I was probably five or six years old. It was a bright new morning, a little earlier than usual for me, when I slipped downstairs to what was then our little schoolroom (for those of you who don’t know, I was homeschooled). Here there were two little desks, one for me and one for my brother, and a big classic chalkboard that took up most of the longest wall.
I don’t remember how often my mom actually used that chalkboard, but it does stand out in my memory in this particular story. I was the first one downstairs, but to my surprise, there was writing on the chalkboard already.
It looked like instructions for a treasure hunt or something!
I started to read, and it went something like this: