What does the kid do with the money? Do the siblings try to cheat him out of it? Is he actually the guy's reincarnation, or is there some other reason he could answer the questions? (Maybe he's psychic, or he researched the guy in an attempt to get the money, or it was sheer coincidence, etc.)
If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.
Stayin' Alive
These are the sort of situations where I find a theme is really useful, or at least a genre. Do you want to continue the original theme of the will and make something poignant happen? Could the whole reincarnation thing be funny? Could the daughter reconnect with her father through the reincarnated kid and learn the lesson that way? Is it a "Shaggy Dog" Story? Will the daughter be accused to fraud and get dragged under financially from it? Figure out what the point was and make it.
Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit Deviantart.
Okay, here's a thought: It's not just the daughter who brings in the old man's reincarnation. The other two siblings do as well. And they've all brought in a different person. And they've ALL answered the questions correctly.
Let's also say that the will stipulates a number of other things. The $15bn NOT going to the reincarnation will be divided between the siblings, but only between the siblings who locate their father's reincarnation. This ties into the billionaire's plan, as he held the belief that if the siblings chose not to search for him in the next life, they'd become the people he wanted to see them grow into. If they all decided not to search, then the $15bn they would have received would get donated to a charity of some description.
Of course, that doesn't happen. So the siblings now each have to prove that the kid they've located is the 'true' reincarnation, and it's up to the (quite put-upon) lawyer to devise a series of increasingly elaborate tests to determine who to pay the money out to.
Hijinks ensue, and what they discover in the end is that all three children are their father's reincarnation, which makes sense if you think about it. If you could only reincarnate as one person, and reincarnation happens with 90 days of death, then the human population could never increase. There are more people alive today than there were 100 years ago, so obviously it must be possible for one person to reincarnate as multiple people. As I understand probate law, the siblings would be allowed access to the inheritance as long as they used it in order to fulful the terms of the will. With such a nebulously defined goal, they've pretty much been wining and dining up and down the planet for ten years, under a rather tenuous justification.
Anyway, at the end, the lawyer reveals a secret clause of the will - that there was a ten-year time limit on the search (which, surprise, surprise, ran out the day before the siblings all turned up at the lawyer's office with 10-year olds in tow). So the $15bn earmarked for the billionaire's reincarnation gets split between the three children, and the siblings get nothing. I believe the implication is that the three children will be better suited to carrying on the billionaire's legacy than his selfish, venal children. That sort of thing.
That's a "Shaggy Dog" Story, isn't it? Oh, well.
I have what is probably half of a short story idea here. I'm just not sure where exactly to go with it. Here it is:
An eccentric billionaire dies, and it's up to his lawyer to distribute his thirty-billion dollar fortune according to the terms of his Last Will and Testament. Each of the billionaire's three children will receive a sixth of the fortune - five billion each. The remaining half, however, is subject to a rather unusual provision. See, the billionaire was a believer in reincarnation, in the classical Buddhist sense. In his will, he's left fully half of his entire fortune to his next reincarnation. Oh, and the siblings can't collect their share of the fortune until the $15bn has been paid out. Consequently, the siblings embark on a global manhunt for their father's next incarnation.
But there's a twist! The billionaire never actually intended for the siblings to find his reincarnation. After all, the siblings already had sufficient resources to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. It was supposed to be a learning experience of sorts. So imagine the lawyer's surprise when, ten years later, the billionaire's daughter actually finds the old man's reincarnation. She presents the lawyer with a ten-year old boy who, under hypnosis, correctly answers a set of questions the lawyer had previously agreed upon with the billionaire. It looks like he'll actually have to pay out after all...
...and then I'm stuck. I have no idea where to go with this. It's supposed to be a very un-serious take on the whole thing - more like Rat Race than The Sea of Fertility. I just have absolutely no clue about how to end the story.
Any ideas?