Girl with a Cowbell

When I was in kindergarten, one of my classmates visited a dairy farm with her family and brought back a small gift for each of us (we were a small class). It was a keyholder of a copper bell with a cute painting of a cow in white and pink. When I showed it to my parents back home, they told me that it was a miniature cowbell.

“A cowbell?”

“Yes, it’s a special bell that a cow wears so that he or she won’t get lost. It has a very large sound.”

I really loved my new cowbell keyholder, and put it on my yellow bag that I used to bring to my kindergarten. I wanted to hear the sound close to me every day.

When I entered primary school, I put the bell on my rose pink school bag. Every morning, as I walked to school, the cowbell made a loud sound, notifying everybody near and far that I was passing by. When I was late for school and running, the bell made an even louder sound. My friends would tell me that they knew where I was because of the bell, and that their mothers always learned about their arrival from the sound of my bell.

I kept carrying my cowbell keyholder on my school bag until the end of my middle school. As I entered my young adulthood, it no longer felt appropriate to walk around with such a loud sound of a bell.

I still remember that cowbell keyholder so vividly. To this day, it’s my favourite keyholder. Next time I visit my parents’ house, I would like to find it and try it on my bag just for a day to enjoy its sound again.