I Have A Money Tree In Our Backyard - YouTube

Welcome to the Here’s My Story channel.

I’m Sam.

One night, my stepdad came home out of breath.

“Turn off the lights!

They were following me but I got rid of them.

They can’t find out where I live.

Or else, I’m done for!”

I turned off all the lights.

My mom screamed, “What’s going on?

Who are you running away from?

Have you been gambling again?”

My stepdad shut her up by saying, “Keep your voice down!

They’ll hear you.

These men are armed.

Trust me, you don’t want them to find me!”

We waited anxiously all night in the dark, listening to the sounds outside.

Whenever a car passed by, our hearts started pounding.

I’d never been so scared in my life.

My stepdad Keith has a gambling problem.

As usual, he lost all the money he had on him.

Then he borrowed money from the casino.

He gambled that away as well.

The owner of the casino said, “You have one week.

If you don’t pay, you'll owe me twice as much!”

My step dad couldn’t pay it back.

Months passed by.

His debt kept going up.

Eventually, the owner of the casino decided to take the matter into his own hands.

My dad died when I was ten.

My mom was really lonely after that.

She needed someone she could share life with.

She met Keith last year but,

I knew he wasn’t a good person the first time I saw him.

I begged my mom not to marry him, but she wouldn’t listen.

She married him too quickly.

And even though the marriage is failing, she still puts up with him

because she is scared of being alone.

The next morning, I had to go to school

because I had an important exam.

I hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and I was feeling awful.

During the exam, I put my head on the desk, and fell asleep for a while.

My teacher noticed and asked, “What’s going on Sam?

Are you sick?”


After the exam, my best friend Pete came to chat.

“You don’t look good, bro.

What’s up?” he said.

I told him what happened the night before.

He was concerned.

“This is really serious.

In movies, when bad guys want to scare people who owe them, they say,

‘If you don’t pay, you won’t see your family again.’

So it’s not your step dad who’s in real danger, it’s you and your mom,” he said.

Pete was right.

“It’s impossible for him to come up with all that money to pay the guys.

I need to protect my mom from them but I don’t know how I’m going to do that,” I replied.

Pete smiled.

“I owe you a lot.

Now it’s time for me to help you out.

We’re going to our place after school.

I only need you to promise me one thing.

Everything you’ll find out will stay a secret between us, deal?”

I was really intrigued.

I nodded.

“Of course.

You can trust me,” I said.

You might be wondering why Pete said, “I owe you a lot.”

So let me tell you.

Pete came to our school at the beginning the year.

Just like in every other school, we have got bullies

They started picking on him because Pete was so short.

They shout, “Midget!” whenever they saw him.

Pete couldn’t say anything back because he was afraid of them.

We had just met.

Once they started picking on Pete when I was with him.

But I taught those bullies a lesson that day.

From then on, they kept away from us.

After that, Pete always felt like he owed me,

but I didn’t expect anything in return since he was my friend.

I’d never been to Pete’s house.

“Which bus goes to your place?”

I asked.

He smiled.

“We’re not taking the bus.

You’re going to learn a lot of things about me today,” he said.

We walked three blocks until we stopped at a corner and started waiting.

A gigantic SUV showed up, and parked in front of us.

The driver got off and opened the door.

I got into the SUV.

Turns out Pete’s family was beyond rich.

“Why do you go to public school if you’re so well off?”

I asked.

“Because my parents were worried that ‘I’d be a spoiled little brat

If I were friends with rich kids.’, Pete said.

That’s why they wanted me to go to public school.

I agreed so I played along.

After a while we arrived at a huge mansion.

There were security guards everywhere.

Pete said, “My parents are traveling for work.

Normally I can’t have friends over.

Come on! I want to show you some wild stuff.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you about all this.

That’s why I wanted you to see them for yourself.”

The mansion looked amazing.

I still couldn’t process the fact that my best friend was so rich.

How do you make so much money?

What did his father do for a living?

Still stunned by the grange of Pete’s house,

he let me out the back door.

There were a lot of trees in the garden.

Pete pointed to one of the trees.

I looked at the tree he was gesturing towards but didn’t get it.

Pete laughed out loud, “Bro, look a little closer.

Noticed anything strange about these trees?”

When I looked at the tree again,

“What???

No way!

That’s impossible,” I screamed.

What I thought were leaves turned out to be money!

As I moved in closer, I realized that they were all hundred dollar bills.

Then I looked at other trees.

They were full of money, too.

I turned to Pete and said, “You’re not pranking me, are you?”

“Of course not.

These are ‘money trees.’ He said.

These trees are the source of my family’s fortune.

More specifically, the leaves we picked from them,” he replied.

Soon after we went to Pete’s room.

I couldn’t help but start yelling in excitement.

“This is all at once the most ridiculous, unbelievable

and miraculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Pete said, “Actually, if you look at it, it’s not a miracle; it’s science.

My dad is a botanist.

He worked on this crazy project for twelve years,

and he finally succeeded” in engineering trees that can grow money.”

Then he took out a box.

Inside were things that looked like nuts.

But they were green in color.

He took one out and offered it to me.

“What you’re holding in your hand

is a ‘money plant seed.’

It grows up to six feet in only ten days,

and yields two hundred one-dollar bills.

You can think of the bills like fruit.

If you don’t pick the fruit they will be riping.

In ten more days, one-dollar bills become ten-dollar bills.

Once thirty days passed,

ten-dollar bills mature to hundred-dollar bills.

After harvesting all the bills in the tree at full maturity,

you’ll have twenty thousand dollars.

Then the cycle starts again.

Ten days later, you’ll get one-dollar bills,

twenty days you get ten dollar bills,

thirty days you get a hundred dollar bills, and so on.

The numbers may sound confusing.

But all you really need to remember

is you can get twenty thousand dollars a month from one tree.

That adds up to two hundred, and forty thousand dollars a year.”

I was listening to him in shock.

If I hadn’t just seen the money trees,

I would have never believed what Pete was telling me.

Pete said,

“My dad gives me one money plant tree every birthday.

This way, I can grow my own money trees in the future.

The seed I gave you is yours now.

You can pay off your step dad’s debt with it.

And thanks to the money tree,

you can live all your life without worrying about money.”

I was so excited.

This was such a big gift.

I hugged Pete.

“I will never ever forget this.

I can never even dream to repay you” I told him.

Pete’s driver was going to drop me off at home.

I said goodbye to my friend, and got in the SUV.

On the way I started thinking about what I needed to do.

First of all, I decided not to mention the money tree to my stepdad.

If I told him, he wouldn’t believe me anyway.

But should I tell my mom?

It made more sense to hide it from her as well for now.

Maybe I could tell her down the line.

My priority was to grow the tree and pay off my stepdad’s debt with the first crop.

When I came home, I found my mom and stepdad fighting.

“What difference does it make if you sell the furniture?" my mom said,

You’re saying you owe them ten thousand dollars.

You couldn’t even get a thousand dollars for everything here!”

“If we make a thousand dollars selling off the furniture,”

my stepdad shouted back,

“Then the amount I owe goes down to nine thousand dollars.

This is our problem.

Everyone needs to chip in.”

Then he turned to me.

“Sam, you can’t cruise anymore!

You are going to quit school, and start working.

His tone grew more in tense.

"You will give me every penny you make,”

I glowered back at him. “I will pay off your debt,”

I said coldly. “But you need to ask for more time.

Convince them to wait for one more month.

Tell them that if they agree,

you’ll give them double;

twenty thousand dollars instead of ten.”

My stepdad didn’t take me seriously.

“What the heck you want kid?

How are you going to come up with twenty thousand dollars in a month?”

he screamed.

“What else you got?” I responded him calmly, holding my ground.

“Besides I’m not doing this for you, but for mom.”

He stared at me.

He didn’t believe me,

but he obviously needed more time anyway.

“Okay.

I will go talk to the guys.

But if we can’t put together twenty thousand by next month,

it’s over.

You will have to say goodbye to your mom!”

I went to my room without a word.

Now I could see the real extent of Pete’s generosity.

Thanks to him,

not only could I pay the depth,

but I would also never have to work again in my life.

After everyone went to sleep, I sneaked out to the backyard.

There was a gap between the tall garden fence,

and the house itself.

I was sure that no one had been there in years.

It was completely out of sight.

I could grow the money tree here without anybody noticing.

I turned on my phone’s flashlight to find a good spot and planted the seed.

Now all I needed was time.

The next night, I waited for everyone to fall asleep.

I went down to check the tree,

there was nothing.

I was so stressed.

I really wanted everything to go as planned.

When I checked again in a week,

I was so excited to see the little plant coming out of the seed.

I took a picture and sent it to Pete.

He immediately replied,

“Congrats, bro!

You are the proud owner of a money tree now.”

That night, I dreamed of swimming in a pool of money until the morning.

When I woke up the next morning,

I had a huge smile on my face.

When the ten days were up, I was incredibly psyched.

After making sure my mom and my stepdad were sleeping,

I went out into the garden.

When I turned on my phone’s flashlight,

the tree was illuminated.

I almost screamed with joy.

Just like Pete said,

there was a lot of one-dollar bills on the tree!

I was so happy that I couldn’t stand still.

I started dancing as if there was music playing.

Just about then, I heard a noise behind me.

“What are you up to?

I’ve been watching you for days.

What are you so happy about?”

When I turned back, I saw my stepdad.

I was shocked.

I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak.

My stepdad was holding a big flashlight.

He held it up to the tree.

“What is this?

Why did you stick all this money on this tree?”

Then he lifted his hand up, and grabbed one of the dollars.

First, he looked at the tree,

then to the money,

and finally to me.

He was wild-eyed.

“Is money growing on this tree?

You’d better to have an explanation for this.

Tell me what’s going on!” he screamed.

The second my stepdad found out,

all my plans went out the window.

But don’t worry about me.

You will never guess the incredible things

that happened in episode two of my story.

See you in next week’s video.

Goodbye for now.