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

by Benjamin Laskin

  “Well-disciplined too,” Pete said. “Look at those formations and the way they coordinate. They move and shift as if of one mind. It’s almost simultaneous.”

  “I thought our eagles were good, but compared to these gold pieces, we’re like flying rust buckets. Is it because they’re gold and our air force is silver? Do gold coins have more wampum than other coins?”

  “A coin’s inner wampum does not depend on a coin’s make,” Pete answered. “Gold, silver, nickel, copper—on the inside we’re all the same. They’re just better trained, that’s all.”

  “So, anything they can do we can do?”

  “Absolutely, Lenny, and don’t you forget it.”

  Lenny sniffled. “I love you, man.”

  “Right. Let’s go.” Pete rolled ahead, but after he’d gone a foot he sensed that Lenny wasn’t keeping up. He turned and saw the penny moping behind, his eye downcast, his bucks lethargic. “Lenny, come on. On your rim. We don’t have all day.”

  Lenny looked up. Long-faced, he took a couple of deflated bucks.

  Pete rolled back to him. “Now what?”

  Lenny rimmed up and swiped glumly at the ground. “Nothin’.”

  “Aw, come on, Lenny. Cough it up.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Is it something I said?”

  “It’s what you never say,” Lenny mumbled.

  “If I never say it, how can I know what it is?”

  “I’m fine.” Lenny threw back his shoulder and put on a brave face. “Sorry. Let’s go.”

  Pete studied Lenny’s eye, which turned self-conscious under his scrutiny. He leaned in and said, “Steelman…?”

  Lenny smiled shyly and said, “Aw, Wheatman, I could never stay mad at you. I owe you everything. My life, my soul, my very reason to exist!”

  “No, you don’t, Lenny,” Pete rejoined, embarrassed by the penny’s gushing.

  “Yeah, I do. And it’s okay if you don’t love me back.”

  “Love you…? So that’s what this is about?”

  Lenny nodded sheepishly.

  Good grief. “Come on, Lenny. We’re like brothers, man. The dynamic duo. The gruesome twosome. A pair of aces. Dual engines. Carbon copies.”

  Lenny beamed. “You mean it?”

  Pete offered a case-closing nod. “Double trouble, Steelman, that’s us.”

  Lenny flipped and danced a caper around Pete. “Come on, Wheatman. Quit the moping. We’ve got a mission to complete!” He shot ahead, a new swagger in his roll.

  Bonkers, Pete concluded. The penny is bonkers. He chuckled and rolled after him.

  After an hour of slashing through the rough, the bustle of a bullion base became audible. Pete and Lenny crept closer and ascended a grassy knoll the size of a loaf of bread.

  “It’s at least twice the size of the Grand Canyon base,” Lenny whispered.

  “And I don’t think we’re looking at half of it,” Pete rejoined with a frown. “Look there.”

  Below them about twenty feet away they saw lines of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters marching with goose-stepping bucks down a garden path in perfect unison. The coins, each specie to its own row, streamed down the path like ants.

  “There’s got to be at least a hundred dollars in loose change marching down there,” Lenny said.

  “They aren’t our business right now. All we have to do is locate Franny, and then get the heck out of here.”

  “I dunno, Wheatman, this base is huge. Where do we even start looking?”

  “Those troops had to come from somewhere,” Pete said. “I’m guessing that wherever they’re holding her, its where they set out from.”

  “But wouldn’t they have guards posted all over the place?”

  “What do you have to worry about, Steelman?” Pete teased. “You’re invisible.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not.”

  “They’re not expecting anyone,” Pete said confidently. “Not coins, anyway. They’re more worried about raccoons, snakes, rodents, hawks, squirrels, stray golf balls and golfers. Follow me.”

  They bucked down the hill and made their way towards the garden path, keeping to the weeds and shadows. Pete’s beat, woodsy coloring provided good camouflage, but the glint of the sun off a steel penny could still give them away.

  Once they arrived at the trail they stuck to its fringes. Doing so made for tough going and required several detours, nonetheless they advanced inch by obstacle-laden inch.

  Along the way they passed work crews with beetle-drawn sleds like those Leo Lincoln came up with back on Coin Island, an innovation that each of the now ten coin bullion bases used. But Pete also saw a new technology that he had never seen before.

  “Where did they get those logs and wooden spools?” he whispered to Lenny. “Look there, one beetle can do the work of two or three with those contraptions.”

  “Those are Tinkertoys,” Lenny answered. “Their eagles must have scavenged them from some kids.”

  “What are they for?”

  “Oh, you can build anything from Tinkertoys.”

  “Anything, huh?” Pete said thoughtfully.

  “Yeah, they turn every kid into an engineer. I spent a summer playing with them back in ‘51. The children used them to construct all sorts of things—a Ferris wheel, an airplane, a crane, a swing set.”

  “Ingenious,” Pete remarked.

  “Yeah, even a catapult, which they used to sling me across the den, until I smashed into a porcelain vase and cracked it. The next day the boys’ mother made them drop me into a gumball machine at a Skaggs drugstore.”

  The two pennies continued their hike. They scrabbled their way through a well-manicured bush, and upon emerging on the other side they spotted a ‘No Trespassing’ sign. Just beyond the sign they saw a private garden, and in the background a sprawling mansion.

  Pete whispered, “This must be where the mansion’s property meets with the golf course.”

  “Nice view of the sixth hole from here too,” Lenny said. “If you sit on that bench by the rose bushes a person could watch The King, The Golden Bear, Slammin’ Sammy, and The Black Knight.”

  “More superheroes?” Pete smirked.

  “Super golfers, Wheatman. Those are the nicknames of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead, and Gary Player.”

  “Why would a ’43 steel penny know such a thing?”

  “Oh, I’ve been a golf fan for years, ever since Ben ‘the Hawk’ Hogan began using me to mark his balls. He never played a tournament without me. I shouldn’t brag, but since I can’t help it, I’ll have you know that thanks to me The Hawk won dozens of major tournaments—the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, the Masters, the Los Angeles Open, the World Championship of Golf, on and on. I was his lucky penny.”

  “Why’d he give you up then?”

  “Not on purpose, of course. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was 1959, and he was in the clubhouse after winning the Colonial National Invitation. Sports reporters had huddled around him and flash bulbs were popping non-stop. The light blinded him, and in the confusion he mistook me for a dime. Off I went on a tip taxi. The waitress spent me later that day as part of a purchase of a McDonald’s hamburger and fries. From there it was one transaction after another, but I never got close to a golf course again. The only news I could get after that was whatever I caught on some person’s radio or TV.” Lenny frowned and shook his head. “Poor Mr. Hogan, I think that was the last major tournament he won.”

  “People just don’t know the difference a single penny can make,” Pete said.

  “They sure don’t, Wheatman. They sure don’t.”

  “Someone’s coming,” Pete said. “Quick, under the rose bush!”

  11

  garden parties

  Pete and Lenny dove for cover as two pairs of leather shoes strode up and halted right in front of them. One pair belonged to a man, the other the black and white saddle shoes of a young lady.

  “What a magical little spot,” the
girl said.

  “Enchanting, isn’t it? I call it my gilded garden.”

  “Gilded as in gold?” she replied, a little confused. “The view of the golf course from here is priceless, Uncle, but I don’t see any gold. Not even among the flowers.”

  “That’s because you’re not looking close enough, Fiona. Come.”

  Pete and Lenny exchanged curious looks, and keeping to the path’s fringes, bucked after them.

  The man and his niece halted near a small, white-latticed gazebo surrounded by lavender shrubs. Pete and Lenny took cover under two fallen, dried leaves from a nearby lemon tree.

  Fiona walked up the two steps into the gazebo and admired the view of the golf course and the sea beyond.

  “I love it!” the girl enthused. She sniffed at the air. Smiling at the scent, she took a long, audible whiff. “What a heavenly smell, Uncle.”

  The man smiled and beckoned to her to join him. He gestured towards the shade of the gazebo a few feet away from one of the lavender shrubs.

  Fiona stepped down from the gazebo and traced the direction of her uncle’s pointing finger. “I don’t see…oh, my.”

  She squatted onto her haunches and peered down at a flat stone the size of a brick. Over the rock stood a canopy made from a silk handkerchief tied to four ballpoint pens marked First National Bank of Merced. Beneath the canopy, propped up on a pillow inside a jewelry box like a princess, sat a shiny silver dollar.

  Fiona looked up at her uncle. “What’s all this about?”

  Her uncle shrugged. “I don’t really know, to tell you the truth. I spotted the coin here a few years back. At the time, it was on this same stone, only leaning against a rock. Later, I saw a shoddy roof over it made from a tin of tuna fish. A rather unattractive ornament for such a beautiful coin, I thought. I had been meaning to put a gazebo out here for years, and so I decided I’d build it making sure it’s roof extended over the rock to keep the rain away, yet high enough that the lavender plants got plenty of sunshine. The current canopy is relatively new, though like the previous tuna tin, I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Who did?”

  “Perhaps one of the golf course’s caretakers?” he proposed with a teasing grin.

  Fiona laughed. “All this effort for a coin? You aren’t my wonderful, eccentric Uncle Harold for nothing!”

  “Yes, your eccentric Uncle Harold. But what you see is only a smidgen of my eccentricity.”

  “But why, Uncle?” she asked lifting the coin from its pillow and examining it. “It’s beautiful, but what’s so special about this coin?”

  “It’s a 1922 Peace Dollar, dearest, and a very valuable one at that. Nearly priceless.”

  “Then why isn’t it in your safe? Why leave it exposed like this where a stranger might find it?”

  “Oh, it’s well protected.”

  Fiona looked about, but she saw no fencing or security of any kind.

  Noting his niece’s bewilderment, he pointed again at the ground beside the lavender shrub. “Push back some of those stems.”

  She did as told, and gasped. “Are those gold coins?”

  “Fairly rare gold coins at that,” he boasted. “And there are more than these two lying about somewhere. I’ve seen dozens of them over the years.”

  “What are you telling me, Uncle?” Fiona asked, mystified, if not a tad concerned for her oddball uncle’s state of mind. “You sprinkle gold coins in your garden?”

  “No, honey. I may have my quirks, but I’m not insane.”

  Fiona wasn’t so sure anymore, but she dared not question her favorite uncle’s faculties in front of him. Besides, she knew Harold Auden to be a fabulously successful businessman, and one didn’t become so if he were completely crackers.

  Fiona replaced the coin on its royal cushion and stood. “So where did the coins come from?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea,” he answered with a chuckle. “They just showed up one day. I used to think that birds brought them. Until…” He hesitated to confide.

  “Until what, Uncle?”

  He shrugged helplessly. At sixty-three years old and extremely accomplished, Harold Auden cared less and less what people thought of him, even his beloved niece.

  “Until one evening when I couldn’t sleep I came out here for a stroll, and to my amazement I saw flocks of tiny golden eagles flitting about.”

  “Birds?”

  “Coins, Fiona. Quarter, half eagle, and double eagles. Golden coins with eagles on their reverse sides.”

  “But surely you were dreaming, Uncle. Maybe you were sleepwalking.”

  He shook his head. “Over the years I saw them many times, even in broad daylight. I get the feeling that they,” he chuckled knowing how ludicrous it would sound, “trust me.”

  Fiona gawped at him. “You’re telling me these coins are alive?”

  “But of course, that’s preposterous.” Mr. Auden cocked a wispy white eyebrow. “Absurd.”

  “So…?”

  “So it is what it is,” he answered with a smile.

  “And this Peace Dollar, is she the queen bee or something?”

  “I don’t know what she is, but she must be important somehow.”

  “How many coins have you seen, Uncle?”

  “To the casual eye they all look alike, but I suppose I’ve seen maybe a hundred or more, including regular coins—pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half dollars.”

  Fiona looked around her. “Where are they all?”

  “They’re about somewhere. Remember, they are small, and in a garden such as this there are plenty of places to hide.”

  “And you’ve never told anyone about it?”

  “Until you, not a soul.”

  “Gosh, Uncle Harold, you could be famous. You could make it into Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”

  “And have thousands of tourists traipsing onto my property? I believe it not!”

  “Of course, Uncle,” Fiona said, chastened. “But if what you are telling me is true—and you would never tease me so cruelly, would you—?”

  “Never.”

  “—Then what you have here is truly incredible and must be worth millions of dollars!”

  “I already have millions of dollars, my dear. To me, the serenity and enjoyment I receive from my magical garden and its occupants is inestimable. I will never tell anyone, and neither must you.”

  “Yes, Uncle. You have my word.”

  She squatted down again and pushed aside the branches of the lavender shrub for another peek at the two golden coins she saw minutes earlier.

  “Gone, Uncle Harold! How did you do that?!”

  “You don’t believe, Fiona,” he said cryptically. “You haven’t entered Coinworld.”

  The girl stood and faced her uncle. “Coinworld?”

  He smiled. “Perhaps.”

  Fiona tilted her pretty head in wonder, her mousey brown hair draping across her shoulder. She studied her uncle’s sagacious gray eyes. They shone without a hint of guile or mischief. They were youthful eyes, she thought, and it occurred to her that despite his great age—for to a girl of thirteen, what person over fifty wasn’t already ancient?—he appeared younger than the last time she had seen him. Younger and more zestful than her father, Harold’s much younger brother, who rarely moved without a creak or a grumble, and who spoke in a life-weary, lugubrious monotone.

  “I believe you believe, Uncle. But without witnessing some of these wonders you speak of with my own eyes, it is a little difficult to imagine. Seeing is believing, isn’t that so? Surely you can understand that.”

  “That is the adage, yes. But when it comes to some things in this world, it works the other way around: to believe is to see. But don’t worry. I’m neither surprised nor disappointed.”

  “So, it wasn’t a magic trick? The two coins scampered off somewhere all on their own?”

  “Unless some rodent got to them—a squirrel or rabbit perhaps?”

  “But you don’t believ
e that, Uncle.”

  “Not I, no. But you might, and that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

  “If you want me to believe, I will.”

  “Belief is not such a simple thing, Fiona, especially these days. It’s not just thinking something so. It may start that way, or it may end that way, but to believe in anything, whether our Maker, in yourself, or in something as outlandish as Coinworld, requires struggle and the confrontation of all your fears. I don’t require your belief, Fiona; that is something you must decide all on your own.”

  “But why me, Uncle? Why share your coin garden with me?”

  “Because one day I want it to be yours. And I want you to take care of it. For this too I believe: if you take care of your garden it will take care of you.”

  The color in the girl’s cheeks drained with concern, and her powder-blue eyes stared at him with dread.

  “You’re not ill or anything, are you Uncle Harold? Daddy told me about your heart trouble some years back. But you look fine to me, better than fine!”

  Her uncle smiled down at her and petted the back of her head. “I’m fine, sweetheart, and much to the mystification of my doctor, I might add. Why, just last month he pronounced me fit as a fiddle and a medical marvel.”

  “That’s wonderful news, Uncle.”

  “Welcome indeed, but one never knows what tomorrow can bring in this tempestuous world we live in.”

  Relieved by her uncle’s assuring words, but still concerned about the meaning behind them, she said, “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Trim back the bushes now and then, a little sweeping, take heed in case of the rare frost…”

  “I mean the coins, Uncle. Do I have to polish them or something? Feed them?”

  Mr. Auden chuckled. “No, Fiona. You do nothing. The coins are very self-reliant and take care of themselves. You give them safe harbor, that’s all.”

  “Do you think they will appear to me as they have for you?”

  “They are timid creatures, but if they feel they can trust you, I suppose they will. Like a stray cat you might want to befriend, it could take a long time before it stops scampering away with your approach. And no, you can’t tempt them with food or smoothing words. They are very smart and very intuitive. They are very…purposeful creatures.”