The Dollar Kids

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

  Sami nodded. “I’d predicted the same thing. And I figured I’d be with whichever girl was on the outs with Taylor, who is clearly the alpha girl. But Amber nabbed Dylan instead.” She shrugged. “Tribal impulse, I suppose.”

  Lowen raised his eyebrows. “You and I are from a different tribe from the others?”

  Sami nodded. She had a resigned look on her face. “There are the Millvillians and then there are the Dollar Kids.”

  The same segregation happened at lunch. Because the school was so small, elementary and middle school ate together, but the Millville kids sat with the kids they’d known all their lives. They joked about Fourth of July parties, and snow days, and the time that practically the whole town had come down with the flu together.

  That left one table for the Dollar Kids. While Diego Muñoz and Lily Grey entertained the table with silly stories, Lowen and Sami ate the food the younger kids refused to eat. Sometimes Dylan would pop over to their table for a moment and grab one of Meera’s discarded sandwiches. “Hey!” Meera yelled every time, but they could tell she loved it. She probably left food just so Dylan would steal from her. Other than Dylan’s sandwich stealing, though, no one crossed the Millville / Dollar Kid line — except Anneth. She sat between Corrine and Ruby, the two Millville girls who had befriended her after she’d been rescued from her room.

  Sami was jealous of Anneth’s ability to join in. She spent half the time glancing over at the Millville kids.

  “Did you have lots of friends in your old school?” Lily asked Sami.

  Sami sighed. “Not really. I didn’t fit in very well. I guess I thought Millville would be different.” And then, under her breath to Lowen, she said, “At least here, though, they think we’re all bizarro.”

  Lowen nodded, surprised by his own longing to be on the other side of the room. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be friends with Joey and Kyle — and certainly not with Dylan — but he didn’t like being excluded, either. He realized that in the past, his drawing had been his superpower, his ticket to acceptance. Kids admired it. Without it, he didn’t have anything to offer. No cool juice at all.

  Not only that, but the longer he and Sami were pushed aside, the more she counted on his friendship. And the more she looked to him for support, the more he felt like a poser. Again.

  The same week school started, Lowen had his first soccer practice. It was one of those strikingly beautiful fall days; the sky was somewhere between cornflower and cobalt blue, and a light breeze carried the scent of sun-dried grass. Lowen, in a pair of Clem’s hand-me-down shorts, congregated with the other boys on the soccer sidelines.

  The middle-school team included kids in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. A few of the eighth-graders seemed to be pointing Lowen out. One of them he recognized from that day he and Anneth were taunted coming home from Dollar Mart. He couldn’t tell if they were making fun of him now or if they were just remarking on his height. Either way, it made him wish he were anywhere but there.

  He tried to remember everything he learned by watching How to Become Great at Soccer fourteen times and practicing that one time in the parking lot, and hoped that his brain and muscles would cooperate. Perhaps he’d discover that he wasn’t half bad after all.

  Coach divided all of the kids into two teams, and Lowen put on a blue pinny as directed. It didn’t take long on the field before he realized that it’s one thing to dribble and kick a ball by yourself, and another thing entirely to race up and down a field for forty minutes with twelve other kids who are showing off their stopping, tapping, dribbling, juggling, passing, and power-shooting skills.

  At one point the ball came at him with the speed of a bullet. By the time he registered its approach and got himself in position to kick it, it was stolen by an opposing player.

  “Pass it to Grover again,” Coach called.

  The kid gave the ball one bounce, and then, after a couple of taps, dutifully kicked it in Lowen’s direction.

  As Lowen dashed toward the ball, a memory flashed: he and Abe racing home from the elm tree. As usual, he’d given Abe a twenty-count head start and then bolted. But when he turned the corner onto the street where they lived, Abe was nowhere in sight. Had he fallen? Hurt himself? How had he missed him? Lowen had turned and started to jog back toward school when he heard a gleeful “Ha! Ha!” Turning back around, he saw Abe sprinting, way ahead. He must have hidden behind a tree. Cheeky kid, as his mother would say.

  “Grover!” Coach yelled.

  An eighth-grader with red cleats had stolen the ball.

  Coach blew his whistle. “Pass it to Grover. Again.”

  The eighth-grader rolled his eyes and passed the ball in Lowen’s direction.

  Lowen shook his head. Concentrate! This time, he ran at the ball, turned his foot in, and kicked with as much force as he could muster. As Lowen’s foot flew up, slicing the sky, the rest of him followed: a rapid ascent, and a faster landing.

  He had only one thought before he hit the ground: he had completely missed the ball.

  Lowen opened his eyes to clouds, his ears ringing. Unfortunately, the clouds were quickly replaced by concerned faces that wanted to know if he was OK.

  Hands were held out to help him up, but Lowen didn’t take them. Instead, he rolled over and pulled himself to standing. As was typical in this town, adults who didn’t work all the time had begun to gather on the sidelines. They applauded when he stood.

  Which made him feel doubly ridiculous.

  Coach motioned for him to take a seat on the bench.

  That’s when he noticed Clem, on the sidelines, surrounded by his buds. His friends were laughing. Clem was not.

  When practice ended and the other kids gathered around Coach for a post-practice pep talk, Lowen jogged off the field and planned to keep right on going toward home. No way Coach would make him play now.

  “Hey, Grover!” Coach yelled. “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here!”

  Lowen hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do was go back.

  Everyone turned his way, watching, wondering what he was going to do.

  The air was still.

  Lowen took a breath and jogged back onto the field. He could feel all his frustration and embarrassment pressing against the backs of his eyeballs. Determined not to lose it, and thereby shame his brother further, he closed his ears to Coach. He did what he used to do in boring classes in Flintlock: he imagined the next scenes of his comic book. The limbo sequence with Abe and his killer immediately came to mind.

  Limbo.

  What would Abe do if he were face-to-face with the kid who shot him?

  He’d say something. That’s what Abe would do. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself. He always had something to say.

  But what? What would Abe say?

  Lowen’s lip curled at Abe’s wisecracking remark. He couldn’t help it. It was exactly the sort of thing Abe would say.

  Unfortunately, Lowen’s brain wasn’t able to come up with anything after that, and so Coach’s words started to penetrate.

  “You know that I can’t make any of you play. It’s your choice. But we’re counting on everyone. Without you, we don’t have a team.” Lowen could swear Coach was looking right at him.

  “And we need to appreciate anyone who shows up to be part of this team,” Coach continued. “If you’ve played on this team before — or on any team, for that matter — I expect you to help those that are new to the sport.”

  Lowen didn’t need to look around to know that eyes were rolling. And it was the same message: he couldn’t quit. If he did, he would jeopardize the program for everyone.

  He was completely miserable.

  As Lowen dragged himself off the field, Sami, who was as good as any eighth-grader on the team, caught up to him.

  “I can help you, you know.”

  “Huh?”

  “We could practice together.”

  “Thanks, but my brother’s offered to teach me,” he said.
r />   A total lie, but he was saying it for her own good.

  Lowen went directly from the soccer field to the Cornish Eatery. To his dismay, Sami had planned to meet her mother there, so she followed him, all the while telling him about the consignment store her mother was going to open. “We’ve done the business plan,” she said, “and it seems that given the distance of other clothing stores, the price of gas, and the need for folks around here to earn a little extra money — they get money for the clothes they bring in that we sell — it should be a sure bet. My mom wants me to study the psychology of store displays. You know, what kinds of things to put in the front of the store to lure people in, what types of things to put near the cash register to get people to buy more.”

  Lowen didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Sami carried the conversation all the way to the shop.

  “How did it go, love?” Mum asked when he walked through the door. The shop was closed, but Mum always stayed until the end of the workday. She and Rena were sitting at the table, an assortment of pasties spread out in front of them. Sami’s sisters were sitting in the front window playing some sort of clapping game.

  “Terrible.” Lowen chose a juice from the cooler. He grabbed a second drink for Sami.

  Mum got up and went over to him, ruffled his hair, and then recited the usual mother stuff about being proud of him and how he’d get better with practice. She led him back to her chair. “You must be famished. Try one of these.”

  Lowen took a bite of “chicken pot pasty.” “It’s good . . . really good,” he said with a full mouth, and it was true.

  “I’ve noticed,” Mum said, “that people around here like things that are, well, familiar and fear they won’t fancy foreign pasties. So I’ve decided to make pies that Millvillians have probably tasted before. Here, try this one.”

  The one Mum handed him was similar to the beef pasty she usually made, but it was made with hamburger rather than chunks of steak. And there was something soft. . . .

  “I used ground beef, mashed the potatoes, and added corn.”

  “Shepherd’s pie pasty,” Lowen said, smiling.

  “Try this one, Sami,” said Mum.

  Sami took a bite of her individual pie. “Yum!” she said. “It tastes like a sweet potato burrito!”

  “Exactly,” said Mum.

  “But how are you going to get the word out?” Lowen asked. “If no one comes into the shop, how will they know about the new flavors?”

  Mum smiled. Even though her shop had only had a few customers each day since it opened, and even though most of her customers were out-of-towners passing through on Highway 27, she still looked happier after a day in her own restaurant than she ever did after a long day of working as an assistant chef at Sonny’s.

  “You and Sami can take menus door to door,” she said.

  Sami shot Lowen an Is she kidding? look.

  Lowen sure hoped so. Enduring soccer practice was humiliation enough.

  Suddenly the door of the eatery opened and a man in a flannel shirt and a baseball cap came in. He was carrying a stack of papers.

  “I’m sorry,” Mum said. “We’re closed. I’ve already turned the oven off for the day.”

  “That’s OK ma’am,” he said. “I was just wondering if I could post a community notice on your bulletin board.”

  He was referring to an old board that was adhered to the outside of the building.

  “Sure,” Mum said. “What’s the event?”

  He held out the paper and she glanced down.

  Mum went white in the face.

  “No. No,” she said, flustered. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t allow it.”

  The man looked taken aback. “You can’t allow a notice about an upcoming class?”

  “Not if it involves guns,” she said.

  “But this is a gun safety class.”

  “I know,” she said. “You don’t understand —”

  The man turned. “You’re right, I don’t. Believe me, I won’t bother you again.” As he opened the door to leave, he muttered, “I doubt that many in this town will bother you at the” — he looked up at the sign — “at the Cornish Eatery.” The last three words were said in a snobby English accent.

  In every class Lowen had ever been in, one kid was treated as the mark. Maybe the kid did something to be singled out. But maybe he didn’t. Ganging up on one kid made everyone else feel normal, secure in the group. It was like Sami said: tribal impulse.

  Up until his arrival, Lowen figured, Dylan had been the outsider. He’d been the one who others jibed — either to his face or behind his back. But even though Dylan sometimes acted as if he were out to lunch, or followed others around like a puppy, he was darn good at soccer.

  And Lowen was not. Not by a long shot.

  He had already overhead Kyle saying to Joey, “Why does that kid talk so formal?”

  And Joey had responded with a toity accent: “His mother is British.”

  Now that Lowen had made a total fool of himself, in a place where probably every kid was born with ball-handling talent, he’d basically given his classmates a pass to ridicule him. He was the mark, and he had no one else to blame.

  Trudging to school the day after practice, he kicked a bottle cap and tried to predict the type of teasing that would come his way.

  The closer he got to school, the slower he walked, hoping to arrive just as the bell rang. Then he wouldn’t have to join the other kids waiting outside the door of the middle-school wing.

  No such luck.

  “Hey, Grover, don’t they have soccer where you come from?” Joey called out the moment Lowen set foot onto school property.

  Lowen took a deep breath, determined not to show weakness. “What’s it to you?” It was a retort often used by Globber Dog.

  “Just wondering,” said Joey, undeterred.

  “Those were some moves,” piggybacked Kyle, who was usually pretty quiet. Things were definitely bad if the quiet kid was joining in.

  Lowen shifted his backpack and feigned a look of surprise. “Don’t tell me you guys have never heard of distraction moves.”

  “Distraction moves?” asked Kyle, who turned to Joey as if to ask, Is there such a thing?

  “Oh, come on!” said Lowen with a slight smile. “The point was to surprise the other team, giving you a chance to run with the ball, Kyle.”

  “You meant to wipe out?” Kyle asked.

  Lowen rolled his eyes. “Duh! But you missed your chance. You could have gone all the way. Scored a goal.” He glanced at Joey.

  Joey smiled. Shazam!

  Lowen smiled back.

  “It was good of you to take one for the team, Grover,” said Joey.

  Lowen knew that Joey saw through his lies but appreciated his wit. It was probably the best possible outcome.

  An outcome that he couldn’t take full credit for, he thought while he was tossing his backpack into his locker. Because it hadn’t been his voice in his head that had come up with the “distraction technique” comeback. It had been Abe’s. Abe was quick like that, always taking the challenge, knocking others off guard.

  And at that moment, Lowen turned away from his classmates, his eyes stinging.

  Lowen couldn’t wait to get home from school. He was really looking forward to seeing Dad, who was coming for the weekend. Mum had borrowed Rena’s car and was picking him up at the bus station in Ranger.

  So the weird, clumsy feeling that came over him when he and his brother and sister came through the door and saw their father sitting at the kitchen table, a mess of papers — likely bills — spread out before him, surprised him.

  Maybe it was because he wasn’t used to seeing his dad in the Albatross. Or maybe it was because Dad looked so uncomfortable, leaning back in his chair, his smile a moment too late. Or maybe it was because Mum had jumped up from the table and darted to the dining room. Had she been crying? But whatever it was, it caused Lowen to stand back and wait for Clem and Anneth to say hel
lo first.

  Clem, suddenly shy, held back, too. Only Anneth raced over to hug their father and then slid into the chair beside him. “Look what I’ve been doing,” she said, taking out her laptop and bringing up her new YouTube channel.

  “Fashion tips, huh?” Dad said, but not with his full attention.

  “Well, not just fashion, Daddy. It’s about creating your own style by choosing clothes and repurposing clothes — very inexpensively — to become your own person.”

  “Play the video,” said Mum, moving back into the kitchen and sliding into a seat opposite Anneth.

  Anneth’s voice on the video sounded confident, authoritative: “Don’t think of your clothes as matching sets. Just because you bought the blue flowered top to go with your dark jeans, it doesn’t mean that you have to pair them every time. Instead, approach your closet with an open mind. What’s calling you? Your blue flowered top and your polka-dot skirt? Try them on! You’ll be amazed how many patterns look great together. Wear exactly what you feel like on any given day, and you’ll always be expressing who you truly are!”

  Dad leaned back. “Clever girl. It’s fine advice, Annie. You’ve got a talent for this sort of thing.”

  He looked up at Lowen. “What about you, Lowen? Have you drawn anything lately?”

  Lowen shook his head.

  “Not even your comics?”

  For a moment Lowen thought Dad was referring to the Abe comics, but he realized that he simply meant his Globber Dog series. “Nope,” he said, and moved out of the way so Clem could pull some leftover pasties and juice out of the refrigerator. “Too busy.”

  “But Lowen’s made the soccer team!” said Mum, with way too much enthusiasm. “He’s a proper sportsman.”

  “Everyone made the middle-school soccer team,” said Anneth.

  Dad still looked surprised — and maybe a little dubious, too.

  “It will be good for him,” said Mum. “He’ll be out in the fresh air, part of a team, learning new skills.”