“Destroying my bathroom.” Doug laughed.
“And before we went to the refinery, I said something to the token. Oh, what did I say?” I closed my eyes tight and tried to relive the scene. “Where did you come from?”
“I’m originally from New Jersey,” Doug said.
I opened my eyes. “No, not you, Doug. I asked the token to show me where it came from. And then it took us to the refinery! Maybe I do have the power to bring the Badgers back!”
Zoe got up from the couch, covering her face with her hands. “Lord, no. This boy cannot control this thing!”
“And when we left the refinery, you asked for food, remember?” Doug threw both hands up in the air. “And we ended up in a fish market!” Doug pointed to my token. “Man, we should go somewhere now! Tell it to take us somewhere, Arcade!”
“No, we SHOULD NOT go somewhere now!” Zoe stomped a foot. “Arcade doesn’t know what he’s doing! He has no idea what the power of pure gold can do.”
I held up my Gold Rush book. “Maybe we can find out here.” As soon as I said that, it was like the Triple T Token turned into a tiny firework on my chest. It jumped and blew out a few sparks toward Doug and Zoe. They jumped back.
“Don’t do it, Arcade! DON’T DO IT!” And as soon as she said that, showers of gold flakes fell from the ceiling.
“Well, it looks like we’re going somewhere. Glitter never lies.” I held out my hands and caught several gold flakes.
Doug ran in the kitchen and brought out a few pie tins. “Here! Catch it, just in case it’s real!”
“This isn’t real gold, Doug.” Zoe said. “It’s glitter.”
I looked a little closer at the bits in my hand, pressing and moving them around with my finger. It had a different texture than glitter. “Uh, Zoe. I think Doug might be on to something.” Loopy came bounding down the stairs. “Hey, Loop! You wanna go on a gold adventure?” Loopy barked and tried to lick some of the gold flakes off my shoe.
“No way, Arcade.”
I looked at my sister with a smile. “Aw, c’mon. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Loopy.” I picked him up with one hand and rested the hot token in my other. “Show us the power of pure gold!” I shouted. A large fountain of sparks flew out of the center of the token, and gold elevator doors appeared in the middle of the living room. “Grab the book!” I yelled to Doug.
I held Loopy tight and pulled the token from the chain. It came loose, and a golden coin slot shaped like a miner’s pan appeared in front of the doors. I threw the token in, and they opened.
Chapter 15
Preteen 49ers
“These elevators are getting fancier,” Zoe said as the doors closed behind us. She walked around, smoothing her hand along all four walls. “If I didn’t think it was impossible, I’d say these walls are made of pure gold.”
“Why would it be impossible? Don’t you see? I asked the token to show us the power of pure gold, and here we are.”
Zoe gave me an intense stare. “Arcade, why are you doing this? What if this adventure doesn’t turn out the way you want?”
“Zoe, remember what you said to me in the elevator at the refinery? What if I never opened another library book? Maybe that’s the test. To see if I’m adventurous and open to new things.”
“NO! It’s to test your mettle, remember? You heard the lady! Where is that brain of yours?”
I didn’t have time to answer, because the doors opened and Loopy ran out.
* * *
“Loopy! Get back here!”
We chase Loopy down a sloshy, mud path, getting sloppier each moment from cold, pouring rain. After our blazing summer in New York City, the cold is a welcome feeling . . . until I start to shiver as water drips down my back.
“Loopy!”
Loopy stops on the banks of a river, where several rugged-looking young men in dirty clothes and tattered hats are squatting, holding something out in the water.
“They’re gold panning!” Doug says. “Good thing I brought pans!”
Zoe puts an arm out to stop us. “I don’t think we should go down there.”
I push through. “Too late. Loopy’s already there.”
He’s sitting between a couple of the guys, and one of them is petting him while Loopy licks mud off his fingers. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, pup. Where’d you come from?” The young man stands, stretches, and turns around. He almost falls into the river when he sees us. “Hey, you kids! What are you doin’ down here? This your dog?”
That gets the attention of all the men, who also stand and stare.
“I’m thinking we look out of place,” I say quietly through clenched teeth.
“Ya think?” Zoe replies.
The tallest man, who also looks to be the oldest, walks a few steps our way. “You lookin’ for somethin’, young people? Come down here.”
“I don’t wanna go.” Doug backs up a step. I reach for his sleeve and pull him along with us anyway.
I clear my throat. “Hello, sir. My name is uh, Arcade—”
The man scrunches up his face. “Arcade? Like the architecture? All them arches?”
I grin. “Well, yeah, that’s one of the meanings of the word, but I like to think it’s more like a gaming arcade.”
The guy raises an eyebrow. “Gaming? You mean like gamblin’?”
Zoe cuts in. “NO. Not like that at all. Like a . . . uh . . . penny arcade.”
The guy gives me a blank stare. “Don’t have a clue about no penny arcade.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and grips hard. He pushes me down to the edge of the river. “So, what do you want, Mr. Arches?” He laughs, and the rest of the gang joins him. “You wanna join the crew? We’re about to score big on this claim. Got ourselves a valuable piece of the river to mine.”
I look around at the ripped canvas tents, and the skinny men in holey shoes and shirts. By the smell of them, I wonder if they ran out of money for soap months ago.
“Thanks for the offer, sir, but we just came for our dog.” Zoe backs away and waves me back.
One of the other guys comes up behind Doug and points to the pie pans. “Looks like you came to do some minin’.” Then he squints and looks closer. “Hey, what’s all this? Where you been dunking your pans, partner?”
He fingers the gold glitter in the pan. Pushes it around a few seconds.
Please don’t let that be real gold.
The man pulls the pan from Doug’s hand and gives it to the old guy. “Check this out, boss!”
The old guy fishes around in the pan and holds his gold-covered finger up close to Doug’s face. “Where’d you get this, kid?”
“Uh, Arcade’s living room. Just came from there. This stuff was falling from the ceiling.”
The younger man pushes Doug in the chest and he falls into the mud, dropping the other pan. Loopy runs over and sits in Doug’s lap.
“Ain’t never heard of no gold fallin’ from no ceilin’. You know what I think? I think maybe we got some claim jumpers here, boss!” The man picks the pan up out of the mud and hands it to the old miner.
He stares into the pan. “You kids been pannin’ in my part of the river?”
I shake my head, hard. “No, sir. We would never do that. We were just trying to find my dog.”
The leathery prospector stares at my face, but then his eyes drop to my neck. “What’s that chain you got there?”
Zoe steps in between us. “I’m sorry we disturbed your gold mining. We’ll be taking our dog and going now.”
The miner brushes her aside. “What are you doin’ down here, little lady? Shouldn’t you be in the city with the other women mendin’ socks or somethin’?”
Oh, boy.
Zoe crosses her arms and sticks out her chin. “I BEG YOUR PARDON? Mending socks? And who are YOU to be telling ME what I should be doing?”
“Sassy,” one of the guys says, and a bunch of them laugh.
The man reaches out and grabs my chain. And right at that moment, the tok
en appears back on it, shining all pure-gold like.
Bad timing! Bad timing!
The guy rests my token in his hand. “Triple T, huh? What is this?” He holds it to his mouth and bites the token. I hear a sizzle on his tongue.
“Hey! That’s hot gold!” At the sound of his cry, all the miners crowd around me.
“Where’d you get that, kid? That’s a huge chunk for just one person. You wanna share?” All of a sudden, hands are reaching out, all trying to pull Triple T off the chain.
“Yeah, kids don’t need gold. And we’re starvin’ out here! You’re on our claim, so I’m thinkin’ that’s ours!”
“Run, Arcade!” Zoe reaches for my hand, tugs hard, and pulls me from the huddle. Loopy is at my feet. I grab him up, duck through a hole in the group, and start to run and slip through the mud.
Doug scrambles up the bank and calls to me from the top. “We need some doors, Arcade! Summon the doors!”
Summon the doors?
“I’ve never done that before!” I shout back. “They’re supposed to just . . . show up!”
By now, the prospectors are breathing down my neck, so I gotta try something.
I trap the sizzling token between my palms. It pulses light and heat. “Get us back home!” I yell. Golden doors appear at the top of the bank, and the coin slot pushes out from the middle.
“Thank goodness!” Zoe yells. “Throw it in, Arcade!”
I pull the Triple T Token off the chain and, just as I reach the top of the muddy bank, I flip it into the slot. A huge golden mining trough appears on the top of the elevator doors. I motion with my hands for the doors to open. They do, and Zoe, Doug, Loopy, and I run in. We turn just in time to see the prospectors about to enter the elevator with us. But right before they do, the trough tilts down, sending a stream of golden glitter slush all over them.
“Eureka!” I yell.
The doors close.
* * *
We landed back in my living room. Muddy, but just us. No prospectors in sight.
Zoe grabs me by the collar. “EUREKA? We barely avoid disaster with greedy prospectors and you yell, ‘EUREKA’?”
I picked a clump of dried mud off my elbow and grinned. “Eureka is the state motto of California. It means ‘I found it!’ I read it right here in my library book . . . uh-oh . . .” I looked over at Doug, who had his fist up to his mouth. “What happened to the book, Doug?”
“What happened to the book?”
“That’s what I said, Doug.”
“You told me to grab the book on the way out.”
“Yeaaaah.”
“So I did.”
“And?”
“You didn’t tell me to grab it on the way back. So I guess it’s like the opposite of Eureka, you know? Because I didn’t find it, I lost—”
“Doug! Do you know how much I hate to lose library books? How am I supposed to explain this to Ms. Weckles? Borrowing a book is a privilege that I take very seriously!”
Doug slumped down on the floor. “Sorry, Arcade. I got kinda scared when that guy pushed me in the mud.”
Zoe stood up and rubbed mud off her arms. “Doug, you shouldn’t be apologizing. This is all Arcade’s fault.”
“WHAT? How is this my fault?”
“HOW is it your fault? How about THIS? ‘We can’t disappoint Loopy. Show us the power of pure gold,’” she said in an exaggerated mocking tone. “Don’t you remember your own words, Arcade? You couldn’t just ignore it, could you?”
“I’ve never been able to ignore it, Zoe. The thing heats up, glitter falls, and we go somewhere. You know that.”
“But now you’re commanding it! You’re going where YOU want to go. And this time you lost a book. And you almost lost your token. Who knows what else you could have lost! And what did you learn, exactly? Did you learn what the power of pure gold is? I don’t think so! Because it looks to me like gold CORRUPTS people. You saw the greed in those prospectors’ eyes. It wasn’t good, Arcade. And guess what? I think that was the same look you had on your face right before you decided to take us through those doors.”
Ouch.
“So . . . just sayin’ . . . if that old woman on top of the Empire State Building was right, and the token really is testing you—I’d say you failed this time.”
The front door opened, and in walked Mom and Dad. Their smiles turned to confused frowns when they got a look at us.
“Mud? Really? In the living room?” Mom ran upstairs and came down dragging a steam cleaner and holding a stack of towels. “I expect this to be cleaned up immediately.”
Dad just stood with his hand on his hip. “It’s dry as the Sahara Desert outside. Where in the world did you get muddy?” Then he tipped his head, looked into my eyes, and grinned. “I’m glad school starts tomorrow. Seems like you all need something better to do with your time.”
Chapter 16
MS 230: Day #1
Zoe thumped on my bedroom door to wake Doug and me up for the first day of school. It’s a weird tradition that she insists on never breaking. But this time, I was ready for her! I flung the door open and jumped in her face. “HA! You thought I’d still be sleeping, didn’t you? Well, I’m changing my ways, sister!”
Zoe gave me a once over and then stared at me, stone-faced. “Sleep in your clothes again?”
“Maybe. But at least my clothes are stylish.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m off to the subway. I’m going early today so I can find all my classes. Michael said he’d help.”
“Oh, so that’s why you brushed your hair,” I said with a little wiggle of my head.
Zoe reached out and grabbed my token. “Remember our agreement. You don’t go anywhere with this thing without me. If it heats up, do whatever you need to do. Douse it. Jump into the Hudson River, the Central Park reservoir, or the nearest aquarium. You got it?”
I leaned on the door and smirked. “Yeah, I got it.”
She turned to leave. I almost closed the door, but then she came back and pushed through. “Arcade?”
“Yeah?”
“Have a good first day of middle school.” She reached out, gave me a hug, smiled, and disappeared down the stairs.
* * *
“Hey, Doug, wake up!” I nudged my roommate, who had been sleeping comfortably on the blow-up mattress next to my bed. “We gotta leave a little early to feed Flames before school. And we’re running low on shrimp, so we’ll have to figure something out this afternoon.”
“Ugh. What day is it?” Doug sat up and scratched his head.
“It’s the first day of middle school! You know, every kid’s nightmare.”
Doug fell back. “Wiley’s gonna punch my lights out when he sees me.”
“I doubt it. He probably won’t even recognize you. You’re like a mile tall now.” I smacked the bottom of Doug’s foot that hung out over the mattress.
Doug cracked his neck. “I guess I do look a little different now.”
“What does this Wiley Overton look like, anyway? Do you think you’ll recognize him?”
Doug thought a minute. “Oh yeah, I’ll recognize him. I’ve seen him around the city a few times since third grade. Hasn’t changed a bit, except he’s gotten huger. I’ve always thought he looked like a big potato.”
Adrenaline surged through my veins. “What kind of potato, exactly?”
“Well, definitely not a sweet potato.”
* * *
Loopy met me at the bottom of the stairs for my morning lick of encouragement. “Loop, I wish you could come.” I thought for a second about stuffing him in my backpack to see if I could pass him off as my seventh-grade therapy dog. I hugged him tight instead. “I’ll see you this afternoon.” Then I placed him behind the dog gate in the kitchen.
My dad, who works into the early mornings because of his job, had left me a note on the dining room table. I picked it up and read it out loud to Doug.
Dear Arcade,
Middle School! What a c
hallenge. But you can handle it! Remember your #GOALZ. And also remember this:
‘My son, never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation.’ Proverbs 3:3–4 NLT.
Love, Dad
“I like that part about tying them around your neck,” Doug said. “Sounds like your token.”
“Yeah, I guess it does. Hey, Doug, you got a note too.” I held the three-by-five card out to him.
“Really? That’s cool!” He took it from me and read it.
Dear Doug,
We love having you with us. This is going to be a great year for you. Don’t worry about anything! God’s got you!
Mr. Livingston
Doug breathed in deep and carefully folded the card. He put it in his back pocket. “I’m keepin’ this.” Then he looked up at me. “What’s for breakfast?”
* * *
MS 230 is four blocks north and two blocks east from my house. It sits right across from Central Park. Sweet.
“Dude, I miss your flamingo backpack.” Doug jogged along next to me on the way to school. Our bodies didn’t feel like walking on this nerve-filled morning.
“Me too.” I reached up to tighten the straps on my second favorite backpack, the one with multiple colors running through a black background. “But we got a real flamingo now, remember?”
“How can I forget? Arcade, what are we gonna do with that bird? Pretty soon realtors are gonna wanna bring some buyers over to my place, and I can’t have it smelling like shrimp. Or . . . worse.”
I scratched my head. “I don’t know. Maybe I can ask the token to take us back to Beijing.” The token shot a hot blast through my chest. I grabbed it. “But not right now!”
“Hey, Arcade! Doug!” The sound of a puttering electric scooter behind us signaled that the most fun kid in all of New York City had arrived.
Thomas Scranton. I call him Scratchy.
“Scratchy! Dude!” I ran up and gave him a high-five. “How was your summer?”
Arcade and the Fiery Metal Tester Page 7