Boys find jackpot in couch

SNOHOMISH -- Jack Wagster recently got his driver's license and a used car. Without a summer job, filling the gas tank is tough.

So when Jack and his friend, Nick Gorman, found a wallet last week, the teens started daydreaming.

The wallet, long separated from its owner, was stuffed with $650 in cash. It could have meant some gas money for the boys, who thought about lots of ways to spend the money.

After all, they found the wallet at Nick's house.

Instead of calling it their lucky day, however, the boys decided to "do the right thing," Nick said.

In March, Nick's mom, Tracee Gorman, bought a couch online for her family's bonus room.

The Gormans moved the large, comfortable blue couch with reclining seats upstairs, where it soon became the perfect hangout for the kids.

Thursday morning, Nick, 15, a Glacier Peak High School sophomore, and Jack, 16, a junior at Snohomish High School, woke up in the bonus room after a hard night of playing video games.

Jack couldn't find his cell phone. He reached down behind the seat cushion of the couch. His hand kept going, down into the depths.

What he brought up wasn't his little cell phone, but a wallet.

The boys took the wallet down to the kitchen and waited for Tracee Gorman to come home from the dentist.

"We were freaking out," Jack said. "The driver's license in the wallet had expired five years ago."

Jack searched Facebook for the owner of the wallet, Alanna Jensen. Sure enough, there she was.

Nick's mom wrote Jensen a note explaining that the boys had found a wallet in the couch she had bought from a couple in Kirkland.

"It was unbelievable. Amazing," said Jensen, 28, who grew up in the Bothell area and now lives in Arizona.

Jensen lost her wallet in 2005 at a party at the home of a friend's friend. They looked, but no one could find the expensive, black Coach billfold.

"I had just cashed my paycheck and I also had a check in there for $50 from my grandmother," Jensen said. "I learned my lesson about carrying lots of cash and had written off the money a long time ago. I was just happy that they found that Coach wallet."

That was before Gorman revealed to Jensen that the cash was still there.

"Oh, my gosh, I was so excited. It was such a random thing," Jensen said. "I am so grateful to them. I'm about to start a new job and could really use that money."

Jensen's parents, Toni and Rick Jensen, live in Mill Creek, so arrangements were made for a handoff Saturday. Jensen encouraged her mother to give Jack and Nick a reward.

Jack and Nick split a $50 reward. Gorman was given a $20 gift card for coffee.

"That made me feel good," Nick said. "We did what we needed to do. Some guys might tease us, but we did what was right."

After hearing the story of the lost wallet, Nick's younger brother Nathan, 12, did another search among the cushions of the big blue couch. He found a couple dollars worth of coins, two lipsticks, a piece of candy and a dog bone.

"That couch had a black hole," said Gorman, who thought she had thoroughly cleaned the couch after she brought it home.

"The whole story would have been boring if the boys had just pocketed the money. Now it's something they will remember."

Nick hasn't spent his $25 reward money yet, but Jack threw down $5 at Taco Bell on Monday.

Jensen said she appreciates Jack and Nick.

"I'm very grateful for their honesty," she said. "You don't see that a lot in teenage boys."

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.