The Dollar Kids

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

  As the Grovers climbed toward the first house, two boys passed them on bicycles. One zigzagged from the left side of the street to the right on a bike that was too small for him.

  Mum sighed. “No helmets?”

  Two blocks up, they reached the park. It was a grassy space with a bandstand in the center, but no trees or duck ponds or running trails. The two boys had thrown down their bikes near the bandstand and were patting a dog that seemed to be wandering on its own.

  Clem stopped and nodded to their right. “There’s one!” he said. “That’s a dollar house.”

  “Easy to spot,” said Anneth, “despite the fact that every single house on these streets looks the same.” She started to take pictures, but Dad told her to put her phone away. People lived in those homes.

  Anneth was right. The houses around the perimeter of the block-wide park were all the same type. If Lowen were to sketch one, he’d begin with the roofline. Each one had a triangular roof, just like the ones little kids make when drawing a house. Below the roofline were two windows. Below the two windows was a porch roof. Some of the houses had an open porch; others had a three-season room with windows. Most were a faded grayish white. And maybe because the windows had lost their shine, or maybe because the porches drooped, or perhaps because they all had funny additions to the backs or sides, Lowen thought of them as granny houses.

  “They’re mill houses,” Dad said. “Probably all built by one or two builders at the same time the mill was being constructed.”

  “They’re all the same design, but if you look closely, each one is unique,” Mum said. “Look at those two houses. The one on the right has windows that are close together, like a picture window. The house on the left has windows that are far apart —”

  Like eyes, said a familiar voice in Lowen’s head. Spooky eyes. Abe’s voice. Lowen shook his head to dismiss it.

  “But the dollar house is clearly the most different,” said Anneth, who let the house do the rest of the talking for her.

  It was a total wreck. What once was grass was now a tangle of weeds. The wooden front steps had gaping holes. The gray paint peeled, and in some places there was bare wood with visible rot. Shingles were curling off the roof. Toward the back was a garage; the door was partially open and crooked. No doubt it was stuck.

  Lowen imagined the child who might have lived in the house years ago. He pictured him dropping his bike on the lawn and racing inside while the tires still spun. He saw him sitting on the open front porch, munching on a cold cherry Popsicle, watching people go by. For a moment he thought, I could be that kid.

  But then he glanced at the tall grass and the sagging porch and he felt tired. Perhaps he couldn’t be that kid. Perhaps he was already too old.

  “We knew the houses wouldn’t be pretty,” Dad said.

  Mum used her fingers to pull her dark hair off her face. “Yes, but I didn’t think they would be so depressing. How are we going to meet the requirement with you still in Flintlock?”

  Dad was the only family member who had not come prepared to stay in Millville that night. He and Mum agreed that it would be better if he didn’t give up his job at the hospital right away. For the first three months or so, he’d keep making money back in the city — money that could go toward home repairs. As Mum reminded them often, all applicants for dollar houses had to have at least three kids (to keep Millville Central School running) and agree to upgrade and maintain their house for both safety and appearance. Each house had been inspected and came with a long list of changes that had to be made within one year, or the final sale would not occur.

  Of course they met the first requirement (though only because Mum and Dad refused to let Anneth stay back in the city with Dad), but the enormity of the second requirement was sinking in.

  The front door opened. “Hello!” called a round, beaky woman who reminded Lowen of a hen. She introduced herself as Mrs. Corbeau, owner and chef of the Busy Bee. “Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you? We lock up in ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes?” Mum asked.

  “Yes. It’s in the instructions. The houses are available for viewing until one o’clock.”

  Mum and Dad exchanged a look. How had they missed that? “But the lottery doesn’t start until two.”

  “True,” said the woman. “But we do need lunch before the lottery begins, you know. The other families arrived early this morning.” Mrs. Corbeau eyed Mum closely. “You’re the woman who’s opening the pastry shop, aren’t you?”

  “It’s actually a pasty shop —”

  Dad stepped forward. “Surely there’s a way you could let us view the homes. After all, it’s a big decision.”

  “Sorry. The rules are the rules. Next time I suggest you read your instructions more closely.”

  Mum shot them an apologetic look.

  “You better come in,” said the woman. “Stop wasting your ten minutes. At least you can see this house. The others don’t look that different. Not really.”

  “What about the one with four bedrooms?” Clem asked.

  The woman waved her hand as if it were of little consequence. “Just picture this one with another bedroom tacked on somewhere.”

  The Grover family stepped up onto the open porch and through the front door. To the left was a living room with a filthy green carpet and stained and torn flowery wallpaper. Thought bubble above Anneth’s head: Gross!

  Lowen had to agree. A dark dining room with once fussy but now tattered curtains served as the connector to a crumbling kitchen with pink cabinets. He pictured the woman who might have cooked in this kitchen when it was first built — someone with rosy cheeks and strawberry-blond hair swirled upward like whipped cream. She wore a pink apron and baked raspberry cupcakes topped with pink icing. Where had she gone?

  Today, the pink paint had worn off most of the doors. The room smelled distinctly of cat litter.

  Mrs. Corbeau led the way upstairs and bustled them through three bedrooms and a bath.

  When they returned to the lower floor, the woman placed her hand on Lowen’s shoulder (no doubt she would have put her hand on his head if he weren’t so tall for his age) and said to him, “Won’t it be lovely for your family to have your very own home? One away from the big city? And how fortunate that Millville is selling this to you for only one dollar!”

  Had she read the application? Was this her way of telling him she knew his story? Whether she had or not, Lowen knew that what she was expecting at this moment was a thank-you . . . and that confused him. All he could do was nod.

  Then she pushed them all out the front door and said, “The lottery starts promptly at two at Central School. Don’t miss that!”

  As they watched Mrs. Corbeau walk away, the reality of what the Grovers were doing seeped in. They would be starting over in a new town — a town that offered none of the old comforts of Flintlock. Not only that, they’d be responsible for fixing up a revolting house — something that seemed fun while poring over online pictures, but not so fun when standing in the middle of a moldy, run-down, cat-litter-smelling dump.

  Anneth looked at Dad expectantly.

  “We’d lose the money we put down on the shop,” Dad said.

  Mum nodded. “And, according to the lease, six months’ more rent.”

  Dad scrunched his face the way he always did when he was dealing with a potentially bad situation. “Not to mention all the equipment you ordered.”

  Anneth jumped in. “You can return it, can’t you?”

  Mum and Dad shared a look. Lowen pictured their combined thought bubble: Maybe we could just cut our losses. . . .

  Suddenly Lowen knew that as dismal as this town looked, as hard as fixing up a dollar house would be, he did not want to drive back to Flintlock, where absolutely nothing would have changed. “We’ve come all this way. Let’s at least go through with the lottery,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and get the four-bedroom house. And maybe it won’t be in as rough shape as this one. Besides,” h
e said, and turned to his dad, “you’re always talking about how rewarding it would be to fix up a home ‘in need of love.’ We can’t give up without even trying.”

  Mum smiled at him and Dad pulled him into a hug. “Lowen’s right. When did this family lose its sense of adventure?”

  Clem, who was busy watching a group of teenagers that had gathered on the other side of the park, shrugged.

  Anneth glared at Lowen. “Whatever the prince wants,” she said.

  The Grovers raced around town to look at the exterior of the remaining four houses. Both 29 Cedar and 18 Pine had very small lots (no room for an herb garden), and 32 Elm was the farthest distance from school and Mum’s shop. Their quick tour was reinforcing their original assumption — the four-bedroom would be the best for them.

  “There it is!” Lowen said as they started to climb Beech Street. It was a yellow house built around the same time as the others, and as Lowen had hoped, the porch was open — no windows, no screens. But whereas the other houses had just two windows above the porch roofline, the Grovers’ house had two smaller windows above those.

  “Maybe the fourth bedroom is on the third floor,” Clem said. “I call it!”

  “The houses next door — at least the one on the corner — look nice,” said Mum. It looked better cared for than any of the other homes they’d seen so far. It was nicely painted, and the lawn was manicured. Flowers hung from the porch.

  “But what if everyone wants this house?” asked Anneth. “What if we get a high number and the four-bedroom is the first to go?”

  What Anneth said was true. The odds were against getting the one and only house they wanted. They decided that rather than climbing all the way up to 11 Beech, they’d head to the library to check out the interior of the houses one last time and make a list.

  Unfortunately, the library closed at noon on Saturdays. Anneth (who had retrieved her laptop from the car) found that she could still get online without a password while on the granite steps. So they sat right there and did their best to examine pictures that took a long time loading.

  A couple heated disagreements ensued over which was nastier: fake brick paneling or torn wallpaper? Cracked bathtub or greasy grime at the edges of a curling linoleum floor? A duct-taped window or a hole in the wall? They decided on the houses in this order:

  1) 11 Beech Street: Four bedrooms, two bathrooms

  2) 18 Pine Street: Rooms painted in neon yellow, orange, and hot pink; cracked tub

  3) 32 Elm Street: A dark house with grape leaves carved into the kitchen cupboards and fake brick paneling on the walls

  4) 4 Maple Street: Horrible carpet, torn wallpaper, and dirty-litter-box smell

  5) 29 Cedar Street: Heaps of ugly furniture and garbage bags filled with who-knew-what left in every room (Why didn’t they clean them out before taking the pictures?)

  Then they headed up to the school to seal their fate.

  Lowen expected the school to look much like the six elementary schools in Flintlock: tall, imposing structures with cement steps leading to many heavy doors. Instead, this one, located at the very top of the hill, was a squat, one-story brick building with windows that presumably snaked around all sides. He was going into sixth grade, Anneth eighth, and Clem was going to be a junior in high school, but they’d all be attending classes in this one building.

  Outside, congregating around the gym doors, were small groups of people of all ages, chatting. For a moment Lowen thought they were other families come to participate in the lottery, but the crowd was too big. Too big and too familiar with one another. It took another moment for Lowen to realize that unlike any group in Flintlock, there were no faces of color. He wondered how the Doshis felt about that.

  When they entered the gym, Lowen braced himself for more disrepair, but unlike the gym in his old school — a multipurpose room that had a rolling wooden floor with a faded painted bear in the center, and frayed basketball nets — this one had a bright polished floor, a massive digital scoreboard, and walls lined with championship banners. He caught a whiff of new varnish. Clearly, here in Millville, sports were king. Clem would be happy about that.

  The Grovers wove their way to the front of the gym where risers had been set up to create a platform. There were five easels on the stage; each one held a poster board with the floor plan and photographs of a house. The plans intrigued him, but Lowen wasn’t ready to be quite so visible.

  “I’ll let them know we’re here,” Mum said, stepping up to talk to someone official.

  Dad led the rest of the family toward rows of folding chairs where the Doshis and a few other families — who looked considerably more nervous than the people hanging out by the door — were mingling. Before they reached them, though, Clem broke off and headed in his own direction.

  Mrs. Doshi smiled. “Nice to see you again!”

  A small woman turned toward Dad and held out her hand. “Eden Kelling, from Wichita. This is my wife, Kate,” she said, introducing a taller woman with short blond hair. “And our rug rats are around here somewhere.” Eden looked around the gym with an unconcerned smile.

  “All the way from Kansas?” Dad asked.

  Eden nodded. “I flew commercial planes out of Eisenhower; now I’ll fly hunters and fishermen from the Granger into the more remote territories. Kate —”

  Just then, Kate reached down to grab a speedy toddler.

  “Kate, otherwise known as the woman with three arms,” Eden kidded, “is a computer programmer and can work from anywhere.”

  “I’m also something of an amateur contractor,” Kate added, tickling the little boy she held in her arms and making him giggle. “I’m looking forward getting my hands dirty!”

  “And who are these guys?” Dad asked, crouching to stop a matching toddler from doing a face-plant in front of him.

  “This is Logan,” Kate said, “and that’s Ben. Our other son, Mason, is over there.”

  Lowen followed her gaze and spotted his brother on the other side of the gym. Clem had already found a bunch of kids his own age. Mostly Millville kids, he guessed, though one of them must be Mason. They were staring at the championship sports banners that lined the ceiling and laughing. No doubt Clem had thought of something funny to say.

  “How do you tell them apart?” Anneth asked.

  Lowen turned back to the Kellings. His sister had a point: the toddlers were identical.

  “It was almost impossible when they were babies,” Kate said, “but we’ve gotten so that we can pretty reliably tell which is which.”

  “And if that fails, Logan has a small scar above his left eyebrow.” Eden laughed. “The silver lining of having such rambunctious toddlers!”

  Anneth leaned in to see.

  As Dad introduced himself to the Greys, who were from Honolulu, Lowen’s heart sank. The Greys were a family of six. They had two parents, three kids, and one grandfather. No doubt they also wanted the house with four bedrooms. Lowen felt irrationally resentful of them, even though they seemed nice enough; why would anyone move from Hawaii to a small town thousands of miles away that routinely dropped below zero degrees in the winter?

  “Do you feel like a lab rat?” someone asked. It was the oldest Doshi girl, the one in the red high-tops. Suddenly she was standing next to him.

  “What?” Lowen asked.

  She bounced on her heels. “It’s like we’re pawns in a behavioral experiment, you know?”

  Lowen’s brain scrambled for a response, but he’d had no practice in talking about behavioral experiments, and even less practice talking to girls.

  Thankfully, a man in shorts and hiking boots stepped in from behind. “You must be Lowen Grover and Samina Doshi, right?”

  “Sami,” the girl said. “Everyone calls me Sami.”

  “I’m Coach Walker,” he said. “We’re sure glad you’re here. I’m looking forward to both of you participating on our sports teams.”

  “I’m in,” Sami said. “Do you have a forward on your gir
ls’ soccer team?”

  “Coed team,” Coach corrected. “Around here schools are small; middle-school boys and girls play together. But the forward position is open; I’ll be eager to see what you bring.”

  “Are you the soccer coach and the basketball coach?” Sami asked.

  “Middle- and high-school soccer, basketball, and baseball.”

  “What, no football?” Lowen kidded.

  “No football,” Coach said seriously. “Too risky. Our enrollment is so small that most of our athletes play three seasons. I don’t want my players injured before basketball season.”

  “Well, my brother, Clem, plays all those things,” Lowen said. “He’s over there, if you want to talk to him.”

  “What about you?” Coach asked. “Which sports do you play?”

  “I’m not really into sports,” Lowen admitted, aware of Sami watching him closely.

  “Well, you will be soon!” Coach said enthusiastically. “Without everyone’s participation, we won’t have teams. We’re counting on you, Lowen.”

  Lowen’s brain raced for a reason to refuse: I have a very rare and serious heart condition. My left foot is actually situated where my right foot should be. I break out in hives the size of golf balls when I play sports. . . .

  But Coach didn’t seem to expect a response. “And now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ve got to get this lottery started.” He crossed the gym and hopped up on the staging, then took his place behind a table.