“We have to give it back.” Leon exclaimed. Toby turned around and glared at him.

“_No_!” He said. “We can’t! You know what they’ll do to us if they find out we stole it!”

“I don’t care! I don’t want to be known as the thief! I’m giving it back with or without you!” Just as Leon was about to leave, Toby snatched away the safe and hugged it against his chest.

“You’re not doing anything!”

“I _must_!” Leon shot back, his black eyebrows narrowing down as if he were an angry bird. He took the safe and walked away. Toby stomped his foot against the ground like a child, put his hands behind his neck, and looked at the sky, anxiously.

He stared at Leon who stormed off…it was the perfect moment to buy something. That safe probably had thousands of dollars and Leon just _had_ to ruin that for them. They could buy so many things with that amount of money. Food, clothes, and shoes. _Ugh!_ Why did Leon have to be such a goody two shoes? They were too skinny!

Toby put his fingers to his mouth and started biting his fingernails. This was a habit he developed a few years ago when the town went into a crisis. The storm was brutal and it caused the whole town to go into flooding…. Many lives had been taking…including Leon’s parents so Toby had to take care of his cousin himself. _His_ parents had died and he didn’t want to get separated from Leon…. He didn’t want to get separated from Leon…. This thought kept coming in his mind. He promised his aunt and uncle once that if something were to ever happen they would always stay together and not do anything stupid.

“Wait!” Toby called out and raced after Leon who was at the bottom of the hill. Leon turned around but rolled his eyes and continued down the rocky path where he went to the house. He rang the doorbell twice and waited, tapping his worn out shoe against the sidewalk.

“Oh no….” Leon murmered when he saw Toby was half way down. Leon knocked and rang the doorbell again and a man with grey hair and brown eyes opened the door.

“Uhh, hello Leon…is that my safe?” The man asked and Leon gulped with a nod.

“Yes Mr. Phillips…I’m sorry. My cousin and I took it….” Leon’s voice trailed off as he handed the safe back. “It was wrong of us, I know. I don’t know what we were thinking.” Toby came running to Leon and Mr. Phillips, panting. He was just about to speak when Leon nudged Toby’s stomach with his fist. “Please forgive us, sir….” Mr. Phillips looked at the safe, studying it before eyeing the two boys. He put it on a small table next to him and did the code.

The boys stood there with their heads low and Mr. Phillips counted the money before sighing and closing the steel door.

“No money had been taken….” He replied and the boys nodded unhurriedly. “Did you know the code?”

“W-we memorized it many times when you were opening it…but we didn’t touch it.” Toby said.

“You could’ve gotten a lot of stuff with this amount of money. You could’ve just run off with it and had the time of your lives.”

“The truth is, sir, we stole it because we needed it to buy things we needed. I know that’s no excuse and Leon is smarter than me. It took me a minute to realize that if I wouldn’t have listened to him and be greedy…we would have gotten in serious trouble and I can’t let him get blamed for something like that.” Toby said and Leon smiled. Mr. Phillips nodded.

“I see…well boys, I hope you learned a valuable lesson today.” He remarked.

“Definitely!” Leon said.

“We regret it very much and hope to earn your trust back someday.” Toby added. Mr. Phillips pursed his lips before shaking his head with a light smile.

“Now boys, don’t see this as regret, see it as a learning experience. Someday, you might have kids of your own and you’ll come back to this time when you almost ruined your lives. You’ll tell your children the good and bad times and perhaps they’ll learn something new.” The boys nodded and they chatted for a little while longer before they went back to the picnic tables at the park.

Leon stared at Toby whose eyes looked at the table. His hands were clasped together and he continued to think. Finally, he looked up and sighed quietly.

“I know that what we did was wrong…but what are we supposed to do now if we don’t have the money?” Leon looked at the ground, trying to think of what to do. The boys looked to their left a moment later. Mr. Phillips was walking over to them and grinned.

“Mind if I sit with you two?” He asked. The boys nodded and he sat down next to Leon with a grunt.

“Is everything okay?” Leon asked.

“Oh everything’s quite alright, thank you.” Mr. Phillips replied and positioned himself. “I want to talk to you about something….” The boys exchanged glances and Mr. Phillips assured them they weren’t in trouble. “I don’t know why I, or no one has ever done this for you two. You both went through a whole lot more than other people in their entire lifetime…there is this couple in the next town over who could take care of you. They are very nice and have a lot of food to give. Would you like that? To live with these people?” The boys scratched their necks and thought a bit.

“Yeah…maybe….” Toby said, though his face looked uneasy.

“If you’d like, you could meet them. But I have met these people many times and they’ve always wanted children to care for but were always unsuccessful. You boys could meet them in a day or two.” The boys, again, exchanged glances and after a moment of thinking, they both nodded and Mr. Phillips smiled happily. “Perfect!”