Zephyr

Zephyr

         It was a Friday. But it wasn't a normal Friday. Something happened. It was surprising. That is, no one expected it to happen.

          It started out as a normal day for Zephyr. As he walked home from school, he whistled and jingled the change in his pocket, looking hopefully at the ice cream truck ahead. He counted the coins without looking, a skill he had developed over time. Zephyr counted out a quarter, a few nickels, a smattering of dimes- then he felt a coin unknown to his skilled fingers. It was enormous, larger than any coin he had ever felt.  Thinking he had maybe picked up a half dollar by accident, he brought it out of his pocket- it was heavy, too. Its edges were smooth, unlike the rutted sides of United States currency. Instead of a president's head, however, it had a single, simple star. It wasn't a six-pointed Star of David, but a five-pointed,  "normal" star. Zephyr fingered the mysterious coin and decided he didn't really need ice cream. All he wanted to do was to examine the coin (if it was one) and find out where on earth it came from. And then tell his best friend Emily about it. They lived in the same house, so that wasn't that hard. Zephyr ran home- fast. Normally, if he ran that far, he could have felt his heart beating through his ribs and could barely breathe. Now, he felt like give a mountain goat or a yak a ride up Mount Everest, with one hand behind his back! "There's something strange about this coin," he said to himself, "and I need to figure it out."