The Amazing Adventures of 4¢ Ned (Coinworld: Book Two)

by Benjamin Laskin

  As a single flame was all that was necessary to obtain an audio connection, wicks and oil were most commonly used. However, depending on the bullion base’s locale and its isolation, in times of drought or snow when a sacred reflecting pool was unavailable, coins sometimes employed tiny bonfires which also provided a low grade visual connection. In the case of bonfires, Lincolns led teams of beetle-drawn sleds with kindling to the fires.

  Igniting fires became much simpler around the time Pete went missing. A clever and talented ’53 Roosevelt dime at the Grand Canyon Bullion Base named Damian Dime had learned how to animate the torch depicted on his reverse side. Best of all, the torch could be used as a walkie-talkie, allowing Coin Raiders in the field to keep in contact with their respective bases. Roosevelt dimes suddenly became almost as valuable as eagle-bearing coins. Newly recruited Roosevelts were sent to Damian at the Grand Canyon base for training.

  Deirdre sidled up beside Ned. “Welcome back, Four. We’ve missed you.”

  “It’s good to be back,” Ned said, his eye trained on the sacred reflecting pool. “Six months felt like six years.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but he still hasn’t checked in.”

  Ned turned away from the silent pool, and sighed. “If I at least knew Pete’s general whereabouts I could go looking for him.”

  “Four,” the chief said, “you can’t go looking for every stray coin out there.”

  Ned flashed the chief a bitter scowl. Deirdre and Two Loons exchanged surprised glances. They never saw Ned angry before.

  The chief didn’t flinch. “If we hear anything, even the smallest rumor, I will go after him myself. You have my word, Four.”

  Ned relaxed his glare, and nodded.

  Deirdre said, “That was a good haul you brought back, but we weren’t expecting you until next month. If Franny wasn’t with you, why didn’t you drop the new recruits at the Appalachian base? It was a lot closer to Knoxville than here.”

  The chief said, “Because we have a new problem.”

  “You know?” Ned asked.

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be the chief, would I?”

  “You had another vision?” Ned asked hopefully. He knew that the Coinim hadn’t appeared to the chief for over a year, and they really could use an update.

  The chief nodded. “Why didn’t you come to me immediately, Four?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to worry, and because I wanted to do a little investigating before I did.”

  “Learned of what? Investigate what?” Deirdre asked. She shot the chief a disapproving and insulted eye. “And how come you didn’t mention a new vision to me?”

  “Yeah,” Two Loons said, “what’s going on here? Are we a team or aren’t we?”

  “Of course we are,” Ned answered. “It’s my fault, I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

  The chief’s bison, Buffalo, snuffled his derision.

  Ned didn’t have to speak buffalo to get it. He had learned over the years that Buffalo was an exceptionally bright bison, and that among the many talents he possessed was an excellent bull-detector.

  “Before we met you guys,” Ned explained, “the chief and I had an encounter with a particularly nasty collector. In fact, if it weren’t for him I’d never have met the chief, so I suppose I ought to thank the guy. Anyway, that meeting was followed by an even closer encounter.”

  “You saw him a third time?” Deirdre asked.

  “In April, back in LA. He had me and Cody in the palm of his hand, literally. If Hannah hadn’t swooped in and rescued us, there’s no telling where we’d be.”

  “Three times,” Two Loons said. “That’s not a coincidence. Numismatists aren’t usually that aggressive, are they?”

  “A four-cent nickel,” Deirdre reminded him. “The only one in existence. Ch-ching.”

  “He knows something about coins,” Ned said, “but he claimed he’s a detective, a private investigator working a case.”

  “You don’t believe him?” Deirdre asked.

  “I believe him, but I think I’m the only case he’s ever been interested in.”

  Two Loons said, “The human knows?”

  Ned nodded. “If he wasn’t sure before, he is now.”

  “No one would believe him,” Deirdre said. “People believe a lot of ridiculous things, but Coinworld, never.”

  “He’s not out to expose Coinworld,” the chief said. “He’s out to capture The Four. At least for now.”

  “Well, there’s not going to be a fourth time. Four,” Deirdre commanded, “you’re grounded.”

  The others laughed. They admired the devoted dime, and knew Deirdre packed a lot of dynamite in her tiny diameter, but they also knew that there was no way Ned would stay put on Coin Island—not with Franny and Pete still out there, and not with a world that needed saving.

  “Chief,” Ned said, “that ‘for now’ part, does it have something to do with your last vision?”

  “I’ve learned that one reason I don’t receive many visions is because they require time to unfold. As you know, we understand what we’re ready to understand, and the year reveals much that our days never knew.”

  “Did your vision speak of the collector?”

  “More than one,” the chief answered, “but I didn’t see them all. Did the man look the same as before?”

  “Basically, yeah. A different mustache, different rumpled clothes, different hat, but I recognized him immediately.”

  “Hmm,” the chief said. “I didn’t see him.”

  “But, of course,” Deirdre declared. “You saw the future when the man would be much older. You probably didn’t recognize him. That’s good news. It means we still have much time.”

  “That may be so,” the chief replied, “but the man The Four and I are talking about has beady black eyes. I’d remember those eyes. In my vision I saw pale-blue eyes.”

  “A blue-eyed man?”

  “I didn’t say he was a man. I felt we were being watch by pairs of blue eyes. They weren’t scary eyes like those that belonged to the collector. They were youthful, powder-blue eyes.”

  “Pairs?” Deirdre said, “You mean more than one person?”

  “So it seemed. Possibly a boy and girl, a young man or young woman.”

  “Did they mean us harm?” Deirdre asked.

  “To be honest, I wasn’t sure. I sensed both pairs of eyes were intelligent and shrewd. It’s hard to explain, but I felt a certain mistrust between them, but both were certainly interested in Coinworld.”

  Ned, Deirdre, and Two Loons exchanged baffled glances. What could it mean?

  Ned asked, “What else did you see, Chief? Besides the spooky blue-eyed business, I mean. More plastic? More strings of numbers? Anything related to the disappearance of Coinworld?”

  The chief stared off distantly and clenched his lips in recollection. “Machines,” he answered. “Many, many machines, and many excited men.”

  “What kind of machines?” Two Loons asked. “Cars? Planes?” He gulped. “Tanks or missiles? And the men, were they armies?”

  The chief shook his head. “Nothing like that. Civilian men, many in suits and ties. They were staring at—I’m not sure what they were looking at—but some resembled television sets, and others more like movie screens. They were all over the place, big ones that hung on walls like paintings, and smaller ones on desks, and even smaller ones that fit in the palm of their hands. It was, well, amazing.”

  “Did you see what had their attention?” Deirdre asked.

  “No, but whatever it was it seemed very important to them. This is what I mean. We don’t have the experience or knowledge to understand it now, but one day we will. We must stay vigilant and keep it in mind.”

  “What were the people doing with these machines, Chief?” Ned asked. “Were they interacting with them in some way?”

  “It seemed so, but it was very strange. They wiggled their fingers a lot.”

  Deirdre said, “Mayb
e they were typing.”

  “Some looked to be typing, yeah, but others held weird palm-sized objects in one hand that they moved around on a desk. Others just swung and tapped their fingers on a plate of glass. Oh, and lots of little colorful flags and fruit.”

  “How utterly bizarre,” Deirdre remarked, mystified.

  “Were the blue-eyed people among them?” Ned asked.

  “Not in this part of the vision. The visions are more like snapshots or puzzle pieces. The scenes rarely run for more than a few seconds.”

  “I’m stumped,” Two Loons said. “The Coinim are as cryptic as ever. Why can’t they just spell it out for us once in a while?”

  “Maybe they’re not allowed to,” Ned said.

  “Why the heck not?” Deirdre groused. “We’re talking about the fate of the world.”

  “Universe,” Two Loons said.

  “Universe.”

  “Maybe universes,” Two Loons said, sorry.

  “Oh, for goodness sakes,” Deirdre said, exasperated. “Coinworld. Coinworld is all I care about.”

  “Chief,” Ned asked hesitantly, as if he were afraid of the answer, “did you see Pete anywhere in your vision?”

  Iron Tail shook his head regrettably. “But that doesn’t mean anything. The Coinim rarely reveal our faces or actions. You know that.”

  “Yeah,” Ned muttered. He turned back to the reflecting pool and concentrated his mind.

  A pond skater had landed on the surface while the coins were talking. The long-legged water strider skimmed along the perimeter of the bowl creating tiny ripples. Other than that, the waters remained silent. Ned picked up no picture; no sound; no contact of any kind.

  “Brave Fire Shadow,” he said to the 1920 Indian nickel that was monitoring the station, “is the CBS always so quiet?”

  “Busier every month, Four. Don’t worry. If the penny makes contact, I will send a messenger to you immediately.”

  Just as Ned was about to turn away, a familiar face waved over the skater’s ripples.

  5

  mission improbable

  “Ned! I’ve missed you. How are you?”

  It was a pretty face, and it belonged to Darla Dime.

  Ned smiled. “I’ve missed you too, Darla. Is everything okay? Where are you?”

  Her glee at seeing Ned sagged into grief. “I’m okay, but we sustained major casualties.”

  Deirdre saw Ned’s concern and turned to the reflecting pool and tuned in. The chief and Two Loons joined them.

  Darla Dime continued. “Coin Team Eight just arrived at the Grand Canyon base. During our mission we redeemed seven coins, five with eagles. Unfortunately, we lost seventy-six cents on the way back—two Washington quarters, two dimes, a nickel, and a penny.”

  “A hawk?” Two Loons said.

  Darla nodded. “Two of them. They came out of nowhere. We’d have lost the entire team if Kipp Quarter hadn’t lured the birds into a side canyon away from the rest of us. He never came back out.”

  “Kipp,” Ned sighed, as if the name said it all.

  Kipp Quarter joined the coin resistance two years earlier when Ned and Hannah Half Dollar swiped the 1950 Washington quarter from a lunch counter in a greasy spoon in Topeka, Kansas. It wasn’t part of a planned mission.

  Ned had spotted the shiny coin through the street window when he and Hannah were flying past. A customer exited at the same time, and Ned told Hannah to shoot inside. It was a dangerous thing to do, but Ned felt drawn to the quarter, and he had been learning to trust his wampum.

  As soon as Ned and Hannah flew over to him, the quarter’s face brightened and he said, “The Four! You’re The Four!” He looked up at Hannah and smiled broadly. “And you, you must be his Nifty Fifty.”

  “Nifty Fifty?” Hannah said.

  “That’s what they call you on the street.”

  “You know of us?” Ned asked.

  “Rumors like everyone else, but I’ve always believed you were for real.”

  “Why?” Hannah asked.

  The quarter shrugged. “I wanted to believe, that’s all.”

  “What’s your name, coin?” Ned asked.

  “Kipp. Kipp Quarter.”

  Hannah said, “Ned, we’re attracting attention. We have to get out of here, now.”

  “Take me with you!” Kipp pleaded. “I want to help.”

  “You don’t even know what it is we are doing,” Hannah said.

  “Saving Coinworld. What else could it be? I can help.”

  Ned nodded up towards Hannah and she plucked up the quarter with her free talon. Just as three excited children rushed over to catch them, Hannah flew into the kitchen and out a hole in the screen door to the alley beyond.

  They dropped Kipp at the Badlands Bullion Base, the closest base back then. Lucky for Kipp, Pete Penny happened to be stationed there for three months at that time. Ned placed Kipp under Pete’s tutelage. The two coins hit it off immediately, and Pete taught the quarter everything he knew. Kipp proved a quick study, and he soon went on to earn a reputation for grit and derring-do.

  “He’ll be missed,” Ned said solemnly.

  “What happens to coins captured by birds anyway?” Deirdre asked. “I doubt they eat them, especially big coins like quarters.”

  “No one knows,” Two Loons answered. “We only know the coins are never heard from again. They are probably left stranded far from civilization.”

  “If that is so,” Ned said, cheering considerably, “then knowing Kipp Quarter, I will wager we have not heard the last of him.”

  “Darla,” the chief said, “how soon can you get here? We need to powwow.”

  “Is it urgent? The Grand Canyon base is about five dollars short of staff as is.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t,” the chief replied gruffly.

  “Yes, Sir,” Darla said. “Of course.”

  “Who’s your best pilot over there? I mean, now that Kipp is…unavailable.”

  “That would be a half dollar named Hazel.”

  Deirdre spoke up. “Hazel has only been flying with us for nine months.”

  “Hazel is a competent pilot. She’s fast, and other than Kipp, has logged more miles than any other eagle-backed coin on the base. She has my full confidence.”

  “Very well,” Deirdre said. “Who do you recommend leaving in charge while you’re away?”

  Darla waited conspicuously long to answer.

  “Darla,” Deirdre said, “do you read me?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Damian Dime. I suppose I’d have to say Damian.”

  “Our ’53 Roosevelt go-getter?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. The same.”

  “A brash bit, and a little sharp about his reeded edges, but geniuses often are. Learning to animate the torch on his reverse side was a great coup for us.”

  Ned said, “If we had had that know-how before Pete went missing, he might have been able to use a Roosevelt torch to contact a base’s fire watcher.”

  Deirdre nodded regrettably. Just a week earlier, one of the rolling walkie-talkies had saved a raiding team in Omaha from near disaster. As there was no water nearby, their captain, a young penny named Pedro, used their Roosevelt’s torch to get a message to a fire watcher at the Badlands Bullion Base. The base commander sent a squadron of eagles to rescue them.

  Two Loons said, “That Damian’s a first-rate captain too, so I’ve heard.”

  “First-rat, anyway,” Darla mumbled.

  “What was that?” Deirdre asked. “You broke up.”

  “A good captain, yes.”

  Ned picked up on Darla’s lack of enthusiasm. Normally the most buoyant of coins, anything less by Darla struck him as unusual. The pond skater was creating a distracting interference, however, and since the connection wasn’t the best, he shrugged off her reticence.

  Ned only met Damian Dime once, and that was during the ten-center’s basic training. He knew that Damian achieved full animation a little quicker than most, but he had Darla as h
is main instructor, and Ned knew that coins lucky enough to have her oversee their animation usually progressed rapidly.

  As far as Ned could remember, Damian appeared no different than most Roosevelt dimes he had met. A little haughty perhaps, but many Roosevelt dimes were. Ned figured they had a bit of a Napoleon complex and overcompensated for their small size. He remembered that Damian seemed as wonderstruck as every other coin who began learning the secrets of locomotion and mental transaction, only he was more eager than most to keep improving.

  Ned also knew that Darla’s diffidence could be attributed to her insecurity. Because of the dancing dime’s bubbly disposition, some of the nickel braves and Lincolns had wondered if Darla wasn’t a bit of a ditz, despite her obvious talents.

  Deirdre certainly thought so at first, but over time she recognized that Darla’s charms contained a special genius that allowed her to get along with everyone she met. Darla was Ms. Congeniality on the outside, but Deirdre suspected the sunny dime hid a thoughtful and sober core.

  She observed Darla carefully over the following years and engaged in many conversations with her. Her hunch validated, when it came time to establish the Grand Canyon base, Deirdre assigned the dime as base commander. Darla jumped at the chance and took the job to heart. She proved an excellent choice and Deirdre never regretted her decision.

  That the chief had a particular affection for Darla also worked in her favor. The fatherly Indian thought of all the Liberty gals on the island as his daughters, but Ned saw that Darla—who Iron Tail fondly called ‘bubbeleh’—was his favorite. It took a lot to make the chief crack a smile, but around the bouncy dime, smiles, even laughter, came easily to the grouchy Indian.

  Buffalo adored her too, and he snuffled cooingly whenever she was near. Since Darla left to oversee the Grand Canyon base, Ned thought the chief a little surlier than usual. The chief agreed with Deirdre that Darla was the best coin for the job, but Ned could tell he missed her and worried about her.

  Whereas most of the other coins on Coin Island were satisfied with the fundamentals of bucking, rolling, and spinning, Darla trained around the clock to take such abilities to the next level. Where others plateaued, she used the accomplishments as a base for scaling new heights. Only Ned and Pete had more moves than Darla, and even so, Darla opened their eyes to feats of rim-work and acrobatics that they never considered possible.