Ellsworth, Cody’s eagle, scratched Shadow’s tummy for a few minutes, and then dog and quarter rolled together, and Cody bucked on top of Shadow’s head so that Ellsworth could claw Shadow behind the ear.
Cody told the dog he’d be back again, and that he might even see him at the park. Shadow swished his tail and let out a soft whimper. One more pet by Ellsworth, and then Cody slid down Shadow’s snout and hit the floor rolling. Ellsworth and Cody lifted off and flew out the Stewards’ chimney.
16
coin coast
Franny gazed about the manicured grounds of Nicolai Nickel’s fortress and the castle-like mansion in the distance. A vast, green lawn bordered by pine trees spread out before her and sloped towards a glimmering sea. She never imagined such places existed.
Sheltered as her life had been, and much of it in one numismatist’s collection or another, Franny was a silver dollar of the city who rarely spent time outside. She had known a few stately New England manors or country homes, and had passed pleasant months on the premises of ritzy hotels and swanky restaurants, but this place was different.
She sniffed at the salty air. This wasn’t coal-dusted east-coast air; this was sweet-smelling, sun-drenched air.
Franny didn’t know where she was, only that she had spent many hours on three different airplanes, followed by half a day’s travel in the talons of a tight-lipped and smirking gold double eagle.
She had never been on an airplane, but not so her captors. They navigated the airports and airplanes like seasoned travelers. The coins knew exactly which passengers to hitch rides with, and into what bags they needed to smuggle themselves, as if they had foreknowledge of their destinations. She observed that all their transports were wealthy persons too: bankers, financiers, kings of industry, and politicians.
Franny traveled with a collection of coins, mostly gold eagles, but a few coins of lesser value too. The retinue, she was surprised to learn, was in fact led by a 1938 Jefferson nickel who looked eerily like Ned. She had only seen his obverse side, but the two nickels’ resemblance stunned Franny. The coin introduced himself to Franny as Nicolai Nickel. Minted in the same year as Ned, Nicolai was also in excellent condition.
She quickly realized, however, that their looks were where the similarity ended. Franny thought the nickel haughty. She had never seen a coin treat other coins like vassals or servants, and it baffled her how a mere nickel could demand such allegiance from notorious snobs like quarter and half eagles were known to be.
The gold coins didn’t seem to mind, however. The nickel’s minions bowed and scraped before him as before a prince. They held Nicolai Nickel in awe, and maybe fear too. Except for the $20 double eagle, Dominique, who had shuttled Franny to her current location, and who Nicolai treated like a princess.
As Franny was unable to move and posed no threat to anyone, Nicolai allowed her to sit unmolested in the shade of a sweet-smelling lavender bush. Two $10 half eagles stood guard nearby, but that was for her own protection. Even the most idyllic places weren’t impervious to predators, and although no puny dime, the luster of the beautiful Peace Dollar could still attract the attention of curious reptiles, rodents, or birds.
From her perch on a flat rock, Franny observed the castle’s coins with wonder as they bucked to and fro, and carried out their various duties.
How did they do it?
The incredible feats of locomotion she witnessed back in Memphis weren’t a dream, and neither were the equally fantastic stunts she observed from her stone pedestal. Above zipped golden quarter and half eagles, and in front of her paraded pennies, nickels, and dimes; some bucking past, others rolling. Some even led beetle-drawn sleds!
She watched wide-eyed and gawping, and wondered what it all meant. Why had the nickel brought her here? The snotty double eagle answered none of Franny’s questions, and the princely nickel ignored her too. They had also ordered their underlings not to speak to her and to keep their distance.
Franny thought back to Ned’s rescue of her and the ambush he ran into. She recalled the surprised expression on his face. He didn’t know those gold coins that flew onto the scene. That one coin could plan and execute the rescue of another coin was amazing enough; but that another gang of coins might shoot in and sabotage such a plan boggled Franny’s mind. She couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.
Nicolai Nickel rolled around the corner of the lavender bush and over to Franny. He hopped onto the flat stone as easily as a frog might.
“Nice view you have here, Franny,” the nickel said. “Or do you prefer I call you Francis? It’s much more noble sounding.”
“Franny is fine.” She gestured with her chin to their surroundings. “I’ve never seen such a large lawn before.”
“It’s a golf course. See that flag sticking up in the distance. You’re on the sixth hole.”
“Coins play golf too?!”
Nicolai laughed. “Aside from your great beauty, what does someone like The Four see in you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He chuckled again. “Charming. You’re a rube, but an adorable one. I suppose that counts.”
Franny knit her brow, sniffed at the nickel’s uncalled-for remark, and looked off toward the horizon.
Nicolai indicated with a nod the sun and the bands of iridescent clouds gathering around it. “Have you ever seen such a glorious sunset?” he asked.
“To be honest, I have nothing to compare it to.”
“What?” Nicolai said, incredulous.
“It’s not like I had a choice in the matter. There are many things I’d like to see and do in this world, but not all of us are born with special powers.”
“Oh, but you were, my dear. The Four didn’t tell you?”
“Ned? I don’t…I don’t really know what he’s capable of. Our courtship was rudely interrupted, and the Ned I met had no more locomotion than I.”
“No? How interesting. How long ago was that, may I ask?”
“Frankly, you nosy nickel, it’s none of your business.”
Nicolai’s smile overturned into a menacing frown. He squinted at the Peace Dollar, but then recovered his composure and smoothed his grimace into an amused grin.
Undaunted, Franny pressed his patience. “How long do you plan to keep me a prisoner here?” she demanded.
“Am I stopping you from leaving? You’re free to go anytime.”
“Very funny.”
“Hilarious,” Nicolai corrected. “The girlfriend of The Four can’t move a muscle. That splendid eagle on your back can’t flick a feather. Do you even know its name?”
“Name?”
“It’s dying to tell you.”
“It is? It can?”
“But, of course. Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Well…I mean… Do you know?”
“The bird is known only to the egg; the tree to the seed; the bloom of a flower to the bulb that contains it. No, only you can animate yourself and your eagle.”
“But how?”
“I could teach you, just as I taught all these other beautiful coins you see bustling about.”
“You taught them?”
“I merely revealed the secret to them.”
“And Ned knows this secret?”
“Clearly.”
“Who taught him?”
“The Indian. The one who calls himself Iron Tail. Me? I taught myself.”
“What made you so special?”
Nicolai smiled. “I’m glad you recognize that fact, my dear.”
“What I recognize, sir, is your arrogance.”
“Arrogance to the ignorant, maybe,” he rejoined with a smirk.
Franny tossed her gaze, which landed on the castle-like mansion.
“Is that where you live?” she asked, only half-joking.
“I live here. That home belongs to a very important man, and this hole of the golf course partially belongs to him too. You might call him my benefactor.”
“He kno
ws you’re squatting here?”
“Squatting? Really, madam, need you be so boorish? The gentleman should be honored by such lustrous company.”
“So he doesn’t know you’re squatting here.”
Nicolai suppressed a snarl. “He may or may not. See that yellow ribbon separating our garden from the golf course? And those signs?”
“So?”
“The signs say ‘No Trespassing.’”
“So?”
“You really are a simp, aren’t you? Clearly the man doesn’t want anyone snooping around here.”
“There could be more reasons than your conceit for that,” Franny said. “If this is his property as you say, he probably just wants to protect his privacy. Has the man seen you here?”
“He strolls through on occasion, yes.”
“And he doesn’t bother you? I mean, what human in his right mind would allow precious gold coins to just lie about?”
“A wise human,” Nicolai answered.
Franny snorted. “Or a man who thinks sprinkles of gold coins in one of his gardens boasts of his great wealth.”
“Or that,” Nicolai allowed with a grin.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“Years.”
“What made you pick this spot? I have a feeling it wasn’t just for the lovely sunsets.”
Nicolai smiled. “And maybe you’re not so naive after all. The man who lives in that house is very useful to me.”
“All humans are useful to coins, and we to them. They need us as much as we need them.”
“For now, maybe,” Nicolai said.
“What on earth does that mean?”
“The Four didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what? And stop making fun of him,” she scolded. “His name is Ned, and he didn’t ask to be stamped with a four.”
“You’ve figured me all wrong, Franny dear. “I have the utmost respect for your ‘Ned’. You’re right, he didn’t ask to be stamped with a four; he was destined to be The Four.”
“Destined? Destined for what?”
“Great things, if he chooses correctly.”
“Coins don’t choose.”
Nicolai shook his head. “Franny, Franny, Franny. You must get past your slave-minded mentality. You are abundantly free, freer than most humans even know they are. Your Ned understands this, and you must too. That is, if you hope to ever get off this stone and rejoin your boyfriend.”
Franny had no riposte this time. Her eyes didn’t lie, and she knew there was truth in the nickel’s words. At last she said, “Why am I here? What am I to you?”
“You are precious to me, dear girl.”
“I am not a part of your disgusting harem. Are you not satisfied with your sparkling double eagle?”
“Tsk, tsk, Franny. Really, such crassness does not become you.”
Franny looked away. “You’re right,” she mumbled. “That was rude. I apologize.” She turned to him again. “So why am I here?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I would like to meet with The Four.”
“Who’s stopping you? Hop on one of your planes and go see him. You don’t need me.”
“I don’t know where he is. Do you?”
“No.”
“He never mentioned Coin Island?”
Franny laughed. “Coin what?”
Nicolai squinted at the Peace Dollar, as if pluming the truth in her eye. Satisfied she didn’t know, he said, “Like us here, The Four has a headquarters. It’s called Coin Island, but I don’t know where it is.”
“Headquarters?” Franny said with disbelief. “That’s—”
“Extraordinary? Not anymore.”
“But surely you could get word to him somehow. You impress me as a very, well, resourceful and capable coin.”
“I am, but that’s not the problem. Let’s just say that I fear my reputation precedes me. It is highly unlikely that he wants to meet me.”
“Why?”
“A misunderstanding, but let’s leave it at that for now.”
“And you think he’d change his mind because of me?”
“He risked his life for you, did he not? That says a lot.”
“I believe Ned Nickel would risk his life for any coin.”
“No, no he wouldn’t. You are special. He loves you.”
Franny blushed and looked aside.
“Come now, Franny. Neither of us were minted yesterday. The Four cares about you, and because of that he will meet with me.”
“I’m bait then?” she said, appalled.
“Again with the coarseness? I prefer the word, ‘reward.’”
“For goodness sakes, he saw your lady friend kidnap me! Ned is not stupid. He’s not going to roll into your trap because of me.”
“It’s not a ‘trap’. It’s an invitation.”
“I won’t allow it!”
Nicolai laughed. “Now that suits you! I like it. Perhaps there is a princess within you after all.”
Franny gritted her teeth. Oh, if only she could warn Ned. If only she could move!
Nicolai somersaulted from the rock and looked up at Franny. “I have work to do. Is there anything you need? Perhaps you’d like something to prop you up a bit so that you can better enjoy the view?”
“That…that would be nice, thank you.”
“Very well.” He grinned mischievously. “Make yourself at home.”
“Hah, hah.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “One day you’ll learn locomotion, if not from The Four, then from me.”
“Why do you want to meet him so badly anyway? He’s just a nickel. What can he teach you that you don’t already know?”
Nicolai cocked his eyebrow. “Perhaps it is I who have something to teach him.”
“Like what?”
“It isn’t anything you could understand, and this time I don’t mean it as a slight. Maybe one day after you’ve animated, but not now.”
The nickel’s words carried no sarcasm, and Franny took no offense. Although she considered Nicolai a conceited and condescending coin, she recognized that he knew much more than she. He could move and she couldn’t. He had built a home for himself; she couldn’t find her way to a scrap of shade if she wanted to. He had an army of coins at his beckon call; she had a mosquito on her nose. She switched her nose back and forth and blew at the bug.
“But why Ned?” she asked.
“We have much in common.”
“You could be brothers, twins even.”
“He’s The Four, Franny. And I’m—”
“I told you, it was a mistake, a misstamp. You can’t change him.”
“Oh, I’d never want to do that, my dear.”
“So what use could a four-cent nickel be to you?”
“Not just me, Franny. To all of Coinworld. And perhaps to humankind too.”
Franny crinkled her brow in confusion, and sighed. He wasn’t going to tell her anymore than he already had.
Nicolai smiled at Franny. “Patience, dear one. In good time. All in good time.”
Nicolai turned and bucked away.
Until now she had never seen the nickel’s tail-side and the value embossed in a curve under Jefferson’s Monticello plantation: SIX CENTS.
Franny’s jaw dropped. Her mouth would have hung open longer if the mosquito hadn’t crawled over it. She spat it away and gazed up in bewilderment at the night’s first stars.
17
iron tail’s tale
Coin Island — Two days after Memphis and ‘Operation Coin Toss’
A pall fell over Coin Island after the disaster in Memphis. The island had suffered setbacks before, but its morale had always remained high. Now, however, the coins felt the Memphis misadventure like an omen of worse things to come.
The island, which was unaware of either Kipp Quarter’s return to the Grand Canyon Bullion Base or any of Pete Penny’s reversals of fortune, further darkened the gloom that had descended on the island. Cody Quarter had also
yet to check in from Operation Cash Flow. They didn’t expect to hear from him while he was spying on The Hugh man, but considering the island’s run of bad luck, they began to fear the worst.
Ned’s Raiders lost five coins during the mission and suffered another five damaged. The wounded would recover with time—animated coins who could focus their inner wampum had certain regenerative abilities that normal coins lacked—but the loss of so many good coins upset the island greatly.
No one took failure harder than Deirdre Dime. As head of Coin Island Intelligence, she blamed herself. No one else blamed her, but their silence was no salve to her wounded pride. She felt she had let everyone down, and Ned most of all.
Ned knew Deirdre was a perfectionist who put a dollar’s worth of due diligence into everything she did. He assured Deirdre that his confidence in her had not been shaken, but his words only angered her.
“How,” she retorted, “can I expect my teams to live up to my expectations when I can’t live up to my own!”
Rather than argue with Deirdre, he decided to let the hotheaded Mercury dime stew and work her misbegotten sense of failure out on her own.
This she did by throwing herself even more into her job. She worked around the clock and refused to leave her office in Coin Gulch. Determined to find out who it was they had encountered in Memphis, Deirdre contacted every bullion base and plied the coin commanders with questions. She sought to extract even the smallest scrap of information that could produce a lead.
The dime ordered the commanders to put coin spies in the field to conduct interviews with civilian coins in order to learn if any new rumors were circulating around Coinworld. No hearsay was to be considered too preposterous to pass on to her.
Deirdre also directed base commanders to instruct every Raider coin to keep a sharp eye out for any gold coin found demonstrating locomotion or any other sign of advanced animation. If one were discovered, he or she was to be captured and interrogated.
Ned and the chief postponed the new recruits’ graduation. They made clear to them that doing so was not a reflection of the coins’ performance in the field. The chief told them that they had each fought bravely and had done all they had been asked to do, but what they encountered meant much more training was now required.
The Amazing Adventures of 4¢ Ned (Coinworld: Book Two) Page 17
