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The high price of friendship

The Rightful Finder

Lize Spit

In his village in De Kempen in Flanders, eleven-year-old Jimmy is not exactly the most popular of boys. At school he’s the cleverest, but also the loneliest in the class. He lives with his mother, who is bitter after Jimmy’s father left. He finds comfort in collecting. Jimmy dreams of becoming famous with his collection of ‘flippos’, round plastic discs that were hidden in bags of crisps in the 1990s, which he neatly organises in folders. All the money he manages to collect through finding and keeping small change goes towards buying these bags of crisps.

Flawless, exciting, topical and moving *****
NRC Handelsblad

Jimmy’s luck changes when a new boy arrives in the class. Tristan Ibrahimi is a refugee from Kosovo and, as if by chance, he sits next to Jimmy on the school benches. With the same fanaticism as he applies to his flippos, Jimmy throws himself into coaching Tristan. He is befriended by the large Ibrahimi family and, as well as a second home, he finds a purpose in life there: for the first time, he means something to other people. But although Jimmy devotes himself manically to his new mission, it soon becomes clear that he is not so concerned about the Ibrahimis’ refugee trauma.

If this doesn’t get you to read, you might as well give up.
De Morgen

When the family receives a deportation letter ordering them to leave Belgium almost immediately, Tristan thinks up a plan in which Jimmy will play a crucial role. How far is Jimmy prepared to go for this friendship?

Born storyteller Lize Spit unfolds the plot of this novella in a way that makes it extremely exciting. ‘The Rightful Finder’ is topical and moving. With her humorous and empathetic pen, the author has managed to make Jimmy into an unforgettable central character.