by Natalie Hyde
My head snapped up. The claim! I had forgotten it hadn’t been registered. I had the tags on, but now I had to do the paperwork. I ran to the room where my backpack was and pulled out my granddad’s picture. I undid the back … but there was no registration form. What happened to it?
Then I remembered. Back in the truck when we were practising forging my dad’s name, Fiona had handed me back the receipt but not the form.
“I need to get to Lefty’s garage,” I said to Anna, who was finishing her coffee. I hoped the Ducati was still there and that Fiona wasn’t already on her way home, taking the precious signed document with her. Forging a new document was out of the question — I didn’t want anything that would make the registration invalid.
“What do you want with that place?” Anna asked.
“Nothing. It’s just the form I need is with a, um, friend of mine who was getting her motorbike fixed there.”
Anna looked at me with a funny look on her face. “Who is this friend?”
“Her name’s Fiona.”
“Fiona who drives a motorbike? Is it some fancy schmancy thing?”
Now I was starting to worry. “Yeah,” I said slowly.
“Well, well, well. I wondered when Fiona Stuckless would show up back here.”
Honestly, every blood cell in my body came to a screeching halt. “Fiona who?”
“Stuckless. She’s the only Fiona I know who races around on a motorbike.” Anna got up from the table and began clearing it. I was rooted to my spot.
I was stupid, that’s what. And gullible. But mostly stupid. Shard was right, as usual — no one takes a kid on a long trip like this just as some kind of favour to someone. Without the form my dad signed, I couldn’t register the claim. All Fiona had to do was get her own tags, stake the claim and register it. And she would, because Fiona was a Stuckless — the daughter of one of the swindlers, Jonah Stuckless: a no-good, low-down, filthy rat. And now the very family that had robbed ours years ago had the power to do it again. Why, oh why, did I forget to get that form back?
I was a Dearing, all right.
CHAPTER 25
WHEN THE LUCK RUNS OUT
Neils didn’t say much as we drove along. I figured it was because he was still pretty upset about my lying about my name. I didn’t feel like talking anyway — my stomach was in knots.
We pulled up in front of Lefty’s garage. The bay doors were open but I couldn’t see anyone around. I also couldn’t see the Ducati anywhere.
“You sure this is the right place?” Neils asked.
“Yeah, but maybe she’s gone already.”
“And you say she has the paper you need?”
I nodded and got out to speak to the guy I finally found out back.
This trip was a waste of time. The Ducati was fixed yesterday and Fiona was gone. I got back in the pickup and slumped in the front seat.
Neils got back on the road into town. Maybe Fiona had gone there looking for Vinnie. It was my only hope.
We turned onto 2nd Avenue and I held my breath. Then I let it out again — there was no Ducati in sight. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I wasn’t. After all, she was a Stuckless. I had to find out where she was, and there was one person who could help me: Vinnie. As if on cue, I saw a guy coming toward the truck with a familiar muffin box in his hands.
I jumped out of the truck. “Excuse me,” I said, and the man stopped. “Do you know the Muffin Man?”
“The Muffin Man?”
“The Muffin Man!” I said, pointing at his box.
“Oh, yes, I know the Muffin Man, he’s parked on Deadman’s Lane.”
“Thanks!” I hopped back in. Neils had the truck started already.
“What’s a muffin man?” Neils asked.
“Friend of mine.”
It only took a few minutes to make our way over to Deadman’s Lane. When I saw the food truck, I have to admit, I choked up a bit.
I ran to the back of the truck, where the doors were open and Vinnie was inside. I could tell, because he was singing Italian opera in a terribly off-key voice. No wonder he had been arrested for doing it in an intersection for money — he was a horrible singer.
“Well, there you are,” Vinnie said, seeing me. “We were worried about you when we couldn’t meet you at the claim. What happened to you?”
“My luck ran out,” I said.
“Shoot. What a day. So did mine. Got sidelined for not having a business licence. They took away my keys an’ everything.”
So that’s why Vinnie never came for me. I knew something had to have happened — Vinnie didn’t seem the type to not keep his word.
“What will you do?” I asked.
“Well, I made enough money in Whitehorse to pay for a licence but not the fine, but the people around here are real accommodating. They are allowing me to work off what I owe by selling my muffins.”
“So, you’ll be around Dawson for a while?”
“Looks that way.” He gave one of his famous smiles. “Well, back to work. I can barely keep these Nugget muffins in stock.”
This was good news. Vinnie would still be around to pretend to be my dad.
“Uh, Vinnie, where’s Shard?”
“Oh, she went to the store for more supplies. She’ll be back soon.”
“And Fiona?”
Vinnie bent down to take a new batch of muffins out of the oven. “Fi’s gone to take her uncle to some river. I’m not sure why. Maybe they’re fishing.”
No, they weren’t fishing. Uncle Joey was finally going to his resting place. This was good news. At least Fiona wasn’t motoring down the highway already.
“Did she say if she was coming back here?”
Now I saw something I never expected to: Vinnie was blushing. “Um, yeah, she said she’d come back to say goodbye.” He bent down quickly to put more trays in the oven.
I turned to ask Neils if he minded if I waited for her for a while but I was stopped by a familiar face right in front of me.
“Way to ditch us, loser.”
You know, despite her sharp tongue, I was really happy to see Shard. “Ditch you?” I said. “How about you abandoning me? First I was attacked by Randy, who was trying to steal my claim, then the cops started interrogating me, and then Child Protective Services caught up to me.”
Shard was quiet for a moment. “Okay, you win. Your day was worse than mine.”
You’re darn right I won. Or lost. Depends how you look at it.
“So, how did you get away from Mrs. Child Snatcher?” Shard asked, looking around.
“Mrs. Olsen. I didn’t.”
“Then …?”
“Neils and Anna said that I can stay with them.”
“Who are they?”
“They have the claim next to my grandfather’s.”
“And this Mrs. Olsen went for it?” Shard asked, looking skeptical.
“Well, Neils didn’t give her much choice. I’ll still be in foster care, but at least I can stay and be close by when my dad gets here. What about you? With your uncle here for a while, will you stay too?” I tried really hard not to sound too eager, but I was. It’s hard starting over in a new place with no friends.
“Can’t. My folks are bugging me to get back, so Fiona’s going to give me a lift home.”
Fiona! I had to find her and see if she still had my form or if she had conveniently “lost it.”
“Did Fiona say where she was going to meet you?”
“Right here, in about …” She looked into the truck at Vinnie’s clock on the wall. “… fifteen minutes. Said she had to dispose of her uncle Joey. I guess he’s floating down the river by now.”
I went over to the pickup truck to let Neils know I was waiting a few minutes, and he told me he was going to nip over to the gas station to fill up. It felt good to be trusted again, even if only for a few minutes.
“So, when are you leaving?” I asked Shard while we waited, sitting on the edge of the wooden sidewalk near Vinn
ie’s truck.
“As soon as Fiona gets here.”
We sat in silence. I wondered what it was going to be like without her being just down the hallway. Maybe Neils had a computer and we could email or something. Still, it wouldn’t be the same.
“Oh, here. I meant to give you this.” She handed me a piece of paper.
A receipt … for onions? “So was that some sort of a joke?” My voice rose to almost a yell.
“What are you talking about?”
“Those onions!” I waved the receipt in front of her face. “They nearly got me killed! Onions don’t repel moose; moose LOVE them! I had one slobbering all over me trying to get them out of my pockets.”
“Settle down. If the moose was eating the onions, then it wasn’t eating you, right? So they worked. Get over it already.”
How do you argue with that?
“Turn it over, doofus,” she said, pointing at the paper. On the back was her phone number. “Just in case you lost the other paper I gave you with my number and thought you had an excuse not to call me.”
I tried not to grin, but I couldn’t help it. I slipped the onion receipt into my pocket. “Thanks,” I mumbled.
Over the sound of a man ordering half a dozen Breakfast Bonanza muffins, we heard it: the purr of the Ducati.
Fiona stopped and took off her helmet. She went straight into the back of Vinnie’s truck, and I could see that the lineup of people waiting for their orders wasn’t moving. Seems business had come to a halt. I didn’t want to know what they were doing in there.
After a few minutes, Fiona came out, a little bit flushed. I pulled myself off the sidewalk and walked over to her. Maybe I was wrong about her. Maybe she didn’t have an ulterior motive for bringing me up here. Maybe she was from a different Stuckless family.
“Hi, Fiona. Say, have you still got that paper with my dad’s signature on it? I need it.”
“No, I don’t.”
Okay, so I wasn’t wrong about her. “Are you sure? I really need it.” I was giving her one more chance.
She snapped on her helmet. “What do you need it for? It’s no good to you; you can’t pretend to be old enough to register a claim. They would have laughed you out of the office,” she said. “Come on, Shard. We’re going to lose daylight.”
Shard looked at Fiona in astonishment. “That’s it? You’re just going to leave him with this mess?”
Fiona climbed on the Ducati. “I don’t have time to argue this. If you want a ride back, Shard, get on.”
Shard’s hand balled into a fist. I shook my head. It was over and if Shard started anything with Fiona, she’d be walking back. Reluctantly, Shard grabbed the other helmet strapped to the back and put it on.
“See ya, Chris,” Shard said, climbing on. “Remember to call.” She gave a wave as Fiona started up the Ducati and then hung on for dear life as they took off down the street.
I was stunned. In only a matter of seconds, it seemed, everything I had worked for was gone. Fiona had no intention of giving me back the registration form. I hung my head. The Dearing luck was as black as ever — we had been thwarted again.
CHAPTER 26
ONCE A DEARING …
I sat back down on the sidewalk to wait for Neils, although I don’t know why I bothered. I didn’t have the claim anymore and it would be absolute torture to be living beside it, seeing someone else living in my granddad’s cabin and mining our claim. Maybe I should just head south again. Then at least in the fall I could go back to my old school, and Shard would be just down the hall again if I could talk Critch into getting our old place back.
Neils’s pickup pulled up beside me and stopped. I hopped in.
“Said your goodbyes?” he asked. I nodded. “Where to next?”
“Nowhere,” I said, dejected.
“Don’t you want to check out some equipment while we’re here? If I’m going to teach you mining, you’ll need the basic tools.”
“Don’t bother. I won’t be mining. I’ll probably be heading back south as soon as possible.”
Neils pulled the truck over to the side of the road. “What are you talking about?”
“Fiona Stuckless and the swindled claim.”
“Sounds like a novel.”
“Worse. It’s real life.”
“Tell me what happened.”
So I told him — the truth this time. I told him about my granddad and how he was swindled by Jonah Stuckless and Ben Odle. About how my dad had kept a signed registration form behind the photo. And about how I was so stupid that I forgot to ask for it back from Fiona.
“Are you sure she destroyed the form?”
“Of course she did. She’s a Stuckless.”
“True, but just in case, I want to stop in at the Mining Recorder Office.”
“Waste of time,” I said, looking out the window.
Neils drove to Front Street and parked in front of the now-familiar brown building.
“Come on,” he said.
All I could hope was that Fiona threw the form away and not that she registered it for herself. Then maybe I could somehow get a new form for my dad to sign.
“Hiya, Dave,” Neils said to the guy behind the counter. “I need you to do me a favour. Can you check the status of the old Dearing claim? I’m not sure what the number is …”
“Everyone knows the Dearing claim,” Dave said with a chuckle. “But I just came on duty, so give me a minute to do a search. Pete worked this morning and he’s new in town, so heaven only knows what kind of mess everything is in.”
It felt like forever waiting for Dave to search for information on our claim.
“Well, looks like it’s active.”
“Active?” I asked.
“Yup, was just registered today.”
I was speechless. Fiona sure worked fast. And now my dad and I were homeless and jobless.
I turned to leave. I wanted to go somewhere and cry. Or throw up. Or both.
“Who registered it?” I heard Neils ask Dave as I reached the door.
“Francis Dearing.”
I froze.
“Who?” I asked, turning back around.
“It says Francis Dearing.”
“Thanks, Dave,” Neils said and pushed me out the door.
Outside I wiggled out of his grasp. “Wait,” I said. “I don’t understand. Is my dad here?”
“No, Mrs. Olsen said the earliest he can get out is three weeks from now.”
“So, how did this happen?”
“Fiona must have put your form in.”
“How could she … she’s a girl. She couldn’t pretend to be my dad.”
“True. But you’re forgetting that Francis is also a woman’s name. My best guess is that she registered it for you.”
My head started to pound as I tried to process everything. “Are you telling me that the claim is ours? That Fiona didn’t swindle us?”
“Sure looks like it.”
“But she’s a Stuckless!”
“Yes, but she’s not her dad,” Neils said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “And neither are you.”
We drove back out to Neils’s house, where Anna was waiting with sandwiches. The bread was homemade and cut into thick slices. In between was a slab of ham.
Mrs. Olsen was out but drove back in the afternoon. Then she and Neils and Anna all sat together in the sunroom doing interviews and intake applications. I stayed outside, far away from them, and explored the area around the house. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful that Neils and Anna were taking me in, but the thought of being a foster child still made me queasy.
I wandered out behind the shed and followed a path a short way through the trees to a clearing, then stopped. A miniature village of tiny houses dotted the field. My first thought was, someone tell me this isn’t for garden gnomes. Then a nose appeared at the open door of one of the houses. It was followed by a white snout, two dark-brown eyes, a black forehead and two pointed ears.
They were
n’t gnome homes; they were doghouses and this was a sled dog!
He was beautiful. Soon other noses poked out of the other houses. I went from doghouse to doghouse petting them all and laughing as they jumped up and yipped at me. I wondered if Neils would let me learn how to run a sled this winter.
I waited around with the dogs until I heard Mrs. Olsen drive away and Anna called me for supper. We were having chicken fajitas. I had forgotten what it was like to eat three meals a day. At this rate, I’d need all new clothes by the time my dad made his way north.
As I got ready for bed, I went to the window of my new room and looked out. I can’t tell you how it felt to watch the golden rays of the sun light up the tops of the spruce trees on the Dearing claim.
It seemed strange to think that it was back in our hands after all this time, but I had a feeling that the “loser Dearing” label was gone for good. My dad would come soon and get to work finding that pay streak and making our fortune. No one would snicker at the name Dearing again.
Maybe I’d hang on to the name after all.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Inspiration for this story came from watching too much TV — namely, shows about gold mining in the Yukon. Writing a book is a lot like gold mining. You don’t know what you’re going to come up with until you start digging, and in the end, you try to make something beautiful with what you find. I am very lucky to have supportive, talented people helping me dig and polish. Thank you to beta readers Christie Harkin, Hélène Boudreau and Lisa Dalrymple for their insightful comments and feedback. Thanks to Aldo Fierro for the awesome cover design, Erin Haggett’s eagle eye and the whole team at Scholastic for their care and attention to every aspect of this book. Thanks to my wonderful editor, Anne Shone, for her talent, wit and charm, which went a long way in making this an enjoyable experience. Thanks always to my first reader, Chelsey, for her encouragement and unwavering belief in me and also for giving me the opportunity to try my hand at gold panning. To Alex, Nathan and Haley for cheering me on and helping me celebrate every small step along the way. And to Craig, for his photographic skill in capturing me at my best and his willingness to pick up the slack at home while I am talking to imaginary people.
