Fool's Gold

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  Rudy halfway knew what she meant, but he asked anyway. “What do you mean embarrassing?”

  “Embarrassing to his glamorous parents. Angela probably hates having a great big teenaged son around. Makes her look too old. And Jeb, too, for that matter. Jeb probably doesn’t like being reminded that he’s getting pretty old for rodeo competition.”

  Rudy knew how Natasha had always felt about Jeb and Angela. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. You think they always go off and leave him too much. But Charlie was always there and Belle, too, until—well, until she died. It’s not like his folks just went off and left him alone. And Barney never seemed to mind about their being gone. At least he never said anything about it to me.”

  Natasha stopped wiping out the sink and turned to give Rudy a long, slow look. “No,” she said finally. “Barney probably wouldn’t have said anything. He’s not one to talk about his personal problems very much, is he?”

  “Problems?” Rudy said. “What problems?”

  Natasha sighed impatiently. “I know you’ve always thought that Barney is the next thing to superhuman, but he isn’t, you know. His grandmother used to worry about him a lot. She used to tell me—” She stopped and stared down at her hands for a minute before she turned toward Rudy again.

  Rudy grinned sarcastically, letting his expression say that he found the whole idea of Barney having serious problems pretty funny. “Well, go on. What did Belle tell you?”

  “Well, all right.” Natasha was getting angry. “I never said anything to you because Belle wouldn’t have wanted me to. But she and I used to talk a lot on the phone and she told me about these terrible anxiety attacks Barney used to have, so bad that sometimes he wouldn’t be able to go to sleep at night. He’d be wide awake until morning and then he’d fall asleep at school or even at the table at dinnertime.”

  “Yeah,” Rudy said, grinning. “I remember about him going to sleep at school. But it just seemed like, well, you know, like part of his supercool personality. Everybody thought so. People used to think it was great to be so relaxed—about school and everything. Some of the other guys even used to pretend that they were asleep, too, because all the girls seemed to think it was so cute when Barney did it.”

  “Well, Belle didn’t take it so lightly,” Natasha said. “It really worried her. She thought it was because Jeb and Angela were away so much and never paid a great deal of attention to Barney even when they were home. She said it was usually when Jeb and Angela were away that Barney stayed awake all night—listening for them to come home.”

  Rudy found it hard to believe. It just didn’t fit, any of it. Barney—supercool, unflappable Barney—lying awake nights worrying? It just didn’t seem possible. Rudy was still trying to make some sense of what Natasha had said when he tuned back in to what she was still saying.

  “And then there was the way he always pushed himself to do dangerous things,” Natasha said, and Rudy’s attention really went on alert.

  “Barney? Pushed himself?” he asked.

  “Yes. You know how you boys were always doing stunts that usually didn’t turn out too well”—she smiled ruefully—“especially for you. And I always thought you were both responsible. You know, kind of egging each other on. But Belle felt it was part of a pattern for Barney. She thought it was because his parents, particularly Jeb, did dangerous things all the time, like riding broncs and bulldogging, and that Barney felt he had to constantly prove he was just as brave and daring as Jeb was in order to earn their approval. Barney kept promising Belle it wouldn’t happen again, and you promised, too, remember? And then it would. Not the same stunt, but something just as risky. And I don’t suppose Belle and I even heard about a lot of the crazy things you kids did.”

  “Yeah, I guess you didn’t,” Rudy said, with his mind only halfway on what he was saying—because the other half was too busy thinking. Thinking, yeah, maybe she’s right. Maybe Natasha and Belle were right. Maybe that explained a lot of things.

  “Wow!” he said finally.

  “Wow?”

  “Yeah, wow. It’s just that I never… I never thought about…” Rudy hung up his dish towel, put away the frying pan, and started out of the room.

  “Rudy?” Natasha’s voice squeezed into his consciousness, but he just kind of waved his hand back at her and kept on going. He had to get to his room where he could be alone and do some heavy thinking.

  Collapsed on his bed with his arms behind his head, Rudy let his mind go over and around and through the middle of all the unbelievable stuff Natasha had said. And the more he thought about it the more believable it all became. There was, for instance, the way Barney used to react to any mention of his sleep sessions in class. Even though he must have realized that no one else took it seriously, except maybe the teachers, Barney had been very sensitive about it. It hadn’t paid for anyone to tease him about it.

  And then there were the dangerous games. Looking back, Rudy remembered how Barney’s whole personality seemed to change when one of his “highly fatal” projects was about to happen. Like when he thought up the swing across Wild Horse Gulch or one of his other daredevil schemes—and the good old “whatever” Barney would disappear and it was no use even to think of arguing with the stranger that was left behind.

  So that was what Natasha had meant the other night when she said “poor little Barney.” She meant that lucky old good-looking, popular Barney had a problem too. A serious one. Not a phobia, perhaps, but on second thought it was very like a phobia, because it also had to do with fear. A terrible “excessive and inappropriate” fear that his beautiful, glamorous parents were about to dump him for good.

  The concept took a lot of getting used to. Rudy was still getting used to it a lot later when a new and even more mind-boggling idea occurred to him: Maybe looking for gold in the old mine was just one more example of Barney’s powerful need to prove that he was as daring and heroic as his rodeo star parents.

  Rudy was halfway out of the room on his way to the telephone in the kitchen before he realized that it was much too late to be calling the Crooked Bar Ranch, and that the whole subject was not the sort of thing that one discussed on the telephone. In fact, it was not the sort of subject that one discussed at all without giving the matter a lot of careful thought.

  Rudy got back into bed and started on the careful thinking.

  Chapter 14

  RUDY SPENT A lot of time that night thinking about what he wanted to say to Barney. But on Wednesday morning when they did talk on the phone, Barney was too busy practicing roping to say much at all.

  “Hey, Rudy-dudey.” Barney sounded excited, almost breathless. “I’ve been working on my roping since seven o’clock and I’m getting a lot better. My dad says I’m better than most of the kids he’s seen competing in the junior events. Why don’t you come on out and watch?”

  But since Rudy had to baby-sit in the afternoon there really wasn’t time. Thursday was pretty much the same, a slightly longer phone conversation in the morning, mostly about roping and calf riding, and that was all. And on Friday, Barney left for Montana. But by then Rudy had almost decided not to talk to Barney about the things that Natasha had said, anyway.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized how hard it would be to discuss really personal things with Barney. Things like what bad parents Jeb and Angela had always been, and about how Barney only wanted to do the gold-mining thing, as well as a lot of other dangerous or even illegal stuff, because he needed to feel as brave and daring as his famous parents. It was really hard even to imagine bringing up embarrassing things like that with a person like Barney.

  And there was another reason, too, that Rudy was glad to put off mentioning any of it to Barney—it really was beginning to look like it might not be necessary. It just might be that the Pritchard’s Hole problem had solved itself. Of course, Rudy hadn’t come right out and asked, but Barney hadn’t so much as mentioned the gold mining, or Tyler Lewis, when they were together on Tuesday, o
r later on the phone. Not a word. It was as if he was so excited about going on the rodeo circuit that he’d lost all interest in anything else. Maybe being with his parents in Montana and getting to compete in the rodeo was giving him enough of a chance to prove whatever it was he needed to prove to himself. Enough for one summer anyway. It would be great if that turned out to be true.

  There was, of course, one bit of good news that was definitely true. Whatever was, or was not, going to happen at Pritchard’s Hole wasn’t going to be happening very soon. Nothing to worry about for a week or so, at least.

  But that left Rudy with a lot of mornings of fooling around the house or hanging out downtown and maybe a visit or two to the Harmons’ swimming pool, where Stephanie Freeman just might be, too, if he was lucky. And afternoons of baby-sitting his sisters. It didn’t sound great, perhaps, but it could be worse. A lot worse.

  As for the baby-sitting, it was continuing to be a little less boring since he’d begun his research project on the M and Ms’ personalities. One of the subjects he was most interested in was what kind of things they fought about and who usually started it. Before his research project he’d never thought much about who started it. There didn’t seem to be any point in asking, since they both always claimed the other one had. He’d always assumed that it was mostly Margot’s fault, because it was Moira who usually wound up with the most scratches and bites and bruises. But when he started really watching he began to see a kind of pattern to most of their fights.

  Like the one, for instance, about the new pink tutu. They’d both wanted the pink one, but Natasha had given it to Margot since it was, it seemed, her turn to have firsties. Moira had claimed that the new tutu was too small around the middle for chubby old Margot, but apparently Natasha hadn’t agreed.

  The fight began on Friday at the exercise barre when Moira noticed—or said she did, Rudy hadn’t been able to see it—a tiny hole in the seam near the back zipper of the pink tutu.

  “Margot’s torn her tutu,” Moira said.

  Rudy looked up from his book. He’d pulled the overstuffed chair into the studio so that he could read and still keep one eye on the girls’ dance practice.

  “Where?” he said.

  “Where? Where? Where?” Margot said, practically tying herself in a knot to see the place on the back of her waist where Moira was pointing.

  “Right there,” Moira said. “It’s just starting, but it’s going to get bigger fast.”

  “I don’t see any hole.”

  “Well, it’s there.” Moira’s nose was practically touching Margot’s back. “It’s getting bigger already. Every time you breathe it gets bigger.”

  “Ruuudy,” Margot whined, backing up to Rudy’s chair. “Is there a hole in my new tutu?”

  “I don’t see any hole. Forget about it, both of you, and finish your barre.”

  So they both went back to the barre, but a minute later Rudy noticed that Moira was whispering a word in between every plié. “Margot’s—torn—her—new—tutu.”

  “Ruuudy. Make her stop,” Margot said.

  So Rudy did some yelling and Moira stopped whispering. But a little later he noticed that Moira was facing Margot as she did her port de bras, and every time she curved her arms and gracefully bent forward her lips clearly formed the word “fat!” He was just opening his mouth to yell when Margot went right from a fifth position into a kind of karate kick that knocked Moira’s legs out from under her. By the time he got to them they were rolling on the floor, punching and scratching.

  That, he was beginning to realize, was the usual pattern. Margot tended to be pretty cheerful and easygoing most of the time, but when she did finally get mad she really lost it. And Moira, on the other hand, never really got angry, except at herself. After she’d teased Margot into a major fit she was always mad at herself, but the next time she had a chance she did it again.

  “I hate it when she gets mad like that,” Moira told Rudy with tears in her big dark eyes. “I hate it. But then I start teasing her about something and I can’t”—she began to sob—“I… just… can’t… stop.”

  “Why can’t you stop?” Rudy asked.

  “I… don’t… know,” Moira wailed. “I… just… can’t… stop.”

  Rudy patted her shoulder. “Well, you can stop crying,” he said, “because if you don’t stop I’m going to cry too.”

  Moira went on crying, but with her eyes open—watching to see what Rudy would do. So he threw himself on the floor and began to screech and sob and pound the floor with both fists. It was fun actually, really letting go like that, even though it was only acting. So he kept it up for a while and when he finally did sit up both Moira and Margot were standing over him staring with big round eyes. When he started laughing it took a second before they caught on and laughed too.

  So the M and M research had gotten that far into what they usually fought about. Now, if he could just figure out why? And what would make them stop?

  It was in the early evening after Barney had been gone three or four days, that Rudy got a surprise phone call. From Tyler Lewis, of all people.

  “Yo, dude,” the all-too-familiar voice said. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Styler?” Rudy said, not trusting his own ears.

  “You got it. It’s the real thing, the stylin’ man. I asked you—whatcha doing?”

  “Nothing much, actually. Reading a book.”

  “Reading.” Tyler made a snorting noise. “Why don’t you come down to Marybelle’s. I’m treating. Rotgut for everybody—or whatever.”

  Marybelle’s was the old-fashioned soda fountain on the corner of Main and Nugget. They served great malts and shakes and root beer floats. No rotgut.

  “You’re treating?”

  “Sure. Come join the crowd.”

  There wasn’t any crowd. When Rudy got to the soda fountain Tyler was sitting alone at one of the pink tables. Except for a couple of tourists with some little kids, there was no one else in sight. Tyler was wearing an L.A. Rams football jacket, his usual buckshot jeans, and a pair of pump-up Nikes without any shoelaces. He was drinking a strawberry milk shake and there was another one across the table from him. Rudy sat down and began to drink.

  “So,” he said after a minute. “What have you been up to lately?”

  Ty slurped noisily on his straw. “Not much. Barney’s out of town.”

  “Yeah,” Rudy said. “I know.” He emphasized the know to make it say that he didn’t need Styler to tell him what Barney was doing.

  Tyler’s cocky grin said he knew he’d bugged Rudy and he wasn’t exactly sorry about it. But after a minute the grin faded, and to Rudy’s surprise it was replaced by a weird gloomy expression. At least it looked weird on Styler’s face. It suddenly occurred to Rudy that finding out what made Tyler Lewis tick might be another interesting research project—for somebody with a tough skin and a strong stomach, anyway.

  “What the hell is there to do in this hick town in the summertime?” Tyler said in a whiny voice. “Nobody’s around and there’s nothing going on.”

  “How about Matt and Sky, or Will maybe?”

  “Nah,” Ty said. “Sky’s out of town, too, and Matt and Will are too busy, or something.”

  Rudy grinned inwardly. Old Styler didn’t seem to notice that he had just let it slip that Rudy hadn’t just been his second choice as a companion. More like fourth or fifth. Or maybe twentieth, if Styler could think of that many people who might be able to stand his company for a few hours. It didn’t bother Rudy much. If you came right down to it, Styler wouldn’t have been even his twentieth choice. Besides, he was getting a free milk shake out of it, not to mention a chance to do some research on a particularly peculiar specimen. For one thing, it had occurred to him to wonder why Tyler was so determined to risk his neck finding gold when, as he was always pointing out, his parents were so filthy rich. The answer might be very enlightening.

  “So, Styler.” Rudy took a big sip of milk shake, wiped off a strawberr
y-flavored mustache, and started over. “So, what are you planning to do with your part of the loot? You know, from the Pritchard’s Hole thing.”

  Tyler gave him a suspicious look, as if he thought Rudy might be being sarcastic. Rudy did a sincerely interested number that seemed to work, because finally Tyler shrugged and said, “I dunno. Buy some stuff I guess, and put some of it in the bank. Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just wondered because, well, it always seems like you can get all the money you want from your parents.”

  “True.” Tyler looked pleased. He always enjoyed a chance to talk about his folks’ money. “But, as my dad always says, you can’t have too much money. And besides, this will be my money, so I’ll always have something to fall back on—just in case.”

  “Just in case?”

  “Yeah. In case my dad goes broke again.” Tyler suddenly clamped his mouth shut and frowned at Rudy as if he’d said something he hadn’t meant to and he was blaming Rudy for it. Rudy tried to look interested but not too interested, and in a minute Tyler went on. “Yeah, my old man, the wheeler-dealer, does that a lot. That’s the way it is with real estate. One day you’re rich and the next you’re”—Tyler paused, shrugged, and then went on—“practically homeless. You ever been practically homeless, Chickie-baby?”

  Rudy ignored the “Chickie-baby” and said he guessed not but that he’d like to hear what it was like, and after another suspicious frown Tyler said, “Okay, I’ll tell you. But let’s get out of here. You about done with that thing?”

  Ty paid up and led the way outside, and while they walked down Main Street he told Rudy all about it. It seemed that Ty’s dad had invested in a big new shopping center in L.A., but his partner turned out to be crooked and gypped him out of all the money.

  “I mean, all of it,” Ty said. “All my old man got was a bunch of tax debts. He even had to sell our house and car to keep from going to jail.”