, Grandpa…Daddy is not at home. He went to the grocery,” little Liam answered the phone when Robert immediately rang his son’s landline.
He disappointedly hung up as he knew his son David was the mastermind behind the burglary. Robert wanted to call the cops, but the thought of sending his son behind bars haunted him, and he couldn’t muster the courage to do it.
“Oh, Jesus…What will happen to my grandson now? How will I fulfill his dream without the money?” Robert sank into the couch and sobbed.
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But Robert was not a man who would give up on his grandson. When he realized he had 12 more years until Liam’s 18th birthday, he went out of his way and started working several jobs to save money.
Robert even mowed lawns and fixed roofs for neighbors in his free time because, to him, time was money, and each penny was a step closer to fulfilling his grandson’s dream.
The Grandpa toiled hard day and night for the next ten years, and just two years before Liam’s 18th birthday, his world came crashing down. Robert was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and doctors told him he had very little time to live.
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The piercing blare of a train’s horn jolted Liam to the moment as he flipped the last page of the diary.
“Death is at my doorstep, but I didn’t forget my promise, dear.
I rented this locker to store the money I’d saved for you and even ordered my tombstone with the coordinates engraved on the marble to bring you here.
I’m glad you finally found it! Good luck with your future. Love, Grandpa.”
Liam snapped his tears away and left the railway station with his backpack stashed with the money. When he got home, his Dad was furious. “Where the hell were you all day?” David answered the door, clutching a glass of whiskey.
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“I had some stuff to do,” Liam replied, irked by his Dad’s betrayal and greed.
“Why don’t you find a job and start earning instead of wasting time?” David barked. “Or are you planning to keep living off me all your life? Did you forget that we’ll be homeless very soon?”
Those words stung Liam like a sharp slap to his face. “Seriously, Dad? We wouldn’t have become homeless had you not gambled at casinos,” he shot back.
“How dare you?” David yelled. “Had you done something useful instead of collecting those stupid model airplanes, I wouldn’t have had to support you…taken a mortgage on this house…and gone bankrupt. And hear me out. We’re moving into a trailer very soon and splitting the rent. You stay only if you pay!”
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Liam stormed to his room, not wanting to argue anymore. Deep inside, he was torn between his dream and the impending homelessness. Liam spent two sleepless nights deciding the fate of his inheritance, and the next morning, he approached his father with a deal.
“Dad, wake up,” Liam jolted David awake. “I have money to pay for the mortgage and want to give it to you.”
“MONEY?” David rose with a start and sat up on the couch. “Quit fooling around, boy. Who wants the money you saved in your little piggy bank?!”
David’s mocking stopped, and his jaw dropped when Liam unzipped his backpack and showed him the wads of dollar bundles.
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“My Grandpa left this money for me,” Liam recounted his visit to his Grandpa’s grave and how he got the money. “I’ll give you some to keep the roof over our heads. But…I have two conditions. You get the money only if you agree. Deal?”
David smirked. He looked at Liam and the money, and his gaze did not seem to shift from the money bag. “What condition?” he asked.
“You must quit gambling forever,” declared Liam. “And you must pay the mortgage today.”
David agreed as Liam handed him a huge chunk of money. “I’ll be waiting for your call, Dad. Reach out to me once you deposit the money in the bank.”
“Yeah, whatever! Stop lecturing and bossing me around, kid,” David smirked and grabbed the money.
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Liam’s phone rang an hour later, and his Dad started barking on the other end of the line. “What the hell, Liam? Is this some kind of prank? The money you gave me is fake.”
Liam cackled with laughter. “Dad, can you please come out of the building you’re in now and look across the road?”
David didn’t know what was wrong until he stormed out and saw Liam standing across the road against the backdrop of the bank.
“Behind you, Dad! Behind you!” Liam gestured for his father to look behind him. When David turned around and looked up, his eyes popped out of their sockets in shock.
“Casino Royale Welcomes You!” read the flashy board lit with neon lights, and David stood right under it.
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“You made your choice, Dad!” Liam laughed as he hopped into a cab. “Now let me make mine!”
David ran after the taxi, but it was too late. Liam was disheartened by what his Dad turned out to be. He held his backpack with his Grandpa’s money, every penny of it intact, close to his heart and sighed.
When the taxi pulled over an hour later, Liam stepped down, and tears welled in his eyes as he saw the billboard: Aviation Academy.
“I won’t let you down, Grandpa…I promise!” he whispered and entered the campus of his dreams.
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