⏱ ~3 min reading
The park near the community center smelled of wet leaves and a little bit of roasted corn—a vendor with a red cart stood in the alley every Sunday. Nazar walked down this alley with his mother. His mother was talking on the phone with Aunt Zoya, holding Nazar's hand a little absently. Nazar looked down at his feet—he liked to watch the shadows of the chestnut leaves as they moved on the asphalt.
Near the bench, right under the trunk of the chestnut tree, he saw something.
Brown leather. Smooth, soft to the touch. Wallet. Small, with a zipper and a thin key chain - a tiny silver horseshoe.
Nazar picked it up. The wallet was warm—as if someone had just held it. Inside—Nazar unzipped it carefully—was money. A few bills. And a card. And a plastic one—probably a tram pass.
Mom was still talking on the phone. There was no one around—only the grandmother with the dog far away at the end of the alley.
Nazar stood and thought.
«"You can hide it in your pocket. Buy yourself those cars with Kinder. And there will still be some left. No one saw it.".
But then I thought differently. I thought about the person I lost. What she was looking for now. Maybe she had money in her wallet for her grandmother's medicine. Or for bread. Or simply her money that she had earned.
— Mom.
Mom agreed, put down the phone.
— What, son?
"I found my wallet. Here.".
Mom stopped. She looked at me seriously.
"Well done, for showing. What are you thinking of doing?"
Nazar already knew the answer. It came by itself—from somewhere inside.
— Take it. There's an information point here in the cultural center. I saw it. With a yellow "found" sticker.
"And you don't want to keep it?"
Nazar was silent. Then he said honestly:
"I wanted to. At first. But… it's someone else's. It's not mine.".
They went to the community center. Inside, it smelled of warm wood and a little dust from old curtains. The woman at the checkpoint — Tatyana Ivanovna, as the sign said — took the wallet. She wrote down in a notebook: when and where it was found. She thanked him.
"You know, boy, last week a woman was crying here. She lost her wallet. Maybe it was yours.".
"Maybe. Tell her I'm Nazar. And that I was walking with my mother.".
Three days later, a strange woman called my mother. She thanked me. She said that there was money in her wallet for her husband's medicine - he was after surgery. And that she had been awake at midnight, looking for it.
The woman wanted to give Nazar a gift — a big box of chocolates. Nazar thought for a long time. Then he said:
"No need, Mom. I'm not for a gift.".
But the woman did leave a small paper bag at the information point — it contained the same silver horseshoe from her wallet, melted down into a tiny pendant. And a note: "Nazaru — for good luck. Because you are my luck this week.".
Nazar hung a horseshoe on his backpack. It jingled as he walked to school. Quietly, quietly. As a little reminder: what belongs to someone else is what belongs to someone else. And an honest person is someone who doesn't look to see if anyone is watching.
💡 Stranger is stranger, even if no one sees.