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And you can guess the rest.

The 5 mark coin turned out to be a silver one. I still have it.

The knife was my secret for 3 years. Then I lost it in the forest. Some lucky boy has it now. I like to think it was found by a girl. And that if I find that girl, she will be my true love.

I used the pen until the ink dried out, then put it in my treasure box, but my brother stole it. Or his friends did.

And the Corporal came back holding a tray with five cups, a hospital medicine tray he'd filched off some cart in the hallway, and probably filched the medicines on it too, and the five cups were hospital medicine cups, these tiny things you drink cough medicine from. (unless you're like me and drink it from egg cups and coffee measures and spoons because you lost all your medicine cups)

And he saluted, standing like a waiter.

And the Sergeant said: "Well done, Corporal. Between you and Private Vandemar, I shall not win a single bet today!"

And I looked all sad. "I could drink five real cups, too! I did, yesterday!" I told him.

And he nodded, and touched my shoulder. "I'll take your word for it, Private, but today, you shall learn about Espresso."

And the Corporal told me what Espresso is.

And I tasted the coffee.

And it was Espresso, from the lobby machine.

They were all Espresso.

Paradise.

Kahvi.

Maladict.

Heaven!

"I'm glad I'm not going to die, Sir!"

And he touched my hair, tousled it, took off my headband and put it on the Corporal's head.

"Private Vandemar, I promote you to Corporal, and the rank is yours if you choose to enlist when you're 18. My word of honor as a Sergeant. Not on the day you enlist, of course, that'd just get you bullied. But once you've sorted out the Maze - I mean, Labyrinth - that is the Army, and found the Poisoned Cheese, and not eaten it, and mapped the location of all the sixteen mousetraps, and reported to the Sergeant in Paradise, then you will become a Corporal, and I will buy you five cups of Espresso again."

And he gave me the knife, and the coin, and the pen and notepad, and the things he gave all children in the hospital: Mc Donalds Army and Star Wars toys, and a Finnish Army tank, pocketsize, made out of wood. And a little medal made of pot metal, with the number 1 on it. Its ribbon was blue and white, colors of the Finnish flag.

I hid the coin under my pillow, put the toys on the bedside table, asked the Corporal to draw me a picture of the three of us, gave him the notepad and the pen, and started opening the blades of the Finnish Army Knife.

The Sergeant watched me test each blade for sharpness. He watched me destroy a hospital medicine cup with the corkscrew, another one with the scissors, yet another one with the nail file, fourth one with the tool for removing stones from horse's hooves, and the fifth one with the two screwdrivers.

Finally, grinning, I told him: "Thank you, Sir!"

And he said Sergeants aren't called Sir.

And I told him that from now on the Corporal would have to call him sir, or else he'd have to wear my pink headband back to HQ.

The Corporal hurriedly put the headband back on my head, messing my hair while doing so, and said: "Yessir, Corporal Vandemar, Sir"

And then it was time for them to go see the other little patients. But nobody else in the whole ward got knives or pens or notepads or a lucky silver coin. Not even the terminal cancer ones. Each child earned five marks from the sergeant, each child got a drink from the hall machines, each child showed them pictures they'd drawn.

Yrjö, a terminal case named after St George, was my best friend. He told me the five marks he got would be his lucky coin from now on.

One night, while he slept, I swapped his five marks with my silver one.

The next night, he swapped them back.

It became our chief mission, and we were both Heroes and Corporals, but sometimes I was a Sergeant.

And we drew pictures of Doctor Hitler at our Double Funeral.

And I drew a picture of us grown up and getting married.

We were both wearing uniforms. I was a Sergeant and Yrjö was a Commander. heart

Yrjö's funeral was in 1995.

I wore a wedding dress. It was all black, but I had bought it from a wedding dress shop.

I was 14.

I was also rich.

Also, it might be worth setting up a few contests, as it will hopefully encourage people to be more active in the clan.