Chapter 4

When the boy stepped into the school tuck shop, the large room was abuzz and humming like the bingo room after an evening alfresco on July the fourth. Primary school students stood in groups and clusters, discussing what had happened in the primary six hallway.

No doubt, the boys and girls who had stood behind to watch the bully fest were feeling good about themselves now. They obviously soaked in the attention of their transfixed peers as each told his own inflated version of what had happened.

As he turned away from the crowd to walk towards the show glass of sweetmeats, one of the narrators must have pointed at him, because soon he heard a collective gasp level out the room. And when he turned back, about a hundred wide eyes stared at him in awe.

Finian claims to have felt horror at first. Some weird conspiracy theorem had hopped into his still befuddled mind. He had wondered if, maybe the children were going to be enraged at him for being the cause of the downfall of The Bigs's leader. That they were afraid of the deluge of anger the incident might have incurred on them all.

But his horrors and fears had been superfluous. In the blinking of an eye, the students in the tuck shop turned from a gaping crowd to a standing ovation.

As the plaudit and stamping of feet reigned in the tuck shop air, Finian Relish felt good about himself? He could have sworn the silver coin warmed up against his breast. The shouts of huzzas here and there made his fluttering heart throb higher.

Apparently, the pupils were in believe that the downfall of The Bigs's leader and most notorious member was a significant clip in their wings and were hoping it would be the catalyst that would put an end to their tyrannical reign.

All thanks to Finian Relish, descendant of the bravest and most feared military general in the second world war.

Nevermind at his expense, the boy thought sourly, as he rubbed at the angry purple marks wrapping around his neck. A worried paramedic had seen the ugly marks and had applied some soothing salve to them. And it had worked, he no longer felt the pain, but he still knew it was there nonetheless.

An anti-Bigs rally was later to rise in the school, a movement which helped rid the pupils of the influence of the bullies as they broke their confidence with careful planning and cooperation.

But Finian Relish never knew that until years later, for what the coin later brought him had kept him occupied and, ergo, absent.

Later on that day, it slowly began to dawn on him. The thought that he could have died had been hovering in his head like a morning fog all along. And hours on, it commenced settling in in a dewy cognition.

He really could have died. Hansel could have maintained the grip on his windpipes longer. What if that was one of his kicks? Watching a face bloom the reddest before bleeding white with lifelessness.

Finian wasn't so sure the bully wouldn't have gotten away with it. His father was the Chief Justice of the central supreme court in the jurisdiction (Hansel had always made sure everybody knew that, teachers and students alike). His father would have never let his only son so much as catch a whiff of a prison, juvenile or not.

The sound of his pulse flooded his ears at this. He really could have died. Because he refused to give up his coin. He could have died because of a dumb coin he found yesterday on the road.

All of a sudden, the boy didn't feel that coin mojo any longer. As he walked out the school gate, leaving his gang of friends behind, the coin started to feel cold to him. He brought it out of his breast pocket and scrutinised it. It didn't look like hot stuff anymore.

Nevermind that it had made him popular among the boys. Besides, he thought, it was a stupid and childish thing to think an ordinary coin had magical powers. That was so much like what Pippa would do. Not him.

He could have gotten popular on his own. He had gotten popular on his own. Emphasis on the 'had' and 'his'.

At that moment, Finian realized he didn't need the coin after all. As he crossed the road to the other side of the primary school, he raised the coin as high as he could go and hurled it far into the copse ahead.

Now that was obviously the first most reasonable thing our main character had done since the start of the story. And I know you might start to get happy for his sake and think that whatever happens next in this story couldn't possibly be as bad as the thought of the evil coin. Or you might, perhaps, be wondering what the point of this story is anymore since the coin was now gone for good.

Alas, let us not get too carried away. For, unfortunately, that wasn't quite the last of the coin.

You see, Finian Relish was done with the coin, but the coin was not done with Finian Relish. Yet.