I ate dinner, clutching the (now dry) stamp in my hands.
I broke the silence and asked my father, “What type of bird is this?”
“The hawk. Beautiful creature in my eyes, top predator. Known to be a lucky charm,” he said simply.
“A hawk? Never heard of one … So is this stamp … special?” I asked eager to hear more about this bird.
“Of course. Better put that one in your collection,” he mumbled chewing a mouthful of turkey leg.
Over the next few days I researched the hawk and I felt a confidence in myself I had never felt before. My work improved at school, I started to make new friends and I was given a brand, new and valuable stamp by my aunt. It had a turquoise background with a crawling polar bear on it.
The next day Sue and I occupied our morning with the remaining snow. After an entertaining morning, we went indoors I wanted to show Sue my collection, so I took the book off the oak shelf. To my horror, the page with my lucky hawk stamp was missing, along with ten other stamps.
My body froze in disbelief and I gasped. I was flabbergasted; in a state of increasing terror, I searched my house thoroughly. The kitchen, my bedroom and even my fathers study. Still I could not find the misplaced stamps. They were nowhere to be seen.
I had a sleepless night. I fidgeted, tossed and turned. I was either bothered by the chill wind or too hot to be comfortable. The next day I could not find the self-assurance that I had had before. My new friends started to drift away and my grades came crashing back down to my usual standard. Had the hawk stamp given me luck and I had now lost it? Would my luck gradually become worse day after day now? Questions flew around my head like bees buzzing around a jar of honey. I needed to find that stamp.
When I went to school the next day I searched my locker, my classroom and my cloakroom, I even questioned my teachers and fellow pupils if they had seen the missing page. Nothing.
My self-confidence collapsed and I felt lost. I searched for the stamp every day but could not even find the other stamps that had vanished. I felt a mixture of emptiness, hopelessness and depression.
One day I sat on my bed trying to think of where my stamps might be. I was baffled. Despondently, I flicked through the pages of my stamp book, but it gave me no pleasure. I would throw my collection away, I decided, and never collect stamps again. I turned the final page and there, to my astonishment, I saw all the missing stamps, the hawk stamp at the top, unharmed and in fine condition.
“Yes,” I cheered triumphantly and I scampered downstairs to tell everyone.
Everyone I told was delighted for me, especially Sue, who felt like she had lost a friend, as I was so depressed. I came to the conclusion a day after the stamps had been found that I must have flicked past the last page when I was looking through the album, and was so panicked that I did not bother to check properly when I looked again.
There was a message behind this story and this is that luck is not real although some people believe in it. My “luck” disappeared even though I had had the hawk stamp in my collection all along. It was the thought that the stamp was lost that made me think my “luck” would go. And because I thought that I had lost luck, I lost my self-confidence, which I convinced me I was unlucky.
“Confusing stuff grandpa,” I said still trying to understand what had happened.
“It is, but you’ll understand eventually,” he replied whilst turning to the fifth page of his beloved book. That was where I found a particularly interesting stamp…
By Roshni Ruparelia 6P
