The Dollar Kids

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

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  Acknowledgments

  Lowen was an artist. At three, he drew big fat heads with spindly arms and legs. At four, he drew vehicles: trucks and buses, but mostly police cars with lights on top. (He already knew to surround the lights with sunrays to indicate flashing.) By his sixth birthday, he preferred drawing people and animals (especially giraffes) in action. And by eight, he’d draw pretty much anything on demand.

  But from eight to eleven, things changed. Lowen spent every spare moment drawing comics. He loved the way a simple line (an arrow for a nose, for example) was all that was needed to convey the whole of a person. And how you hardly needed any words at all if the panel was drawn well. Whereas a picture or a portrait shows you everything, comics let you imagine other worlds filled with action and victory. Comics promised stories.

  When Abe died, part of Lowen died, too. For months he couldn’t sketch anything at all. He’d tried to return to the comics he’d been working on, but the minute he picked up the pencil, Abe’s voice — with imagined comments, questions, and suggestions — cut through his brain and strangled his heart.

  It wasn’t until months later, while lying in bed — casting about for ways to keep himself awake to avoid the nightmares — that he began to picture a new comic. Panel by panel he imagined the day Abe was killed. The panels came clearly, logically, like a movie in his mind, without extra thoughts or voices. While his older brother, Clem, was at basketball practice the next day, Lowen stole to their room and began to draw the comics he’d imagined.

  From then on, it was the only thing he’d allow himself to draw, and then, only privately. He’d chosen a new sketchbook (he always got one or two as birthday gifts) for the Abe comics, as he’d come to think of them, and he stored them between the mattress and the box spring at the end of his bed.

  He didn’t tell anyone about them. How could he? He couldn’t admit that he had been the one to send Abe to the store: not to his parents, not to his brother and sister, not to Mrs. Siskin (Abe’s mother), not to the counselor who insisted on playing a gazillion games of Battleship to earn his trust. When you can’t trust yourself to do the right thing, you certainly can’t trust others.

  The comics helped. He no longer felt choked by the guilt. But they did nothing to ease the sadness that quivered in his gut like a venomous snake, ready to spring at any moment. He turned himself into one of his comic book zombies so as not to wake the slithering thing that nested inside him, drifting through his classes, zoning out during lunch and recess.

  And then he discovered the dollar houses.

  He’d gone down to the lobby to retrieve the mail and there was Dad’s New Yorker magazine. His father had canceled his subscription years ago, but they kept on sending it anyway, which made the magazine seem mysterious and fun. Out of habit, he flipped through the magazine, searching for the cartoons (cartoons that he often didn’t understand, but liked studying anyway), and his eyes rested on the title of a brief article: Homes for Sale, One Dollar (and Heaps of Sweat). Such a thing seemed impossible, so when he finally reached the fourth floor (elevator broken again), he’d perched on the couch and read the whole thing. Apparently, lots of cities had tried this plan — and now a little town called Millville was doing the same. They were selling five completely run-down houses for one dollar each.

  He couldn’t tell much about the town from the article, just that it had been a mill town, the mill had shut down, and now the town was trying to save itself by bringing in new businesses and increasing the number of kids in their school. No matter. It seemed like an inviting place. It seemed like the kind of place that had never heard of the shooting at Georgio’s Grocery.

  It seemed like a way out.

  If they moved, he wouldn’t have to walk past the Siskins’ door every day. He would no longer be tricked into thinking that Abe was going to pop out at any minute. He would no longer have to hear Mrs. Siskin crying.

  His mum always said that you might not get what you want in life, but you often get what you need. The opportunity to buy a house for a dollar seemed like life was giving the Grovers exactly what they needed at the very moment they needed it.

  Even Mum had to agree. She’d longed for a house since she moved from a cottage in Cornwall, England, to live in the U.S. But here in Flintlock, a house was out of reach. Even a condo cost way more than they could afford. That, and she was tired of working as an assistant chef at Sonny’s, where her boss was never sunny. If they moved to Millville, they could not only afford an entire house (one dollar!), but she could open her own restaurant in one of the many vacant storefronts. Rent in the Millville business district, she discovered, was dirt cheap. She wouldn’t open a fancy restaurant; people in Millville were going through tough times and probably couldn’t afford things like beef Wellington (despite the fact that Mum made the best). She’d create what she called a take-out shop — food-truck fare without the truck! Suddenly the move seemed perfect.

  And his father? His big dream was bringing medical care to an underserved area. (Underserved, Lowen had learned, was often another word for “poor.”) Sure, as a physician’s assistant he had to be supervised by a full doctor, but how hard would it be to find a doctor to work with? His other big dream was to restore a home in need of love. Shazam! Two dreams in one.

  Clem was surprisingly open to the idea. As a three-season athlete who didn’t care for sitting on the bench, he reasoned that he’d get more playing time at a small school. It seemed to Lowen that it took no time at all for Clem to jump from more playing time to high-school star.

  His sister, Anneth — who was also older than Lowen, but younger than Clem — was the lone holdout. “I don’t want to move to some Podunk town away from everyone and everything I love,” she said. By everyone she meant her best friend, Megan.

  Despite Anneth’s objections, the Grovers decided to apply. After all, there was no sense in arguing when their chances of acceptance were as likely as winning the lottery.

  Lowen had looked over Mum’s shoulder as she wrote of her desire for an affordable house — her two sons were older now and needed rooms of their own, and she longed for a useful kitchen and an herb garden in the backyard. Then she’d paused and asked, “Is it OK if I tell them about Abe?”

  No! That was the last thing he wanted her to do. He wanted to move where no one had heard of Abe, where no one would identify him as a friend of one of those kids who got shot. But in the end she convinced him that telling the story of the random shooting might make their application stronger. If they were to have any hope of getting a dollar house, they needed to stand out from the hundreds or even thousands of other applications.

  “We’ll ask them to keep the information confidential,” Mum said.

  After racing to the mailbox every day after school; after saying a thousand prayers, even though, as someone who didn’t at
tend church, he wasn’t quite sure he was doing it correctly (or whether he was calling attention to his deservingness of punishment instead); after listening to Anneth tell him over and over that she was sorry about Abe, but really, they had all known him and the world did not revolve around Prince Lowen; after not drawing a single thing (not even a new Abe comic), their answer came in the form of a phone call.

  Ms. Duffey, a Millville town councillor (and the town librarian), called to congratulate them. They were being offered a house for one dollar.

  There was such surprise, such enormous delight when Mum shared the news around the family table, that Anneth didn’t even bother to state her case.

  They had done it! Their application had been accepted!

  There was one small catch, though: there would be a lottery to determine which family got which dollar house. The Grovers had pored over the pictures online, and their hearts were set on the only four-bedroom house among them, even though it was hard to tell how big the rooms were or where the four bedrooms were located. But they’d know more when they actually saw the houses on moving day. As Mum cautioned, “Pictures can be deceiving. We shouldn’t settle on any one house till we’ve had a chance to see them all in person.”

  To Lowen, the five-hour drive from Flintlock to Millville seemed like an eternity.

  Clem drove most of the way, in a borrowed royal-blue Toyota Camry. Now that they were moving to the country, he was determined to get his driver’s license. And since the Grovers didn’t own a car (absolutely no need for one in the city, Dad always said), the trip gave him the opportunity to practice. Most of the ride sounded like this:

  Dad: There’s a car coming up on your left.

  Clem: I see it, Dad.

  Dad: You’re slipping too far to the right. Careful!

  Clem: Dad, relax!

  Lowen was squashed in the backseat between Mum, who was all elbows as she tried to complete the paperwork for the house lottery, and Anneth, who kept sighing (that is, when she wasn’t texting Megan) and moving her butt from side to side to remind him that he had slipped off his allotted four inches of padding in the center. If he were to draw a thought bubble over her head, it would read, You have robbed me of my entire life!

  “Slow down, Clem!” Dad said. “You just passed it!”

  “Passed what?” Clem snapped. He’d reached peak frustration.

  Dad turned to look out the rear window. “Millville,” he said.

  “Just now?” Mum asked.

  “Mill was on the left, shops and houses on the right,” said Dad. “Just like we read online.”

  Anneth glanced back. “That was it?”

  Following instructions, Clem turned the car around in a Dollar Mart parking lot and rolled slowly back down Highway 27. They passed a home with a large TV dish attached to its front porch roof, and another where a woman in a bright-blue bathrobe was watering the flowers hanging from her mailbox. She lifted her arm to wave, but then let it drop when she didn’t recognize them.

  “Pull over here,” Dad said, and they parked on the same road they’d been traveling since they left the interstate, the same road that was, for less than a half mile, Millville’s Main Street. The family tumbled out of the sedan and onto the cracked sidewalk.

  “Megan is not going to believe this,” Anneth said as she videoed their first view of the businesses across the street.

  It was indeed the same village that they had seen online. But what the photos on the town website or on Google Maps didn’t show was the incredible . . . What was the word Lowen was looking for? Downtroddenness. Former stores and businesses were boarded up. And even those that were still in business — Roger’s Market, Donna Marie’s Antiques, and the Pub — were all in desperate need of paint. The spotty patches of grass in front of the stores needed mowing; the garbage needed picking up. The only things that weren’t battered were the American flags that waved from the telephone poles.

  “Let’s walk,” said Dad, reaching his hand out to Mum, who squinted at the buildings in front of her — the same way Lowen sometimes squinted when he was drawing and needed a different focus.

  Lowen didn’t budge. “What about the houses? The lottery starts in less than two hours and we haven’t seen any of them.”

  “We’ve got some time,” said Dad, pulling Mom along the sidewalk. “And I think we’d better explore. I know we came to a consensus, but once we’ve really seen this town, we might want to rethink our crazy plan.”

  Anneth brightened. “Really?”

  No! Lowen thought. He caught up. “Where will your shop be, Mum?”

  “Yeah,” said Clem. “Which building will have the sign that reads THE CORNISH EATERY?”

  Lowen shot his brother a look of gratitude, a look that Clem acknowledged with a wink.

  After much deliberation, Mum had decided to open a Cornish pasty shop like the one her parents had owned back in England. Cornish pasties were little hand pies — like turnovers, but savory instead of sweet. “I doubt the locals will have heard of pasties,” she admitted. “But they’re the very definition of comfort food, and that seems like a safe bet for a town where most people are down on their luck.” She arranged to rent space in the same building as a breakfast restaurant called the Busy Bee. It had faded red siding and looked like one of those square buildings with a flat roof in old Western towns — the kind of structure that would have swinging saloon doors. The Busy Bee was shut up for the afternoon, and the entire building was dark. The air smelled of burned grease.

  Mum’s shoulders slumped.

  “It just needs some love, Mum,” Lowen said with more enthusiasm than he felt.

  Mum smiled at him. “Some?” she quipped, and then added, “Everything looks so bleak.”

  The Grovers walked a few more blocks past a small post office, a cinder-block municipal building, and a little brick library before they reached Handy Hardware and the end of Main Street. This spot afforded them the best view of the mill, or what used to be a mill. Here again, what had looked proud and shiny on the website now looked decrepit. It was an enormous tangle of boxy structures, pipes, and vaporless smokestacks — a breathless giant. Behind the mill ran the Grand River, which had a kind of wet wool smell. A faded sign painted on a silo read ALWAYS BE CAREFUL. STOP ACCIDENTS BEFORE THEY STOP YOU. The snake deep in Lowen’s gut twitched its tail.

  The entire town had been built to keep that mill running, and now it was gone. It was gone and, apparently, so were most of the people.

  “Wow,” Clem said, turning back toward the town. “No shawarma, no movie theater —”

  “Shawarma?” Anneth interrupted. “There isn’t even a pizza place! And no clothing stores, either,” she added.

  Clem nodded. “No concert venue. No skate shop.”

  Was he siding with Anneth now?

  A woman and her three daughters approached them from across the street. Two of the girls were clearly younger than Lowen, but the oldest one, who wore red high-tops and had her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, seemed about his age.

  “Excuse me,” the woman asked. “Do you know where we might get some lunch?”

  Dad laughed. “Look at that! We’re already passing for locals!” He explained that they weren’t yet familiar with the town. Turned out, both families had come for the lottery. The Doshis were moving from a very small apartment in a big city with poor schools. At least that’s what Lowen caught from standing outside the circle while trying not to look at the girl who was trying not to look at him. Thought bubble above both their heads: Awkward.

  “Is there one house you’re hoping for?” Mrs. Doshi asked Mum.

  The one with four bedrooms, Lowen thought. He knew he wasn’t supposed to make up his mind till they’d seen the houses in person, but he was tired of sharing a room with the always sloppy, frequently stinking Clem. He practically gagged after each of Clem’s games — especially a basketball game.

  Mum shook her head. “We haven’t had a chance to see them yet.�
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  “You’re British!”

  Mum smiled. “And here I thought I was sounding more like a Yank every day! Do you have a house in mind?”

  “We do.” Mrs. Doshi smiled. “But I don’t want to influence you!”

  Dad started to ask questions about the homes, but the youngest Doshi, whom the sisters had called Meera, reminded her mother that she was starving, and Lowen used that moment to send the message that he was impatient to see the houses, and the two families broke off with the promise to see each other at the lottery. The girl, the one who was about his age, gave him a little nod like they were already buds, and that made him feel kind of, well, woolly-headed.

  As soon as the other family had popped into Roger’s Market, Clem said, “Too bad there isn’t a Cornish eatery in town. I bet that Meera would have liked her own little pie.”

  Mum laughed. “Let’s go find our dream house.”

  Lowen asked if he could hold the photocopy of the hand-sketched map the town had provided and direct them from dollar house to dollar house. It wasn’t hard; all of the houses were built on the hill behind Main Street. Whereas the streets back in industrial Flintlock meandered (paved cow paths, Dad called them), the streets in Millville were rolled out in a perfect grid. Those streets that climbed up from Main Street were named after trees: Cedar, Birch, Beech, Maple, Spruce, and Elm. The streets that crossed them were named after landmarks: Park, Church, Monument, School, and Forest.

  “Practical people, these Millvillians,” Dad said.

  They passed a dingy used-car garage as they headed up Maple.

  Anneth dragged herself up the hill. “This place is worse than I thought,” she said much too loudly.

  Lowen looked around to make sure that there was no one on the street within earshot, but there was no one on the streets, period.

  Truth be told, he had to revise his picture of Millville, too — something he’d done several times already. When Mum (who had done the Internet research) told him it was a rural town, he pictured majestic trees, green moss, and waterfalls . . . just like the valley in Bone, one of his favorite graphic novel series — only without the monsters. Then later, when Dad (who had been doing some research of his own) declared that the houses were not spread out like farmhouses in the country but were actually clustered, he pictured the kinds of homes that were shown in TV commercials — homes with sparkling glass doors that led to big backyards with swimming pools. He’d held on to this fantasy for a week or two before he peered over Mum’s shoulder when she was doing some additional investigating and realized he still had it wrong. (“I think you’re picturing suburbs,” Mum had said, “but there’s no city near this town.”) In fact, the houses were more like city houses in that they were fairly close together, each with its own small patch of yard.