Sara wasn’t feeling too happy that morning as she walked along the twisted path in the woods near her house. She had broken her favorite mirror and her Mom said that they couldn’t afford to buy her a new one for awhile.
There is a superstition about breaking mirrors…seven years bad luck…but Sara didn’t believe in superstitions. Did she?
She stubbed her toe on a stone embedded in the path and stopped and sat down to rub her aching foot and thought…”That was just a bit of bad luck that I stubbed….What?…Oh No.”
But soon her toe felt fine and there were no bruises. Then a small branch fell from a tree and glanced off of her shoulder as it fell.
“Ouch!” Sara yelled and rubbed her shoulder.
Just as Sara was starting to get really scared of the thought that she might have to live until she was seventeen before she would be lucky again she saw the sun glinting off of a tiny bright metal edge that was sticking up out of the middle of the path.
“My I’m glad that I didn’t step on that…it looks sharp.”
Then as Sara looked more closely at the golden edge she realized that it was just a part of a much larger piece of metal that was buried in the ground.
She dug around the edges and as she did, she revealed a rectangular piece of thin gold that had words engraved upon it.
She rubbed the caked dirt off of it and soon she could read the message.
COUPON GOOD FOR ACHIEVING TRUE HAPPINESS
“It must be part of some toy game or something” she thought. But soon she realized as she was holding it that she couldn’t stop smiling and feeling…well…wonderful!
She headed back to her house to show the magical find to her Mom when she spotted Mrs. Jenkins, her neighbor sitting on her porch with her head in her hands.
As Sara looked at her neighbor Mrs. Jenkins looked up at Sara and managed a weak “Hi….Sara.”
Mrs. Jenkins had obviously been crying and Sara went and sat next to her. “What’s the trouble Mrs. Jenkins?”
“It’s my dog Timmy….he….just got too old to keep going I guess…and I really miss him.”
Sara knew Timmy and he was a wonderful dog that had lived at the Jenkin’s house as long as Sara could remember.
Then Sara looked down at the coupon.
“Here…Mrs. Jenkins…I hope this makes you feel better.” Sara handed the Gold Coupon to her neighbor. As soon as the lady took it into her hands she smiled and then leaned over and hugged Sara.
“Oh Sara…I feel better already. What a sweet girl you are.”
And even though Sara had given away her “Coupon of True Happiness” she felt even happier than she did when it was hers.