Every day at Westport Elementary, lunch cost eighty-five cents. My mother gave me a dollar.
After lunch, while the other kids lined up to go back to class, I walked to the office at the corner of the building and bought a pencil from Mrs. Trepanier. Fifteen cents. Every single day.
The school was built as a square with a courtyard in the middle. The office sat at one corner. After the pencil, I'd stand there and watch my class turn the far corner, disappearing out of sight. Then I'd walk back at my own pace.
I was six years old.
The pencils stacked up in my desk at school. The collection was incidental. The trade was the point. Fifteen cents bought a walk alone through a quiet hallway.
One year, the family went to Florida on vacation. While I was gone, a kid named Tom found the pencils and handed them out to the whole class. When I got back, they were all gone.
The pencils were never the trade. The next day I bought another and the walk continued.
Fifteen cents bought the walk. The denomination has changed. The trade has not.