The writing prompt: A group of friends breaks into a museum to steal a single, legendary macaroni noodle. Write a one-page comedic story about what happens when they find out why it was locked away.
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Three thieves crept quietly up narrow, spiraling flights of dark, urine-soaked stairs. Inside a tiny attic room waited a hot plate, a pan, and bottle of water. The tallest man removed a small box from his coat.
“Get on with it. Open the box.” Commanded the smallest man. All three looked in wonder at the single piece of macaroni in the box. Into the pan went the water and the noodle the men watching not concerned about a watched pot never boiling.
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The plan for the heist began when the three heard about the prestigious piece of pasta called The Yankee Doodle Noodle. It was believed to hold the clue to a stash of pre-Revolutionary gold from a sunken Dutch vessel.
The legend was the ship had not sunk during a storm. Laden with gold for the fur trade, as the crew slept, the Captain set fires throughout the ship. He also cut the lifeboat ropes, and as the crew spilled onto the deck to escape the smoke he told them “Save yourselves! Jump!” They splashed into the dark water so cold they immediately cried out to return to the ship. A few remained onboard to fight the fires and once extinguished, the Captain shot each one. With the help of his enslaved Japanese cabin boy, the Captain steered the ship between two barrier islands off the Carolina coast and scuttled it. He then rowed to shore in a skiff with the boy in tow.
Before helming the Dutch ship, the Captain made his trade as a pirate and knew well all the nooks and crannies and caves in the area. He planned to retrieve the gold and finally live the life he deserved.
The Captain knew of a cave previously used by rumrunners abandoned when a shift in the rocks blocked the entrance. Hoping to find forgotten rum he explored the jagged rocks at low tide looking for a way in. He noticed a loud gurgling sound and discovered a tunnel below the waterline leading right into the cave. A cave that just happened to be directly inshore from the now sunken Dutch ship.
Working at night, the Captain had to boy row him near the shipwreck, drop anchor, and forced him to retrieve the gold, brick by brick. For the Captain knew this boy was a member of a Japanese clan of sea urchin divers able to dive up to a hundred feet and hold their breath for ten minutes over and over for hours. Each time the boy resurfaced, he dropped a brick or two in the boat and muttered something in Japanese. The Captain assumed it to be a heathen diving prayer and paid no mind. The work continued for nearly a year, diving, secreting the gold into the cave. By the time the boy finished hiding the last piece, the captain had the sound of the boy’s muttering engrained in his memory. The captain watched as the boy’s body slid into the tunnel with the last gold bar, then pushed a large rock over the hole trapping him inside. What the Captain did not know was the Japanese boy’s clan of urchin divers also had Sea Witch powers and the boy’s mutter was a curse.
That morning, as he tied his boat to the dock, a curious constable noticed the Captain had come back from the water without his usual companion. Unable to kill the constable without witnesses, the Captain ran. He fled north, and using knowledge from his sea faring journeys in Italy, made a map on a single scroll of pasta and rolled it up tightly into a macaroni noodle. Once the noodle dried, he marked it with a black dot and put it inside an urn with identical noodles. He wrote a letter to his sister with instructions that should he be locked up or perish, she should retrieve the gold. Unable to read, she gave the letter to her husband who turned it over to the authorities. They apprehended the Captain and the urn, putting him to death for larceny and ship scuttling. They found the macaroni noodle with the black dot but had long ago learned to ignore pirate treasure maps. They returned the urn and noodles to the Captain’s sister which her husband promptly gave to the local Seafaring Museum.
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The water on the hot plate now boiling, the thieves dropped the noodle in watching as it bounced around in the bubbles. As it cooked, the macaroni unfurled revealing the treasure map. Carefully extracting the pasta, they set it on the plate to cool.
“It’s on the waterfront, beneath that stack of rocks that looks like a half-moon. We’ve walked by it a hundred times!”
They took photos of the map and headed out, leaving the pasta behind, where it was later eaten by a grateful mouse.
Headlamps lit the wet rocks as they used pry bars to dislodge the rocks until they found the tunnel entrance. It was low tide, so one by one they shimmied in, pulling heavy duffel bags behind them. After several meters of crawling they found the cave and as their headlights confirmed, it was filled to the brim with gold bricks locked in place with barnacles. Using the pry bars to gently remove the bivalve crust, they men chuckled and hooted with glee as they extricated the treasure. Just as the three were admiring their giant pile of life-changing loot, delirious with dreams of what their glorious futures held, they noticed the tide had come into the cave and was now lapping their shoes.
Realizing the only exit was now underwater, they greedily started pulling the bags into tunnel where they became stuck in the sand. They removed the bricks one by one, noticing in horror that the water level was now knee deep and rising quickly. Working in a frenzied state, cursing each other over their shortsighted plan, the tall thief took a deep breath and dove into the tunnel, hoping to flee for his life. He struggled a few meters but the current overcame him, folding him in half and wedging him inside. The short one tried to squeeze through the stone-covered mouth of the cave, but was pinned when a stone shifted, gradually emptying his lungs. Soon only one thief was left in the cave, floating in the air gap near the ceiling. His headlamp lit up gold markings that looked like Japanese characters. Next to them written in English, “BLOODY TREASURE BRINGS ONLY DEATH.” Sea water filled the rest of the cave, and the last thief gently sank to the bottom, coming to rest on the now barnacle-free gold.