I Have A Money Tree In Our Backyard - Part 2 - YouTube

Welcome to the Here’s My Story channel.

I’m Sam.

I’ll give a short summary to those of you

who haven’t seen the first episode of this story yet.

If you’d like to watch the first episode in full,

please click on the link you see right here.

My stepdad is a gambling addict.

He borrowed ten thousand dollars from a casino owner.

He couldn’t pay it back, so the mob came after him.

He didn’t just put his own life in danger,

but mine and my mom’s too.

I told my best-friend Pete all about it, and he decided to tell me a secret.

It turns out Pete comes from a family of billionaires.

He took me to their mansion.

When he showed me his backyard,

I found out where their fortune comes from:

“Money trees!”

Pete gave me a ‘money tree seed.’

He said to me, “Plant this in the ground.

Wait for thirty days.

You can pay off your stepdad’s debt

with the money you harvest from the tree.”

I planted the seed in our backyard, somewhere out of sight.

But on the night the tree began to blossom full of one-dollar bills,

my stepdad caught me.

That covers last episode.

Now I’ll tell you the rest of my story.

My stepdad picked one of the one-dollar bills from the money tree.

He stared at it in shock.

“Money grows on this tree?

How is that even possible?

Tell me how!” he screamed.

He had caught me off-guard.

I was in no shape to lie to him.

“Yes, this is a money tree.

Don’t pick from it anymore.

It’s only been ten days since I planted it.

That’s why you see those one-dollar bills on the tree.

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

In twenty days, they will all turn into hundred-dollar bills.

You can then pay off your debt with the twenty thousand dollars

we will end up harvesting in total.”

My stepdad Keith was looking at me in disbelief.

“Where did you get this seed?”

“I can’t tell you that.

But know that we only have this one seed.

This is our only chance to pay off your debt,” I replied.

Keith looked at the money on the tree.

His eyes lit up.

“This is my house, so this is my tree too.”

He paused for a tense moment, “I’ll wait ten days.

We’ll see if those ones on my tree turn to tens.

If you’re lying to me, boy,

both you and your mom are out of my house for good!”

I could only imagine the evil things

my stepdadwas capable of.

I had no choice but to go along with whatever he said.

The next day, I told my mom what happened.

Naturally, she didn’t believe me.

I went to the backyard to show her the money tree.

My stepdad was there sitting in a camp chair,

drunk with happiness and greed, watching the tree.

He stood up when he saw us.

“Looks like dreams do come true.

I just hope I never wake up.

This tree’s going to make me a wealthy man.”

he said, laughing out loud.

Ten days passed.

When I woke up that morning,

I was so excited that I jumped out of bed.

When I went to look at the tree, I was shocked.

The one-dollar bills should have transformed into ten-dollar bills,

but there was no money on the money tree at all!

I ran inside.

My stepdad sat counting all the money

he’d collected from the tree on the kitchen table.

He was in a good mood.

“You were right.

I picked a hundred and ninety nine ten-dollar bills!”

he said holding a single bill up to the light.

“Look at this!

I still can’t believe this grew on a tree!”

I was so mad at him.

“Why did you harvest them before they turned into hundred dollar bills?”

He carefully collected a fat stack of bills,

and stuffed them in a small pocket of his satchel.

“There’s something I need to do.

And I needed some money to be able to do it.

So I got some from my tree.

It’ll grow more anyway.”

I still couldn’t figure out what he was planning to do.

“Didn’t the casino boss give you only a month?

How are you going to pay off your debt to them now?”

The pocket in my stepdad’s bag bulged crudely,

barley holding the wad of money inside.

“What is this, an interrogation?” he snapped.

“Enough!

It’s my tree!

I can harvest my money whenever I want.

I don’t need your permission!”

His shouts echoed through the kitchen as he stormed off.

He obviously had a plan and that’s why he’d collected the money so early.

I knew Keith wasn’t stupid.

He was definitely after something.

But I couldn’t figure out what that was.

I decided that I had to talk to Pete at once.

When I called Pete, he was just as shocked

that my step dad had harvested the bills too soon.

“Bro, do you want to come to my place?

I’m sending the driver over now.

There was something that I was hesitant to do before,

but I think now is the time to do it,” he said.

I realized what Pete had meant

when I arrived at his family’s estate.

He was waiting for me at his doorstep accompanied by someone

I had never met before.

The guy next to him smiled, and held out his hand.

“Very nice to meet you, young man.

I’m Pete’s dad.

My son always talks about you.

But I didn’t know he’d given you a money tree seed.

The news from Pete this morning was quite a surprise, to be honest!”

Meanwhile, Pete was staring at his feet, a guilty look on his face.

Pete’s dad gestured towards the door.

Pete rushed inside, and I followed.

After a long walk through several spacious rooms,

we arrived in a grand hall.

Pete’s dad told us to sit, the tension hung heavily in the room.

Pete’s dad took a deep breath.

“The money trees were supposed to stay a secret.

I’ll be honest.

I’m very disappointed by my son’s actions.

On the other hand, I’m aware of how much he cares for you.

As you can see, Pete takes after me.

I was often bullied at school for my short stature, as well.

Unfortunately,

I didn’t have a friend like you

who could have protected me,

so I understand Pete’s motive.

If I were in his shoes,

I would’ve wanted to help my best friend, too.”

Pete was relieved.

He looked at his dad with a smile on his face,

a smile his dad returned.

Pete’s dad continued, worry in his voice.

“If that were the only issue, everything would be fine.

But regrettably, it sounds like things got out of hand.

I’m sure your mother also means well, so I trust her.

However, the fact that your stepdad knows about the money tree

is a huge problem

so I have an idea to fix it.

The staff here knows about the money trees,

but they’ve each signed a non-disclosure agreement

which prevents them from talking about it.

I’m going to offer your stepdad ten million dollars in exchange

for your money tree

on the condition that he signs the same agreement.

Will you please take me to him?”

Pete’s dad had found a reasonable solution.

That amount was far more than Keith could ever harvest

from a single money tree in his remaining lifetime.

We got in the car and drove off.

When we made it to our house, we were in for a surprise.

Inside, we found my mom crying.

She held me close.

Between sobs, she managed to say, “Sam, your step dad left.

I don’t care about that.

But he took the money tree with him.”

I didn’t get it.

We went out to the backyard.

There was a huge hole where the tree had been.

Pete’s dad asked, “Please tell us what happened?”

This was my mom’s first time meeting Pete’s dad.

She looked at me hesitantly.

“Mom, you can tell him everything.

Pete’s dad created the money trees,” I said reassuring her.

“I was at work.

Our next-door neighbor called,

upset about the noise coming from our backyard.

I figured something was up, so I immediately came home.

Keith had the tree removed with a back-hoe.

They were loading it into the truck bed when I arrived.

I asked him what he was doing.

‘We’re done!’ he shouted, ‘Don’t look for me.’

‘To hell with you, then!’

I shouted back,

‘But that tree doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to Sam.

You can’t just take it away,’

But he didn’t listen.

I’m so upset that I couldn't stop him.

Sam was right all along.

I should never have married that man.”

It finally made sense why Keith had harvested the money so soon.

He needed it to move the tree somewhere else.

More importantly,

it would have been impossible for him to transport a tree full of bills.

Not if he wanted to keep it hidden.

I turned to Pete’s dad.

“What do we do now?”

I asked.

Pete and his dad looked at each other for a few moments,

and burst out laughing.

My mom and I were flabbergast.

We had no idea what was so funny.

“We don’t need to do anything,” Pete’s dad said.

“It seems as though your stepdad has resolved the problem all by himself.”

When he realized we had no clue what he was saying,

he began to explain.

“A money plant seed can only grow where it’s planted.

You can’t transplant it.

It’s an issue I am still working on I simply can’t figure out.

If you disturb the seed even a day after planting,

the tree stops developing.

Your stepdad is in for a real disappointment.

That tree will never grow bills again.

It’s not a money tree anymore.

It may as well be a husk of driftwood!”

“That explains the laughter," I said,

"but he can still tell people that it was a money tree.

Wouldn’t that be a problem for you?”

Pete’s dad put his hand on my shoulder.

“No problem at all because no one would ever believe him.

Would you have believed that a money tree existed

if you hadn’t seen it for yourself?

If your step dad tells anyone that tree had once been full of bills,

I can assure you

that they’d laugh harder than us.”

Then he turned to my mom.

“I’m sure your husband will come back here

once he figures out the tree is not growing any money.

You can come with us if you like.

Our home is certainly big enough.

My wife will be happy to host the two of you,” he said.

We stayed with Pete and his family for a while,

until Pete’s dad bought a house, and gifted us two money tree seeds.

We’ve been harvesting forty thousand dollars from our money trees every month.

I’m a millionaire now.

And I owe this to my dear friend, Pete.

We hadn’t heard from my step dad since.

We’d forgotten about him until one night I randomly came across him on TV.

The police had busted an illegal gambling ring.

Keith was one of several witnesses.

One of the reporters held a mic to Keith and asked him

what he was doing at the casino.

“I owed a pretty big debt to the owner.

When I couldn’t come up with it,

I was forced to work with him for ten years.

I’ve been a janitor here ever since then,” he replied.

It turns out all this time he had been paying off his debt

to the mob by working as a custodian.

To be honest, I didn’t feel sorry for him.

Keith was a victim of his own greed,

responsible and deserving of everything that happened to him.