9 year old Liza was playing by the river in her neighborhood park. She was squatting down by the edge of the river, picking at the dirt. She came across a large group of gold pellets spread across the grass. She had a crumpled up brown paper bag in her back pocket left over from her lunch. She quickly gathered up the pellets and shoved them in the bag. There was a small tear in the bottom of the bag so she hand to cover it with her hand as she ran from the park, into town.
The store door flew open and hit the wall. The tall and slender man working at the candy store widened his eyes, amazed that a little girl was strong enough to open the door with that much force. Liza stepped up to the counter, slammed the bag of gold on it, and took several deep breaths because she ran the whole way there.
“I’d like to buy all the candy I can get with this please!” Exclaimed Liza in a scratchy but thrilled voice.
The man slowly opened the bag, concerned about what it contained and how a little girl could obtain it. He grinned once he saw the pellets. “Um, you can't buy candy with bullets.”
“What do you mean bullets? That's gold! That's gold! I found it at the river.” Liza said with determination.
“No, these are bullets. You didn't find gold, someone was shooting out there and you found the bullets.”
A wave of pure disappointment crashed into Liza. She was certain that she had literally struck gold! Liza grabbed the top of the bag and slowly dragged it of the counter. Letting it hang by her side as she walked away, not minding to cover the whole in the bottom of the bag and let them drop out as she left the store.
Once she reached the door, she stopped in the middle to closed her eyes and sigh. She walk all the way home with the look of a sad puppy on her face. She collapsed in her front yard and turned over to look at the sky. Liza lifted her arm to look at the empty bag that she thought she put gold in just as she started to tear up. She shoved the bag on her face and screamed into it out of frustration.
After a few more minutes of laying on her law reflecting, Liza slowly stands up and walks into her house. She dragged her feet the entire way in. Her mom yells for her from the living room when she hears Liza shut the front door. She didn’t want to face her mother because she would be able to tell that she's upset and that's really not what Liza wanted. She hollered back saying she wasn’t feeling too well and she thought she overplayed at the park so she was going to lie down upstairs in her bedroom. She flopped down on her bed and just looked at the constellations she had on her ceiling until they made her so calm she feel asleep.
