Felix clutched at his pendant resentfully. His grandmother had traveled to Egypt just to buy him a necklace.
So what if it was a so-called good luck charm? Boys don’t wear jewelry. He would get laughed at.
Felix tossed the gem up in the air and caught it, looking at it properly for the first time. It was a bright green emerald two centimeters across. It was raw, so it had many shades of green, but it looked nice nonetheless. Not like that made Felix like it.
It had a hole punctured in the top for a leather cord, which he had already thrown behind him as he strolled down his street. There had been a hurricane a week earlier, and browning leaves littered the ground. The trees swayed slightly, and chestnuts dropped around him.
Felix pondered whether he would be able to throw the lucky jewel into the neighbor’s trash bin from this far away.
Deciding he couldn’t, he jaywalked across the street, nearly stepping on a caterpillar as he did so.
He reached the sidewalk only to find a stray cat ambling out from the bushes and lying down for a lazy nap in the centre of the path. It looked like it had been in a fight. Felix decided that he shouldn’t press his luck and step over the feline. He sighed inwardly and crossed the street yet another time. A boy on a bicycle shot by the sidewalk Felix had left, his eyes glued to his cell phone. The stray had managed to scramble out of the way, but only just. In an effort to avoid the cat, Felix sidestepped too quickly and his foot scratched painfully against a bush.
Felix ignored his injury. His gaze was focused on the trash can. So focused, in fact, that he failed to notice the tree until it was already falling. Whoosh! Felix jumped back, and the tree came down inches in front of him.
Felix let out a breath, the sound of his beating heart resonating in his ears. He was lucky. So lucky.
A man’s head appeared at a nearby window. He started when he saw the downed tree, “Kid! Felix, is that you? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine!” Felix called back.
“You better get home, you lucky boy. Be careful.”
Felix nodded and turned around. Completely forgetting that the pendant was supposed to be good luck, he tossed it clear across the street, straight at a manhole. It bounced off the rim of a nearby recycling bin, did a short spin, and disappeared down into the sewers with a clatter.
At first, he felt triumphant, that was a one in a million shot. Nobody else would be able to chuck a gem into a hole that small on his or her first try. Then realization hit him. Hard.
“Well,” he mumbled to himself, “that doesn’t mean anything. I could have dodged that tree without the emerald.”
He steeled himself against looking down the sewer and made his way home.