Adventures in Currency: Head-Side Up

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CURR£NCY

Head-Side Up

By

Geoffrey Kevin Walby

In loving memory of the original one-pound coin.

For Grace and Wren

Published by Geoffrey Kevin Walby

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Geoff Walby

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 – Made by Machines

Chapter 2 – The Squeeze of the Coining Press

Chapter 3 – Inside the Cash Container

Chapter 4 – At the Bank

Chapter 5 – The Old Lady’s Purse

Chapter 6 – Inside the Electric Meter

Chapter 7 – A Strange Reaction

Chapter 8 – The Newsagent’s Till

Chapter 9 – A Pongy Pocket

Chapter 10 – From Pongy Pocket to Pongy Room

Chapter 11 - Stolen

Chapter 12 – Back in the Till

Chapter 13 – A Wallet of Unrest

Chapter 14 – A Nightmare of a Dinner Party

Chapter 15 – In the Hoover

Chapter 16 – Quarrels of Another Kind

Chapter 17 – Stuck in a Vending Machine

Chapter 18 – A Word in Edgeways

Chapter 19 – A Most Beautiful Sight

Chapter 20 – Escape For Dear Life

Chapter 21 – Good Riddance

Chapter 22 – A Crash Course in the Big Wide World

Chapter 23 – A Joyous Reunion and an Important Question

Chapter 24 – The Amusement Arcade

Chapter 25 – Warning! Germs!

Chapter 26 – Coin Do Not Qualify to be Here

Chapter 27 – A Trip Across the Atlantic

Chapter 28 – Lucy Learns to Count

Chapter 29 – The World in a Bottle

Chapter 30 – Stolen Once Again

Chapter 31 – An Utter Insult

Chapter 32 – At the Cash Exchange

Chapter 33 – RIP the Once Pound Coin

Chapter 34 – A Divine Resurrection

About the Author

Connect with Geoff Walby

Prologue

I, Dizzy, am about to take that great leap into the Big Wide World as a brand-new, shiny one-pound coin. To be spent and traded with, and to join the flow of global currency that makes that Big Wide World go around.

What does it mean to be a pound coin? What does it mean to be spent? What will it be like and how does it happen? What is that Big Wide World I’ve heard so much about? And just what is global currency?

I feel a bit afraid about entering the Big Wide World. Because of the mess the coining press made of me back at the Royal Mint it seems the other coins are going to bully me and make my circulation a misery. But I’ve been advised to keep my head-side up and not let them defeat me. I’ll take on the bullies. I’ll beat them all. And I’ll try my best to enjoy being a one-pound coin.

Okay, Big Wide World, here I come. I hope you and the bullies are ready. Because I’m not! In fact, I haven’t a clue what a one-pound coin is even supposed to be.

Chapter 1. Made by Machines

Dizzy had been a brand-new, shiny one-pound coin for only a few hours. But before actually becoming a coin, Dizzy had to be made into one in a dark coin-making factory called the Royal Mint.

Being made into a pound coin hadn’t been very nice. In fact, it had been rather painful.

Dizzy had begun the journey as part of a vat of liquid metal in a hot, fiery casting furnace. The furnace was big, round and dark and the bubbling liquid splished and splashed from side to side.

‘I am the casting furnace,’ came a booming voice. It sounded like a giant volcano erupting within a vast cave. ‘This is your first step to becoming many coins. You are a mixture of three different kinds of metal – copper, nickel and zinc – melted down here in my belly. You are cooking at the stifling temperature of 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot my friend, very hot. But very soon, when this is all over, you will become hundreds, if not thousands, of brand-new, shiny individual coins.’

The furnace wasn’t joking. It was tremendously uncomfortable. The liquid metal bubbled and popped as deep rumbles echoed throughout.

Just as the heat became too much to bear, the liquid metal took a great big drop, and was poured into a long, round metal tube – a mould – the second stage of the coin-making process. And in that mould, it remained still until it cooled and became a long, thin bar.

Then the mould spoke, deep and stern, very much like the voice of the casting furnace.

‘You are now a bar of solid metal, one and a half inches high, five inches thick and very long. You may now pass through the roughing mill, which will roll you out flat. Very soon, my chum, you will become many coins.’

There was a clunk and a thud as the mould cracked open and let the bar fall. Then it was passed down the production line towards the roughing mill – the third step of the coin-making process.

The roughing mill – a long machine with lots of rollers top and bottom that looked like giant rolling pins – squashed the metal bar as it was forced between them.

Back and forth it went between the powerful rollers until the metal bar became flatter and flatter and flatter.

The metal bar didn’t like it one bit.

‘Stop doing this to me!’ it cried. ‘This is horrible.’

After a while, the rollers stopped.

The metal felt different: somehow smaller, flatter.

‘That’s it. All done,’ said the roughing mill, and laughed. ‘I’ve flattened you into one long, thin strip of metal. Now off you go to the finishing mill, where you will be flattened out some more.’

The strip of metal moved further down the production line.

‘I don’t want to be flattened anymore,’ the thin strip of metal blubbered. ‘I just want to get out of here. I want to go somewhere else. This is horrible. Stop! Somebody, please make it stop.’

The metal strip arrived at the finishing mill – the fourth step of the process – another long machine with many powerful rollers.

‘You’ve just had the life squashed out of you by the roughing mill,’ the finishing mill said. ‘Now you’re nice and flat. But not flat enough. You’re only an inch thick – not thin enough to be coins. But you will be once I’ve seen to you with nine tons of pressure.’

The metal strip was forced through the mill’s powerful rollers until it became a flat sheet.

‘Ha, ha, ha! It’s not a very nice start to becoming a coin, is it? Never mind, the worst will soon be over.’

‘I wish there was a bit more sympathy from these machines of torture,’ the metal strip said. ‘It might not be awful for them but it certainly is for me.’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ The finishing mill laughed once more, its job done. ‘Now you’re nice and flat; as flat as you can be. So off you go to the blanking press. That’s not much fun either.’

The metal sheet moved further along the production line towards the fifth stage of the coin-making process – a big, blue-and-white cube with hole-punchers inside.

Du, du, du, du, du, du, du, du, du!

‘Hello, chum. I’m the blanking press,’ an out-of-breath voice said. ‘My job is to punch lots of little holes into you to make lots of faceless, coin-sized metal discs called blanks. Every thud you hear is another blank being punched out. And every blank is just a moment away from becoming an individual coin.’

The thudding sound echoed all around. Du du du du du du du! It got closer. Du du du du du du du!

The metal sheet felt itself hit, knocked and beaten. This was followed by a ching ching ching as many blanks were punched into a tray below, then a thunderous thud as the punchers came crashing down to cut out one, special, faceless coin-shaped blank.

Crash! The special blank hit the tray below.

It felt very, very different from the way it had just a moment ago – smaller, lighter and slightly more normal.

In fact, all the new blanks felt this way. Like they had an edge. Like they had sides. Each more individual. Not liquid, or a bar, or a strip, or a thin sheet, but something new. Like they were developing into little selves.

‘You feel a lot better now, don’t you?’ the blanking press said.

The blanks agreed. They did feel better. Better than ever before.

‘Just a moment ago, each and every one of you belonged to one sheet of metal. And you thought the same thought and felt the same feeling. But now you are blanks and can think your own thoughts and feel your own feelings. Each and every one of you is now an individual. Isn’t that good news?’

The blanks agreed again. It was good news; great news. Being an individual was fantastic.

‘And what’s better,’ the blanking press continued, ‘once you get your own heads and tails stamped, you’ll also have your own identity. You will be individuals with an identity. And each of you will truly feel more like yourself.’

The blanks gasped. ‘Wow! It gets better than this?’ ‘This is great! This is amazing!’

‘Now, off you all go,’ the blanking press told them. ‘It’s not over yet.’

The blanks landed somewhere new and were spun and tossed in the air for the very first time. Then they felt a peculiar tickling sensation around their tops, bottoms and edges in this, the sixth step of the coin-making process.

‘Ha, ha! I’m the rimming machine,’ a mischievous voice said as the special disc was tickled all over. The machine was a small, grey cube, much the size of a kitchen oven. ‘My job is to terrorise you all while I give you a raised edge on your top and bottom sides. That will protect the head and tail that will be stamped on you. I’m also inscribing letters onto your edge – that’s the part that tickles. It’s my little needles working away like fingers poking into ribs. Ha, ha, ha. I love tickling; it’s so much fun.’

‘Stop, stop,’ the special blank wailed. ‘This isn’t nice. It’s awful. You’re tickling me too much. You’re going to make me pass out.’

But there was no escape.

‘Oh, yes, about the letters I’m inscribing,’ the rimming machine continued. ‘All pound coins have letters on their edges. They make a sentence. You pound coins have different sentences on your edges, just as you have different imprints on your tail sides. The sentence on the edge will be Pleidiol Wyf I’m Gwlad. It’s Welsh so don’t ask me what it means. I haven’t got a clue. Okay, my job with you is done. I’ve written the gobbledygook and made the lines. Don’t you agree it was all nice and quick? I wish it could last a lot longer. I’d tickle you all year round if I could. Whoops! I forgot to put the apostrophe in ‘I’m’. Oh well, never mind. Accidents happen from time to time. It might add to your value. Collectors will pay a fortune for coins with mistakes on them. Now off you go. There are more machines that need to deal with you.’

The rimming machine released the discs, and they fell from a height and landed in the spinning machine – the seventh stage of the coin-making process.

‘Hold on tight,’ the spinning machine warned. ‘You’re in for the ride of