The Lucky Penny Sandcastle

The Lucky Penny Sandcastle

By Kelly Roy

James Hopkins, a nine-year-old boy, loved building sandcastles at the beach every Saturday during summertime. He loved throwing clumps of wet sand, one on top of the other, onto the ground and sculpting them into recognizable structures. James visited the beach with his mother, a pleasant woman who enjoyed walking barefoot on sand and taking long lunches.

James didn’t mind eating lunch with his mom in restaurants for two hours; however, he didn’t like leaving his sandcastle unattended since it always ended up damaged. After returning from lunch, he usually saw the top of the castle smashed or the entire castle leveled.

One Saturday morning, after receiving a lucky penny from his grandfather, James became ambitious and decided to build an intricate sandcastle. However, he had to finish the majority of the sandcastle before lunch, since he usually left the beach shortly after returning from lunch. James felt confident that the lucky penny would work and whatever he built would remain intact while he was gone.

Working fast, he finished the entire sandcastle before lunch. It was a two-feet-tall, rectangular-shaped, medieval-inspired sandcastle with multiple tunnels and towers, surrounded by a moat. While looking at his newest creation, James smiled and continually wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.

Several minutes after completing the sandcastle, James and his mom went to lunch. Just before leaving for lunch, James placed his grandfather’s lucky penny in one of the tunnels. He reasoned that the sandcastle would remain intact if the penny was lucky.

The penny was considered to be lucky because it kept his grandfather from being seriously injured. During an intramural baseball game, held twenty years ago, James’ grandfather bent down to pick up the penny, and a foul ball hit the wall where his head would have been. After carrying it around for twenty years, James’ grandfather felt that the time was right to give the lucky penny to someone younger; therefore, he gave it to James to carry around for good luck.

As usual, while James was at lunch, there was a lot of activity near his sandcastle at the beach. Two flag-football players fought near the sandcastle, their bodies falling to the ground after absorbing several punches. A few minutes later, the players jumped up and returned to their football game as though nothing had happened.

Fifteen minutes later, several school children threw pieces of bread in the moat that surrounded the sandcastle. Eventually the children were called away by their parents, and the seagulls ate the bread and flew away.

After returning from lunch, James noticed that one tower was a little damaged, but the rest of the sandcastle was still intact, which made him very happy. He attributed the positive results to the lucky penny that he placed in one of the sandcastle’s tunnels, before leaving for lunch. Intending to use the penny in the future, James reached into the correct tunnel, retrieved the lucky penny, and placed it into his pocket.