"GARANIMO!" Abe yelled as he hurtled faster and faster to the ground. He knew his owner didn't realize he'd fallen out of her purse and that was just fine with him. Finally, after nearly being suffocated by his many friends he was free! No more food crumbs, no more melted lipstick, no more George and his bullying. He was free to travel! To see the world! To finally—

"Ow!" his cry of pain was muffled by the dirty carpet he'd fallen facedown onto. No, no, no, he thought. He was supposed to be propelled across the floor, roll out the door, and be on his grand adventure. He would have dodged all those greedy hands trying to pick him up and stick him in their pockets, and hitched a ride on a tire to somewhere wild and new and dangerous. What an adventure he would have had!

And he would have been on that adventure too, if he wasn't currently eating a mouthful of fibers. He could hear voices above him, surrounding him on all sides. His owner was gone. Her familiar footsteps had departed as soon as he'd hit the ground. Didn't she see him lying there, helpless? Did she even know he was gone?

His friends had all laughed at him when he'd voiced his magnificent plan. One that had seemed faultless at first. He should have thought this through before high tailing his Liberty butt out of the purse. What would they think when they found out it had ended before it had even begun. He'd be the laughingstock of the cents!

No, he had to figure out a way to get up and get going. Maybe he could use his tongue to hoist himself up far enough off the ground and propel his body backwards. Or maybe some nice person would pick him up and right before he landed in a filthy pocket he could jump out and be on his way again. Yes, that was it! An agonizing pressure stopped his train of thought as he was grinded into the carpet. Someone had stepped on him!

"Get off! Get off of me you two ton giant!" he cried out.

The pressure on him increased until he thought he might burst. What was the person doing? Standing on one leg? He thought angrily.

The pressure vanished so fast that a rush of dizziness hit him as he gasped in a lungful of stale air. His copper cheek puffed out as he breathed as deeply as he could, the dizziness disappeared as his heart rate slowed. People really could be inconsiderate sometimes. Instead of someone stepping on him he now needed someone, anyone, to pick him up so he could be on his way.

An eternity seemed to pass as he waited patiently, fibers pricking his eye and getting lodged in his throat. He had no idea as to what time it was or how long he'd been lying there. And in the space of a heartbeat all that changed.

He was suddenly swept up into someone's hand, and a brilliant flash of light nearly blinded him after being blocked by the dark blue carpet. The sun was high in the sky and streaming through the windows, illuminating the people milling about and the cashier ringing up a customer. Abe swiveled his eye to the one holding him, and it was then that he realized what the teenage girl meant to do.

"Ew, I like totally stepped in gum, Mom. CVS is so dirty. Why can't we go somewhere else?" the girl said, popping her gum as she lowered him to the bottom of her shoe with the tips of her thumb and forefinger.

"AH-H!" Abe yelled at the top of his lungs. "Anything but that!"

His arm hit the sole of her sneaker first and was savagely dragged across the ridges until he met the gum. The teenager, with no regard to his curses and yells, scraped him across the gum. The sticky substance clung to his body like rust on a nail. He strained his head away from where the pink sugary concoction covered his neck, trying not to breathe in the sickeningly sweet smell.

"Put that down, Valerie. That's disgusting," her mother admonished.

And being the obnoxious teenager the girl was, she walked over to the security monitors on either side of the sliding doors and stuck his body to one of them, using the gum as an anchor. Abe cursed fate and he cursed the girl who thought she was Britney Spears. Was nothing going to go his way?

He was still cursing and screaming an hour later when a little boy, probably around three or four years old, walked over and plucked him off the monitor. His relief, however, was short lived. The little boy pinched the gum with his chubby fingers and ripped it off his body with a loud sucking sound. He then proceeded to put the vile piece of pink gook in his mouth before tossing Abe over his shoulder.

Abe briefly heard the boy's mother yelling at him for putting strange things in his mouth before he bounced off the perfume case, rebounded off a shelf holding various cosmetics, soared towards the candy at the check out counter, rolled down the five shelves holding chocolate, and landed exactly where he'd begun, face down on the musty blue carpet.

If he wasn't made out of copper he'd be bawling his eyes out right about now. He'd gone from being trapped in a purse, to free flying, to eating the carpet, to scraping gum off with his face, to nearly being eaten, to be free flying once more, only to end up eating carpet again. He was truly the penny with the worst luck. They'd talk about him for years to come. Abe the Unlucky. Abe the Dunce. Abe the Penny who thought he could do more and failed.

He heard someone above him, but didn't pay any attention. He was too far depressed to care. But despite his mood, their words drifted to him. There was a guy and a girl as for as he could tell.

"Oh no, I won't touch it. It's bad luck to pick up a penny heads down," the guy said quickly.

So now I truly am unlucky, Abe thought dejectedly.

"Yea, it is bad luck, but don't you know the loop holes in superstitions? If you flip it over so the head is up," the blessed girl bent down and turned him right side up, "you're passing the good luck onto the next person. Now you can pick it up, Andrew."

Eureka! He silently shouted. The girl was standing near the guy knelt down next to Abe. She was like an angel sent from heaven. He'd never been more grateful to anyone in his entire life! That this girl had come to him in his hour of need and changed the course of his life meant he wasn't unlucky after all!

"Only you would think of a loop hole like that, kid." The man reached out towards Abe and flipped him in the air, catching him in his upturned palm as he stood up. The girl beamed at him before turning and walking away. The man turned his attention to Abe. "I need all the good luck I can get."

It was then that Abe realized his new adventure—

No, he thought. His new purpose would be to bring good luck to this man with the sad eyes. "This will be an adventure all its own," Abe said out loud. And he knew it would be.