\u23f1 ~3 min reading<\/p>\n\n\n
The park near the community center smelled of wet leaves and a little bit of roasted corn\u2014a 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\u2014he liked to watch the shadows of the chestnut leaves as they moved on the asphalt.<\/p>\n\n
Near the bench, right under the trunk of the chestnut tree, he saw something.<\/p>\n\n
Brown leather. Smooth, soft to the touch. Wallet. Small, with a zipper and a thin key chain - a tiny silver horseshoe.<\/p>\n\n
Nazar picked it up. The wallet was warm\u2014as if someone had just held it. Inside\u2014Nazar unzipped it carefully\u2014was money. A few bills. And a card. And a plastic one\u2014probably a tram pass.<\/p>\n\n
Mom was still talking on the phone. There was no one around\u2014only the grandmother with the dog far away at the end of the alley.<\/p>\n\n
Nazar stood and thought.<\/p>\n\n
\u00ab"You can hide it in your pocket. Buy yourself those cars with Kinder. And there will still be some left. No one saw it.".<\/p>\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Mom.<\/p>\n\n
Mom agreed, put down the phone.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 What, son?<\/p>\n\n
"I found my wallet. Here.".<\/p>\n\n
Mom stopped. She looked at me seriously.<\/p>\n\n
"Well done, for showing. What are you thinking of doing?"<\/p>\n\n
Nazar already knew the answer. It came by itself\u2014from somewhere inside.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Take it. There's an information point here in the cultural center. I saw it. With a yellow "found" sticker.<\/p>\n\n
"And you don't want to keep it?"<\/p>\n\n
Nazar was silent. Then he said honestly:<\/p>\n\n
"I wanted to. At first. But\u2026 it's someone else's. It's not mine.".<\/p>\n\n
They went to the community center. Inside, it smelled of warm wood and a little dust from old curtains. The woman at the checkpoint \u2014 Tatyana Ivanovna, as the sign said \u2014 took the wallet. She wrote down in a notebook: when and where it was found. She thanked him.<\/p>\n\n
"You know, boy, last week a woman was crying here. She lost her wallet. Maybe it was yours.".<\/p>\n\n
"Maybe. Tell her I'm Nazar. And that I was walking with my mother.".<\/p>\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n
The woman wanted to give Nazar a gift \u2014 a big box of chocolates. Nazar thought for a long time. Then he said:<\/p>\n\n
"No need, Mom. I'm not for a gift.".<\/p>\n\n
But the woman did leave a small paper bag at the information point \u2014 it contained the same silver horseshoe from her wallet, melted down into a tiny pendant. And a note: "Nazaru \u2014 for good luck. Because you are my luck this week.".<\/p>\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n
\ud83d\udca1 Stranger is stranger, even if no one sees.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n
Nazar found his wallet in the park near a chestnut tree. No one saw it. He could have kept it for himself \u2014 but he chose otherwise.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":3193,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":""},"class_list":["post-2197","istoriya","type-istoriya","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":1,"sum_votes":5},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istoriya\/2197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istoriya"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/istoriya"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}