Evelyn poked meaninglessly at the ground with a birch stick. Today was hotter than usual, and the meadow of white dandelions had drooped down and devolved into nothing but crisps. Barely no one was in the usually overpacked town square. Surely nothing interesting would happen on this hot gloomy day. Just as Evelyn thought that, a silvery-blue twinkle came from under a pile of rocks. Curiously, Evelyn crawled over to the pile and confirmed that it was some sort of coin. She reached out to it and scanned it carefully for anything alarming. Emblazoned on the coin were big letters saying C.K. Evelyn knew this was not the fire currency and it most likely came from a different kingdom. Maybe she could show Lily and Hector and ask if they knew anything about it.
Entering the school dormitory, the relief of the cool air was extremely pleasant. Going to her dorm, Evelyn questioned Lily and Hector about this coin.
‘I don’t know, maybe you should ask the coin elves,’ Lily advised, ‘they are a whiz at inspecting coins and currencies, but I heard they are really greedy and rude though.’
‘Once the elves charged a man ten million fire coins just to examine a 100-year old Crystal Kingdom coin,’ added Hector, ‘the man asked the Queen for money’. Evelyn already didn’t like these elves. ‘Are they the only way to find out what this coin means?’ asked Evelyn. All Evelyn got as an answer was a small nod from Lily and a shrug from Hector.
The tiny, wooden blue door for entry of the coin elves house was no bigger than a toddler. The coin elves house was more of a tree. Evelyn knocked the door thrice. She could hear grunting, a chair scraping the floor and then three pairs of feet coming.
‘HEY, WHAT’RE YOU DOING ON THIS HOT DAY?! YOU KNOW WE ‘ERE JUSTING STARTIN’ LUNCH?,’ a gruff and rather annoyed voice shouted.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ exclaimed Evelyn, ‘are you in service now?’
‘I don’t know, are we?’ said another rough voice. ‘If you have eyes, then you might find the answer’.
Evelyn couldn’t believe that she didn’t realize the colossal sign on the wall. Stated on it with white paint and messy writing was: ‘ WE ARE CLOSED. GO AWAY.’
‘Please, just let me in,’ Evelyn whispered, hiding her annoyance, ‘it’s really urgent.’
A figure stepped out of the door. He was no taller than your knee and had hundreds of warts and a unusual pointy nose. His ears were as long as your arm and was really quite pathetic and freakish with his beady small eyes. From their speech they had a strange accent, missing some letters. ‘Fine. But since you came when we were closed, we’ll have to charge you extra,’ grunted the elf.
‘Now why are you ‘ere’?’, asked the third elf with a mouth full of durian. ‘Is all you eat durian?’ asked Evelyn even though it was completely off-topic. ‘Yes.’ answered the second elf. ‘Now if you were only here too ask if all we eat is durians, get out.’
‘Oh sorry,’ said Evelyn, ‘anyway, I came here to ask you about this coin.’
‘That’s a coin from the Crystal Kingdom,’ remarked the first elf after examining it for a while, ‘and that one is rare. It was from the Royal Family, dated back in 1568.’ ‘Now get out kid and let us eat our durians in peace.’ Evelyn tried to hold back the bubbling, tempting feeling to slap every one of these elves wrinkled faces a hundred times or more for their rudeness.
As Evelyn walked through the empty, cobbled streets, she thought about her parents. She couldn’t ignore the thought that possibly someone in the Crystal Kingdom might be her parents. ‘HEY COME BACK HERE, KID,’ screeched an elf popping back out of the treehouse shouting to Evelyn. ‘YOU ‘AVENT PAID YOUR BILL YET! DONT WORRY, IT ISN’T THAT EXPENSIVE. WE’LL GIVE YOU A DISCOUNT SINCE WE’RE IN A KIND OF GOOD MOOD!!!, AND YOU HAVE FIVE DAYS TO PAY IT’. Evelyn realized obviously that they were not in a good mood. Hopefully her bill wasn’t that expensive. After all, she just asked the elves to inspect the coin.
She walked away staring at her bill. One billion fire coins was crossed out and replaced with sixty
billion fire coins. To Evelyn, and most people, that wasn’t a discount. Anyway, before considering
the possibility that her parents might be from the Crystal Kingdom, Evelyn needed to borrow
some money from the Queen.
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