by Steve Cotler
“A 1909 penny …” Her voice trailed off sort of like she wasn’t even aware that she had spoken out loud.
“Uh-huh,” I said softly. The penny must have been really special to her if she remembered the date after all these years. Finders keepers, Georgie had said, but now it looked like we would give it back. That would mean no money for Six Flags. I had the torn-up receipt from the coin store in my backpack. We’d just go pick the penny up and bring it to Ms. Prott’s house. (I’m not going to call it The Haunted Toad anymore.)
“Elaine was born in 1909. She was older than me. Yes. She was quite an athlete, too. Oh my, yes. She excelled in tennis and could run faster than almost anyone. When she learned she was dying, she sent me that penny.” She leaned back in her chair and hugged the photograph to her chest. “She sent me that penny, that very special penny, because she wanted me to have something that was exactly as old as she was … something that would never die.”
Georgie made a little sound in his throat. I glanced at him. His eyes were watery. Maybe mine were, too.
*
Ms. Or Mrs. Prott?
She told us that she and Elaine were the Prott sisters.
That meant that they both had the same last name.
In the olden days women always changed their last name when they got married.
Glenora Jean was still a Prott, so she didn’t change her name.
Therefore, she never got married and was Ms. Prott.
I checked this logic with Glenn Philips, and he said I was probably correct. If you think I am wrong or that there is another possibility, please go to my website and tell me your idea.
How Much Is One Cent Worth?
I looked over at Georgie. “We’ll go get the penny and bring it back.”
“We’ll bring the penny back to you,” Georgie echoed.
Ms. Prott thanked us and walked us out, but because of her slowness and our fastness, we were already on our bikes by the time she waved to us from the front door. She was still holding the photograph of the two dancing sisters.
“I always get a little dizzy on roller coasters anyway!” I shouted to Georgie as we biked back toward the coin store.
“Me too!”
Two liars. That’s what we were. I absolutely never get dizzy on roller coasters, and Georgie is way braver than I am. I bet there isn’t a roller coaster anywhere that Georgie wouldn’t try.
Our summer kept changing. We were going to camp … and then not. We were going to Six Flags … and then not. Granpa says that if you ever think you know what life is going to bring you next, stay alert because that’s when you’re going to be surprised.
And if right now you’re reading this and you think you know what happened to me and Georgie next … well, get ready to be surprised.
The coin shop was still closed when we arrived. The clock inside said 9:40. We had a twenty-minute wait. We rocked back and forth on our bikes. Then we got hit with a terrific smell from the bakery next door.
Georgie said, “Man, I’m hungry.”
Remember the five-dollar bill from Gumpy I’d stashed in my backpack? Georgie and I leaned our bikes against the cobbler statue again and went into the bakery. They were just bringing out a tray of hot glazed doughnuts from the back. I bought one for me and two for Georgie. I love glazed doughnuts. I know that they’re junk food, but I’m just a kid, so I get to eat junk food sometimes. My mother and father never eat junk food. And Granpa says he intends to die without ever eating at a McDonald’s. He says he wants that written on his tombstone.
By the way, Georgie and I did a terrific presentation in fifth grade about junk food. It has nothing to do with this story, but it was so cool that I put it on my website. You have my permission to use it if you have to do an oral presentation at your school. But make sure you tell your teacher that it comes from Cheesie Mack. Otherwise, it’s cheating … and, as I said, I hate cheating.
We were just finishing our doughnuts when the inside of the coin store lit up and a man unlocked the front door. I wiped my sticky hands on my socks. Georgie licked each of his fingers, wiped his hands on my pants, and grinned. I smacked him, and we went into the coin store.
It was a different man from the bookkeeper guy we’d spoken to the night before. I handed him the two pieces of the receipt. “We’d like to get our penny back.”
The man looked at the receipt, then pushed his glasses back onto his forehead and took the small brown envelope out of a drawer. He spread a black cloth on the counter and carefully poured our penny onto it. “This is a very valuable coin.”
“We know.”
“Where’d you lads get it?”
“I found it in my basement,” Georgie said.
The man put a magnifying glass thing on his eye and examined the coin very closely.
“Now, if you lads can prove to me that this coin was not stolen and that you have the authority to sell it—that’s something I have to do when the seller is underage—I’d be interested. Would you like to sell it?”
I shook my head and looked at Georgie. He shook his, too.
“It’s worth a lot of money.” The man examined both sides of the coin. “In this condition—it shows modest wear and has a subtle scratch on the reverse—I could offer you …” He looked up at the ceiling, then back at the coin, then right at us. “Twenty-two hundred dollars.”
Georgie and I fainted.
Of course I am completely joking about fainting. But I will tell you that Georgie and I were stunned. I don’t think either of us could speak or breathe normally.
“Twenty-two hundred dollars?” I repeated.
“Holy moley oley,” Georgie squeaked.
“Twenty-two hundred dollars? Why is it worth so much?” I asked.
Mr. Whelan (he told us his name) turned the coin onto the back side. That’s what we call tails, but there is nothing that looks like a tail on the back side of a Lincoln cent. Then he handed his magnifier to me.
“Look on the bottom.” I saw three tiny letters: V.D.B.
Mr. Whelan then explained, with lots of detail, what happened in 1909 and why it made our coin so valuable. It would take about three chapters to write everything that Mr. Whelan told us, and I’m guessing you’d rather read about Ms. Prott and me and Georgie than three chapters about a man named Victor D. Brenner. So here comes a much shorter version.
In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt decided that since 1909 would be the one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, it would be terrific to honor him by putting his face on a coin. But lots of people in the government hated the idea. Here’s why:
Since 1861, one-cent coins had had the head of an Indian on them, and many people just didn’t want to change. They thought that Indians were the symbol of America. But what’s weird is that the woman who was the model for the head on Indian Head cents was the daughter of a man who worked at the mint where they made the coins—and she wasn’t the least bit Native American! I found this on the Internet.
No U.S. coin had ever had the image of a real person on it. Even George Washington refused to let the government put his head on a coin because he thought it was too much like what kings and emperors had always done.
The image of Abraham Lincoln that President Roosevelt wanted to use was sculpted by Victor D. Brenner, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, which is a cold little country bordering Russia. The U.S. Mint artists who had designed previous coins were jealous that he got the job and not them.
The U.S. Mint had started out 1909 by coining Indian Head cents. But President Roosevelt got his way, and they switched to Lincoln cents in May. Even though some government people hated Lincoln Head cents, lots of everyday folks loved them, so when they were released to the public on August 2, 1909, long lines formed outside banks. Each person in line, many of them clever kids, was limited to one dollar’s worth of coins. The kids resold the new coins, three for a nickel, making two cents’ profit each time. Two cents might not sound like much to you, but in 1
909, it was a lot of money.
Also, because Lincoln had freed the slaves, the new coins were especially popular among African Americans, who called them “emancipation money.”
But on August 4, only two days after the coins were released to the public, the head of the U.S. Treasury found a way to get back at Victor D. Brenner. He said that people were upset because Brenner put his initials (VDB) on the back of the coin, so he stopped production and had Brenner’s initials removed from the metal dies they used to stamp the coins. Brenner was insulted and very mad, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Coins made after that had no initials on the reverse side.
Since both the Philadelphia and San Francisco mints produced one-cent coins, there were six different cents made in 1909. (There are pictures of all six on my website.)
The Indian Heads minted at the beginning of the year are worth a lot. The Lincoln cents with no VDB are not so valuable because there were millions and millions of them minted. But the Lincoln cents with the VDBs are really rare. And the 1909-S VDB, because there were only about 400,000 made, are the most valuable of all … by far.
When Mr. Whelan finished his story, Georgie immediately said, “We looked on the web, and a 1909, not San Francisco, without VDB is worth three dollars. Is that right?”
“Depends on the condition,” Mr. Whelan said, “but that’s a reasonable starting point.”
“Do you have any of those you could sell?”
I had no idea what Georgie was doing.
Mr. Whelan searched through a drawer and pulled out a small envelope. He laid it on the black velvet cloth next to our VDB coin. The envelope, which had a clear side, held a Lincoln cent and was labeled “1909 $3.50.”
Georgie turned to me. “How much money do you have left?”
“Huh?”
“After you bought the doughnuts. How much?”
I looked in my pocket. “Three-seventeen.”
Georgie looked at Mr. Whelan and pointed at the coin in the envelope. “Could we buy this coin for three dollars and seventeen cents?”
Mr. Whelan nodded.
“What’re you doing?” I asked Georgie.
“Hold on a minute,” Georgie said to Mr. Whelan, then grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. “I’ve got a plan,” he told me. He was staring at me with a lot of determination in his eyes. “We cannot give that VDB coin to Mrs. Prott.”
“Ms. Prott.”
“Whatever.” He put both hands in his hair and rubbed really hard, then took a big breath. “When we thought that penny was worth ninety-five dollars, and we planned to go to Six Flags, I was willing to give it up and lose a day at an amusement park. That was bad, but this is ridiculous! Twenty-two hundred dollars! I could go—we could go—to camp!”
He was right. It’d be enough. But even with my mind rattling with how much we love camp, I mumbled, “Her sister gave her the coin and died.”
“Doesn’t matter. Look, here’s what we’ll do. We buy that no-S, no-VDB coin for the money you’ve got. And that’s the penny we give to Ms. Prott. She wants to remember the year her sister was born. She cares about the date, so we give her the 1909.”
I gave him a long look. “It’s stealing, Georgie.”
“It is absolutely not stealing. She lost it. I found it. We could’ve just taken it directly to Mr. Whelan and sold it. And if we hadn’t tried so hard to find her, she never would have seen that penny again. Never! Look at it this way, Cheesie. Any 1909 will make Mrs. Prott happy.”
“Ms. Prott. And yeah, assuming she doesn’t know it’s supposed to be an S-VDB. Otherwise, she’ll know we tried to cheat her.” I paused to think, looking through the front window at Mr. Whelan, looking at the sky, looking at the almost-invisible fishhook scar on my thumb.
Finally I came up with a compromise. “Okay. What we do is not sell anything now. We take both coins. Then we give her the plain one. And then we see if she says anything. If she does, we give her the S-VDB.”
“But—”
“You know I’m right, Georgie.”
Ten minutes later we were back at Ms. Prott’s. I had both coins in my backpack. In a few minutes we’d be going home with only one. Would we be rich or poor?
I picked up the artichoke knocker from the porch and tried to use it, but ended up rapping with my knuckles. Ms. Prott took a long time—no surprise!—to answer the door. She pointed us, with lots of smiles and fluttering hands, to a different room, a dining room.
Ms. Prott had been busy while we were gone. She had prepared a snack. There were teacups and a plate of cookies on the dining room table. After showing us where to sit, she disappeared in slo-mo, and I looked around the room. Like her parlor, the dining room was full of old, worn-down stuff. The furniture, the rugs, the knickknacks on shelves … everything looked like the junk you see at yard sales. My teacup was chipped.
Georgie interrupted my investigation. “You looking for clues?”
I motioned for him to shush, then whispered, “Nope. Just noticing how poor she is. All this stuff …” I swung my arm around the room. “It’s old and worn-out. Look at my cup.”
Georgie nodded and shrugged at the same time. “How’re you going to do this?”
“If she mentions the S-VDB penny, I’ll just say, ‘Oops! My mistake,’ and give her the other one.”
“Bad idea.” Georgie started blinking his eyes very fast. “You’re a terrible liar, Mr. Blinky-Boy. She’ll know instantly. Better let me do it.”
“What’re you going to say?”
“The same thing. But I’ll do it without flunking an eye lie-detector test.”
We heard Ms. Prott coming, so I hurriedly dug out the two pennies and handed them to Georgie. He looked at them quickly, then stuck one in each front pocket, muttering, “VDB right, no VDB left. VDB right, no VDB left.”
Of course, neither of us needed to hurry because it took a long time for Ms. Prott to come back from the kitchen or somewhere, pushing a rickety cart with a teapot on it. One of the wheels wobbled badly and looked like it was ready to come off.
“We brought your sister’s penny,” Georgie offered.
“Tea and cookies,” she said with four smiles, two hand waves, and several head nods.
The cookies were small, very tasty, and there were a lot of them. But the tea was too hot to drink. That didn’t bother Ms. Prott, though. She sipped it without even noticing that it was, IMO, molten lava. When she put her teacup down, Georgie mentioned the penny again, but maybe she didn’t hear.
“How old are you boys?”
“I’ll be eleven in August,” I said. “Georgie’s already eleven.”
“I told you, didn’t I, that I was ninety-six? I didn’t bake these cookies. Good, aren’t they? I used to bake, but I don’t anymore. I don’t do many things I used to.”
A thought was bubbling up inside me. “Do you live here alone?”
“Oh my, yes. I’ve lived alone since my mother passed away.”
Georgie started to reach into his left pocket, so I poked him and shook my head.
“And how do you do things like get your groceries and stuff?” I sipped my tea and ate my fifth cookie.
“Well, how kind of you to ask. The county has a service, and a very nice man comes around twice a week to deliver right to my back door.”
“What if you need to go to the dentist or something like that?”
“The county sends a car to pick me up. But I rarely go to the dentist. I’m ninety-six years old, and I have all my teeth. I suspect that there aren’t many my age who can say that!” She grinned. She did have nice teeth.
“And what if something in the house breaks?”
Georgie kicked me under the table and gave me a what’re-you-doing look. I ignored him.
“In that case—and things do break, don’t they?—I call a lady at the county. She finds someone to fix it for me.”
I stood up and said, “Would you excuse me? I left something outside … on my bike … I mean in my bike … my
bike’s saddlebag thing.” My eyes were blinking a lot. I could tell. I grabbed Georgie and dragged him outside.
“What the heck are you doing?”
“This lady is really poor,” I said.
“So?”
“She has the county buy her food and drive her around and fix her toaster and all that stuff. She’s really poor.”
“So?”
“We cannot give her the bad penny.”
“Oh no, Cheesie! We already decided.”
“That was before we found out how poor she is. She needs the twenty-two hundred dollars.”
Georgie spun around and pretended to bang his head against the side of the house.
“Come on, Georgie—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered to the side of the house. “You’re gonna say, like always, ‘Come on, Georgie, you know I’m right.’ ” He turned toward me, his voice getting louder. “Well, with twenty-two hundred dollars, I could go to camp! I do not know you’re right!”
He reached in both pockets, took out the two pennies, and threw them at me.
“You do whatever you want!” Georgie ran to his bike and pedaled away.
I called after him, but he didn’t look back.
Cheesie Tells Everything
It’s hard for me to write this chapter, but I’m going to try to put down everything exactly the way it happened, even though … Well, you’ll see.
I watched Georgie get smaller and smaller until he disappeared around the corner, then I picked up the two pennies, sat on the top porch step, and felt terrible. The little kid I used to be wanted to cry, but I didn’t. My chest was shaking like there was a sob trying to come out, but it didn’t. I closed my eyes and hoped that when I opened them, Georgie would be riding back, but he wasn’t.
Georgie is … Georgie was my best friend.
I don’t know how long I sat there before I realized that Ms. Prott was in the doorway, staring at me. I took one more look down the block to where Georgie had disappeared, then stood up. She held the door open. I walked back in. We moved very slowly toward the parlor.
“Ms. Prott, I brought your penny back.” I held out my hand. Both coins were in my palm. “And I brought another penny, too. This one”—I found the S-VDB and held it out in my right hand—“is the one your sister put in the envelope. It’s very valuable.”
