Treasure

I used to have a box of treasure. Not the sort with gold and jewels that pirates have, but the sort that belonged to little children.

Mine was filled with cute shaped erasers and tiny sparkly stickers. it had a set of rainbow coloured pencil caps and tiny thin pencils with dangly rubber ends. And my most prized possession, a small roller-skate cloth purse with a plastic green zipper. This made up my treasure.

I never used any of these items. They were bought and traded for but never used. I would just keep them in my little blue cardboard box. Occasionally, i would take them all out and display them for my viewing pleasure and they did fill my little heart with joy at such pretty little things that was mine.

I think i was about 9 years then and used to love taking my skateboard out with my older brother to play. We never went very far from home but sometimes we did stray quite a bit. one day, when we had arrived home a little later than usual, we were greeted by several pairs of shoes at the doorway and knew that mother had company. so in we went to dutifully greet our guests.

They were a family form Australia with 2 kids about our age that were good friends of our parents but whom we had only once met. all was well as we said our hellos and happily received a gift from them. It was an ornate, silver, souvenir tea spoon which said 'Australia' in a fancy script and laid on velvet in a clear plastic box. We gave our thanks and sat down, to which our mother said that it was such an expensive and unexpected gift and that we should treasure it and keep it properly.




These pleasantries went on for a while and all was quite uneventful until i noticed a used piece of tissue in my now empty blue cardboard box. after a few inquires, it was then made known to me that my 'treasure' had been given away in return for the silver spoon.

What happened then? not very much, i made my excuse to take a shower and that was then i said my first lie and found my first solitude.

i also learnt a very important lesson that day. That value was never found in expensive, shiny objects.