For the boy, it had to be the worst day of his life.
The day had begun with him dressing for school and discovering that the token was missing. It had been placed on the table beside his bed, the night before, along with other things he carried in his pockets. For him, it was such a precious thing that he wouldn’t have put it anywhere else. It had to be somewhere in his bedroom! The thing itself had been given to him by his grandad, only a few weeks before he died. He was ten when it happened. He was making one of his afterschool visits when it had been given to him.
For him, it had been a truly magic moment, when the old man had put his hand in his pocket and brought out the sports day medal. Giving it to him, he said that he had won it in a school sports event as a boy and it had always brought him luck. He had made him promise to always keep it with him. He said it would do the same for him. That was the day it had become a special token for him. Now at fifteen, he’d been carrying it in his pocket every day since.
His parents, both knowing how important the token was, spent most of the morning joining in the search. After a thoroughly careful search, they found nothing. The boy was so upset by the whole thing that they agreed that he could take a sick day off from school. His mother would write a note for him, to take in the next day. He spent the rest of the day in bed. It had certainly been the worst day of his life!
As bad as this day had been, it probably wouldn’t help if they knew that this extremely precious item was now in New Delhi, in the grubby trouser pocket of a nine-year-old boy, rattling against 35 Indian rupees in change, just enough to buy a chocolate-coated ice cream on a stick from the local Classic Ice Cream Parlour.
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