Changing Luck? - By Niamh

His day started badly. The rain was bucketing down, making his floppy hair stick to his forehead. He missed his bus to school and he had only walked half way when he realised he was squelching: there was a hole in one of his trainers.

As he bent down to check the damage, his luck suddenly changed. Sitting in the gutter was an Iphone. Sheltering from the rain inside its grey silicon case, camouflaging it into the street.

He picked it up, wiped it against his school trousers and pressed it back to life. So what if it was only 8 gigs; he wasn’t fussy.

His sock was still wet at lunch break, but it barely crossed his mind.

“So, who’s the guy that owned it?” Called his friend Jed from across the class.

“Girl.” he corrected, showing him the wallpaper of the girl and her friends.

“Check her Facebook” Jed suggested, kicking the ball up into his hands.

Still logged in. Eva Sullivan. Goes to Kapiti College. It was only a twenty minute walk away from his school. The smile dropped from his face. He was beginning to feel guilty about what he’d done.

He unzipped his blazer pocket and pulled out a pair of entangled earphones, deciding to listen to some of Eva’s music to take his mind off things; her play list wasn’t half bad, but strangely the lyrics were repeating: “bring it back.”

Just a fault from being dropped in the rain, he thought wearily.

Enough music for now, he thought, and decided to email his friend Braydon and skite about his lucky find. But it wasn’t Braydon who replied:

‘Why are you using my iPhone, it doesn’t belong to you?’

The message had come from Eva Sullivan.

Enough was enough. This was getting out of hand, and way too scary. The school bell rang, snapping him back into reality. He was already in town so if he ran to the police station, it wouldn’t take long. His feet carried him as fast as they would go to the front step of the station, shoulders aching from the weight of his backpack. There was no turning back now.

“Um, hi.” said the boy, clutching the phone to his waist.

“Hello young man.” “How can I help you today?” The police officer smiled, taking a sip of his coffee.

His lips pursed together, as he placed the phone on top of a stack of paperwork.

“I think someone’s missing this.” he said.

The officer shone another grin. “You did the right thing.”

He gave a slight nod, avoiding eye contact.

‘I did the right thing.’ the boy thought to himself. He left the police station smiling. Not noticing the large puddle and the holey trainer that was about to step into.

It looked like his day was back on track.