Your dad’s on his way home from work.”

“I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll be just a moment.”

Outside, the street lamps are already on.

It’s muddy.

A tram goes by. A car lights up the street and rushes past.

I want to find one.

Let me find one.

I order. I command.

One little zloty, be found!

And he found one, in a very strange way.

He was on his way back, so they wouldn’t be too upset at home.

It was so strange, when he’d already given up hope.

He’s on his way back, thinking: tough. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then next week.

Suddenly a car comes along, and he sees something shining in the mud. He bends down, and it’s a coin – next to the street lamp, on the very edge of the sidewalk, almost hanging over it.

Fifty groshys – that’s half a zloty.

“Good for us!”

He breathes on it for good luck.

“That’ll do.”

And he rushes home as fast as his legs can carry him.

Then came his second try.

He wanted to find money in the street, but he found it on the stairs, but only five groshys – you need twenty of those to make a zloty.

It was only a five-groshy coin, but it was a new one, shiny, just like gold.

Even before now Kaytek had occasionally found something or other. He’d lose an eraser, then he’d find a pencil, he’d lose a pen, and he’d find a pencil sharpener.

Kaytek loses things, and so do others. Because things can fall out of your pocket while you’re running, or slip out of your schoolbag.

Or the grown-ups throw things out. They throw out things that might come in handy: a piece of string, a box, a small bottle, or a movie theater program.

But that’s quite another matter.

The third time, it was different.

By now he was feeling discouraged and wasn’t looking at all. He was hurrying to get to school, thinking: “No means no, I won’t find any more money.”

When suddenly . . .

I want to find a hundred zlotys! he thinks.

Because what does he have to lose?

And straight away, at the next corner store, right by the steps, he picks up a whole zloty, and next to it there are two fifty-groshy coins. So altogether that’s two zlotys.

“So maybe I should demand more?” he thinks. “Maybe there’s a chief wizard who’s bargaining with me?”

Then it occurs to him for the first time that even a wizard has his own bosses and authorities. He is not independent. There are some secret commands.

Well, then? He has two zlotys. He goes to school feeling happy.

He meets up with his pals. He proudly tells them about the money and shows it to them.

He doesn’t sense any trouble brewing.

Because lately various things have started disappearing at school: breakfasts, books, some gloves, and a scarf have all gone missing.

Kaytek has even tried to expose the culprit using magic, because it’s a nasty business. But nothing came of it.

And now suspicion has fallen on Kaytek himself, as if he’d taken the money from another boy.

That day the teacher is collecting the outstanding contributions to pay for the missing breakfast. And one boy is crying because he had two zlotys but they’re gone – someone has stolen them.

“Where did you have them?”

“In my schoolbag. No, not in my bag, in my pocket.”

“Maybe you lost them in the street?”

No. They were here. He had them in the cloakroom. He put them on the windowsill.

“Which of you has some money?”

The boys take out their money and show the teacher. One boy has ten groshys, another has thirty, yet another has two foreign coins.

Kaytek immediately comes clean.

Where did you get two zlotys?” asks the teacher.

“I found it in the street.”

The teacher gives Kaytek a nasty look.

She takes the two zlotys and asks the other boy: “Is this yours?”

And he says: “Yes, it’s mine.”

Then the other boys cut in, saying: “He’s lying, miss. It’s not his at all. He didn’t have any money. He was just pretending to cry.”

Kaytek calmly looks the teacher in the eye. The other boy is red and confused. Until he stammers: “Mine was a whole two-zloty coin, two zlotys in total. Not separate.”

“I can give it to him,” says Kaytek.