Siblings learn $1,100 lesson

MEADOW LAKES — How much found money would be too much to resist? $100? $1,000? For a Valley brother and sister, the magic number was $1,100.

While snowboarding at Hatcher Pass March 20, 10-year-old Noah Smith found a wallet along one of the runs. It belonged to a Wasilla man, but Noah didn’t know that until later. In the sun and snow of the wilderness — and for the moment alone — what caught his eye was the large amount of cash in the wallet.

When he finished the run, he took the money, ditched the wallet and told his 12-year-old sister Madeline. The pair split the cash, $550 each, and continued snowboarding.

Noah shared the money with his sister “because I knew she’d probably try to blackmail me,” he said.

Madeline knew something was up, and when she learned Noah had found the money, she wanted in.

“I knew he was going to give (me some of the money) because that was a lot of money and I was like, ‘I’m totally going to rat you out if you don’t give me any of it.’”

They were set — home free, ready to live large with their newfound fortune.

That is, until step-mother Jennifer Smith went into what she calls “full detective mode.”

The next day after church, Noah confessed to finding the money, but didn’t mention it was in a wallet. He claimed he found the cash in a roll in a bush.

“Well, he confesses and I walk in the house and make them lay down all the money they had,” Jennifer said. “And he was short $200.”

Seems in the day between finding the money and confessing, Noah had managed to lose $200 on a bet with a 12-year-old friend, Jennifer said. She rounded up the missing money and tried to decide what to do.

“Here I am brainstorming and Monday rolls around and the kids are at school all day,” she said. “When they come home, I’m in full detective mode.”

She talked with Madeline first, who revealed there was a wallet. Then she confronted Noah again.

“I gave him the opportunity to fess up to finding the wallet and he wouldn’t,” she said. “He said the money was scattered and his story kept changing. By 5 o’clock we were back up on the mountain (to find the wallet), and on the first run down they beat me down to the bottom with the wallet. He knew right where it was.”

Noah admits that at first he planned to keep the money.

“Well, the next day I just told Mom, but I didn’t tell her anything about the wallet,” he said, adding that if she hadn’t have found out “I probably would’ve kept it.”

When the truth came out, Madeline said she was relieved.

“I was feeling guilty,” she said. “I’m glad I gave it back, but I wish Noah would’ve just gone to Mom (in the first place).”

It may have taken a little arm-twisting from Jennifer, but Noah and Jennifer Smith did the right thing. The family tracked down the owner of the wallet, a Wasilla man, who was very surprised and pleased to get it back, along with the proceeds from a recent vehicle sale, Jennifer said.

“I don’t know what they were thinking, really I don’t,” Jennifer said. “I think they were trying to figure out how they could spend it without getting caught. … There was a ton of lying and deceitfulness, and they know they should’ve just showed up with the wallet and the cash intact.”

Noah said meeting the man changed his attitude about finding money that didn’t belong to him.

“Now I’m happy he got his wallet back,” he said. “He’s a real nice guy and he was real sad because he had no money and no wallet.”

Repeated efforts to find contact information for the owner of the wallet were unsuccessful as of press time.

The man was so pleased, in fact, that he gave the children a reward — $50 each. The reward is also another opportunity for Jennifer to try and impart a lesson to all of her five children.

“I’m really hoping they’ll donate it to a church or a charity,” she said. “I’m hoping they’ll make that decision, because that would be a sweet ending, but I cannot take the reward money from them. I don’t want that to be the lesson. … It’s got to be their call. I already took a big wad of cash from them, and the man did give it to them and he was very grateful.”

The reward was more than just a $50 bill, Noah said. Feeling good about giving the money back has helped him learn a valuable lesson.

“If you find something, return it to the owner because you might get rewarded,” he said.

“It’s karma,” Jennifer added. “It comes back to you. If it’s bad karma you want coming back, then make bad decisions. If you want good karma to come back, it pays to be the better person.”

What about the next time Noah finds a wallet on the snowboard trails?

“I’m going to go straight down and show it to Mom,” he said.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.