Bartholomew and the Bin of Wonders

Bartholomew Whitaker was the kind of boy who never sat still. He was an expert at climbing things he shouldn’t, touching things labeled “Do Not Touch,” and asking questions long past the point when adults wanted to answer. But for all his troublemaking, he was as bright as a freshly polished coin, and no one could stay mad at him for long—except maybe his teachers.

His best friend and constant companion was a cat named Sue, a sleek, mischievous feline who seemed to share Bartholomew’s love for getting into places he wasn’t supposed to be. Sue had been named by Bartholomew’s uncle, who thought it was hilarious to name a male cat “Sue.” Bartholomew thought it was even funnier, so he kept the name.

One crisp autumn afternoon, Bartholomew and Sue were deep in a game of “Space Explorers,” which mostly involved Bartholomew jumping over the garden fence and pretending he was landing on alien planets while Sue did his best to look unimpressed. That was when they found it—the bin.

It was an old metal bin, half-buried in the overgrown grass behind the garden shed. Its lid was slightly ajar, revealing a collection of crinkled papers inside. Bartholomew’s eyes widened. He yanked the lid off and pulled out the papers, sending a small family of spiders scurrying away.

“What do we have here, Sue?” he murmured, as Sue perched on the edge of the bin, flicking his tail with curiosity.

The papers were filled with handwritten notes, sketches, and diagrams—some of them wild and fantastical, others precise and mathematical. There were ideas for inventions, coded messages, and what looked like half-written stories. At the bottom of the stack, there was a single note:

“If you’re reading this, then you’re like me. I never finished these ideas, but maybe you will. Pass it on when you’re done.”

Bartholomew’s heart pounded. He didn’t know who had written the note, but he felt an immediate kinship with them. He devoured every scrap of writing, every unfinished thought. Some were silly, some brilliant, and some so bizarre that he couldn’t tell the difference.

For the next week, Bartholomew worked feverishly in his room, tweaking, improving, and expanding on the ideas. He built tiny models of machines that almost worked, wrote endings to stories that made Sue yawn, and even cracked the coded messages (which, to his delight, turned out to be riddles). He had never felt so alive.

When he finally looked at the pile of his own papers, he realized something: he had created his own bin.

Bartholomew could have kept it forever, but that wasn’t the deal. The note had said to pass it on. And if there was one thing Bartholomew knew, it was the kind of kid who needed something like this.

That kid was Douglas Finch. Douglas was the kind of boy who had too much energy and nowhere to put it. He wasn’t a troublemaker exactly, but he had a knack for getting into situations that made adults sigh deeply. Bartholomew had seen Douglas staring out the classroom window, tapping his fingers against the desk, his mind clearly elsewhere.

One afternoon, Bartholomew stuffed his bin full of ideas, marched over to Douglas’s house, and knocked. When Douglas opened the door, Bartholomew shoved the bin into his hands.

“What’s this?” Douglas asked, blinking.

“Treasure,” Bartholomew said. “Ideas. Stuff to build, stuff to think about. It’s all unfinished, so you have to add to it. But when you’re done, you pass it on.”

Douglas flipped through the pages, his eyes widening. A slow grin spread across his face. “This is awesome.”

Bartholomew nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

As he and Sue walked away, Bartholomew felt lighter, as if he’d just sent a rocket ship into the sky. Somewhere, sometime in the future, another kid would find that bin, add their own spark of brilliance, and keep the chain going.

And that, Bartholomew thought, was the best kind of trouble to make.