I Bought a Locket Today
by Doreen Frick

I bought a locket today, heart-shaped and silver. When I bought this locket, I had a little girl in mind, a pig-tailed girl who just turned six. My little girl — who went to bed last night with a worried look on her face because she wondered how she could ever remember everything.

But I had an idea of how to help her, and I smiled when I found the perfect locket — sturdy and secure yet dainty enough for my little pig-tailed girl who was memorizing all of her numbers.

What would be placed inside this silver locket? A photograph? A pressed flower? A poem? No, this locket had a very important purpose — one that had nothing to do with sentiment or decoration. And for this reason, I chose it carefully, examining many lockets before I made my purchase. This one had a job to do.

My little girl will get on a bus tomorrow and be carried away to school; a big school filled with many numbers to remember: bus numbers and student lunch numbers, homeroom and emergency numbers that will be carefully recorded and stored in her little heart-shaped locket.

The locket will most assuredly look very pretty clinging to my little girl’s neck, but for now, it’s hidden in a box on the kitchen table waiting for her to get up in the morning and notice the little white box. While I pack her a snack of cookies and a thermos of milk, my daughter will be squealing, hopping around the table, pigtails flying, school backpack bouncing before she heads off into her first-grade world.

Her worried look will be gone and the numbers that worried her yesterday will be safe and secure around her neck in a heart-shaped locket of love.





Doreen Frick lives with her family in Valley, Washington.