Huxley Auden looked around, perplexed. He sniffed at the air. “You boys smell smoke?” he asked his buddies.
The others whiffed at the air, and shook their heads.
“Huh,” Huxley grunted. “Maybe it’s coming from the kitchen.” He returned to his burger and fries.
Yellow shirt said, “Hux, turn on the radio again so we can listen to the tournament while we eat.”
“Good idea,” the others said.
Huxley clicked on the transistor radio. The men smiled with contentment and resumed stuffing their faces.
“Hold still, Bruce,” Kipp said, “almost there!”
Erasmus gave a final tug of his beak and the twine snapped.
The beetle, usually as slow and plodding as a sleepy ox, scrambled away from the flaming wagon.
“Uh-oh,” Darla said, “we’ve got company.”
“You’re dead now!” Derek Dime shouted. He sent up a thin stream of smoke to indicate to the incoming gold eagles his location.
Darla charged at Derek and slid into him, knocking the Roosevelt dime off his rim and cutting off his torch. She heard the screech of eagles in the distance and turned to check. The Roosevelt dime used the interruption to flip back up and train his torch on Darla.
“Darla!” Pete hollered.
He sped towards Darla and knocked her out of the way a moment before Derek spewed his flame. Pete and Darla went sprawling and Derek took aim for another blast of his torch.
The fire spread towards Franny’s rock pedestal and its silk handkerchief canopy, held up by its four First National Bank of Merced ballpoint pens. Ned waggled beneath the much larger Peace Dollar. He worked desperately to prop her onto her rim along the inside edge of the jewelry box.
“Hurry, Ned!” Franny cried. “The fire is going to reach us any second!”
The pens began to melt and wilt. Then one of them buckled, dragging the handkerchief with it, and hauling down the other pens. Half of the silk hanky draped on top of Ned and Franny.
Franny screamed as the fire raced up the handkerchief, threatening to engulf them.
Kipp Quarter saw the danger Ned and Franny were in, but he didn’t have time to roll and gain flight. He bucked towards the rock to help, but the heat of the fire pushed him back. Kipp searched for Hannah and Sadie Silver Dollar, but they were still nowhere in sight. Instead, he saw zooming towards them a squadron of four gold eagles.
Unable to help Ned and Franny, and being the only eagle-backed coin among the group, Kipp knew he had to fend off the $2.50 and $5.00 eagles by himself. He bolted off rolling and took flight to meet them.
Ned whistled for Hannah and Sadie again. “Come on, girls,” he said nervously.
He looked for a way out, but his only option was to knock Franny over the side of the jewelry box and to the ground. Doing so, however, meant pulling the burning handkerchief with her. Further complicating their escape, he saw flames dancing at the base of the pedestal.
“Steelman!” Ned shouted. “Wheatman! Catch!”
Pete and Lenny glanced up and rushed towards the rock throne.
“Sorry, Franny,” Ned said, “but this is our only hope.”
With that, Ned jumped, flipped, and with the bottom of his rim, kicked Franny in the forehead.
Franny screamed and flew tumbling from the jewelry box, the handkerchief around her like a flaming shroud. The silk kerchief ripped away, floated on a zephyr, and plastered against the wooden trellis that ran along the bottom of the gazebo.
Below, Pete and Lenny bucked up together and shifted left and right, back and forth, as if judging a high fly ball to centerfield.
Franny landed with a thud on top of them, Pete and Lenny each reaching a wheat stalk around to catch her. They bucked her into a dirt clearing, temporarily safe from the spreading fire.
“Nice catch, guys!” Franny said.
Ned vaulted somersaulting from the jewelry box to the ground below, clear from the flames. He looked back and saw the fire swallow up the box, which only fed its voracious appetite. He strutted bucking towards Derek Dime, who backed up closer to the lavender bush, as if debating if he should duck inside and roll for his life.
Instead, the dime turned his back to The Four and aimed his torch at him. He unleashed blast after fiery blast at the nickel, but flipping and ducking, Ned dodged every shot. Each burst of flame grew smaller, and Derek Dime knew he was almost out of fuel, and that it would be hours before he could generate more. Still, he felt he had one shot left. He took careful aim at The Four, and just as he was about to hose the nickel, a call came in and his torch popped.
Ned looked into Derek’s sputtering flame. A voice came over the transom.
“This is The Six. Anyone there?”
Ned grinned. He whistled the “Colonel Bogey March.”
“Hello, hello…?”
Derek Dime’s torched fizzled out and went silent. He turned and faced The Four and the raging fire behind the nickel.
“Well, Four, it looks like we’re all going to burn in hell together,” he sneered.
Ned saw a rustling in the lavender bush behind the dime, and then two beady eyes and the flick of a black forked tongue.
He grimaced and backed away saying, “I have some good news and some bad news, dime. You won’t be burned alive.”
“Yeah, and the bad news?”
“There could be worse ways to get to hell.”
Derek Dime screwed his face in confusion. “Huh?”
The giant gopher snake opened his mouth, struck at the dime, and gulped him down. The snake looked menacingly at Ned, but feeling the heat of the inferno, he satisfied himself with his ten-cent snack and slithered back into the lavender bush.
Kipp Quarter streaked towards the golden eagles. Outnumbered four to one, he suddenly wished he hadn’t tossed away that golf tee earlier.
He smashed into the lead $5 half eagle, twisting at the last moment. With talon outstretched, Erasmus grabbed the bird by its leg, and performing a barrel roll, he whipped the screeching half eagle into the smaller quarter eagle behind him. The two golden coins collided with a clink. Stunned, they dropped from the sky into the top of a pine tree.
The other two gold coins ignored their compatriots, and flew on. The clash had cost Kipp precious time. He pursued them, but he was too far behind to catch the speedy eagles before they might snatch and retake the Peace Dollar.
Inside the gazebo, the four men ate their burgers and dipped french fries into little cups of ketchup as they listened to the announcers comment on the tournament.
“This is the life,” the pink-faced man in the blue blazer said for the umpteenth time.
Announcer Vance said, “Hey, Chris, is that smoke in the distance?”
“Where?”
“Over there, beyond the sixth hole where the Auden mansion is. A little wisp of smoke.”
“I don’t…wait, I think you’re right. Smoke or maybe haze, or—”
“I think it’s smoke, Chris.”
The four men looked up from their burgers, their eyes sliding one to the other.
They sniffed again at the air, and this time the smoke was unmistakable. They glanced guiltily at the half-smoked Cuban cigars resting in the ashtray.
A french fry dangling from his mouth, the beefy, pink-faced man said, “Umm, fellas, I think that’s us they’re talking about.”
The four men bolted to their feet.
“Holy smoke!” Huxley cried. He reached for the bell and rang it for all it was worth, calling, “Marshall, Marshall, get out here! Fire!”
“What do we do?” asked the man in yellow.
“Fred,” Huxley said to pink face in the blazer, “give me your coat, fast!”
“But…”
“Now!” Huxley ordered.
Fred removed his blazer and tossed it to Huxley, who rushed with it down the steps of the gazebo. He stumbled, and fell onto his face.
The gold half eagle drew a bead on Franny, and dove. With claws outstret
ched, it was only moments from plucking her up.
Zipping in low for the rescue came Wrong Way Sadie Silver Dollar and her intrepid, cross-eyed eagle, Ernie.
“We’ve got ‘cha, honey!” Sadie cried, and zoomed away with the coin in Ernie’s talon. “Everything is going to be fine,” Sadie said. “You can quit struggling.”
The coin struggled all the fiercer.
“It’s okay, honey,” Sadie said, “we’re the good guys!”
She heard an angry screech and looked beneath her.
“Oopsy-doopsy. Ernie, we snatched up the wrong coin.”
The gold half eagle flailed and writhed trying to free itself from the larger silver dollar, and then it reached its beak up and bit Ernie on his leg.
Ernie screeched, but he didn’t let go. Furious, he took off towards the golf course. He and Sadie saw a man standing inside a large sand trap readying to swing his club, and wings beating, they soared over to him.
Inside the gazebo the men scrambled about in a panic. They grabbed up their mint juleps and tossed the dregs over the railing and into the fire in a futile attempt to douse it.
The little transistor radio continued to play, but the men were no longer listening.
“Well, Chris,” Announcer Vance said, “now we know why they call it Satan’s Sand Trap, eh?”
“Poor Arnold is having a heck of a time getting out of there. How many strokes is that now?”
“I lost track, Chris, but if he keeps swinging like he is, I think he’s going to come out in China!”
The two announcers laughed, and Chris said, “Hey, it looks like those glittering insects have returned to harass Mr. Palmer.”
“I think you’re right, Chris. Hold on…the silver thingumajiggy just dropped his gold pal into the pit Mr. Palmer is carving out there.”
“Whoa, look at that, Vance, The King just smacked the living daylights out of that gold bug.”
“He sure did, Chris. Too bad he can’t do the same to his golf ball! Look at that, he just missed again.”
“Oh, boy. Arnold just threw down his golf cap in frustration and is stomping on it like a mad bull.”
“By the way, ladies and gentlemen, that smoke in the distance we mentioned earlier doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller.”
“No, it hasn’t,” Chris said, a little concerned. “That wisp has turned into a plume. I think it’s time someone calls the fire department.”
“Anyway, let’s turn back to the action. The Black Knight, Gary Player, is about to tee up…”
The remaining gold eagle raced in on the wake of his compatriot’s failed attempt. The quarter eagle screeched and extended its claws moments from plucking up the Peace Dollar.
Darting in from the side rushed Hannah Half Dollar and her eagle Emma, golf tee in claw. The tee stuck out like a lance, and Hannah rammed it into the gold coin and sent it tumbling. The quarter eagle flailed and fell sprawling to the ground where it bounced off a stone and into the midst of the fire.
Hannah shouted, “We’ve got to get out of here, Four. The whole base is going to go up in flames!” She glanced in the direction of the base’s main airfield. “And another squadron is coming!”
“Grab up Franny,” he called back. “Kipp, you’re with Darla. Sadie, round up Pete and Lenny!”
“What about Bruce?” Lenny shouted over the roar of the fire.
“I’ll get him,” Kipp hollered.
The eagle-backed coins circled and gathered their fellow Raiders. Kipp zoomed over Bruce the beetle, who was fleeing the scene as quickly as his six legs could carry him, which for the pokey beetle was still too slow to escape the fast-spreading flames. Without losing a beat of his wings, Erasmus snatched Bruce up by his horn. The simpleminded beetle’s legs continued pedaling in the air.
Ned rolled into a clearing and waited for Hannah.
With a large silver dollar in one talon, grabbing up the smaller nickel chanced banging Franny on the ground and dropping her.
Hannah shouted, “Four, up!”
She passed over Ned’s head and he leapt into Emma Eagle’s free claw alongside Franny.
The Raiders disappeared through a cloud of smoke moments before the second squadron of gold eagles arrived.
The fire spread with new fierceness, consuming everything in its path. It raced up the gazebo and turned it into a giant tiki torch.
The four friends scurried around in a panic and tried kicking dirt onto the fire.
Marshall the butler ran up with a spewing garden hose shouting, “What have you fools done!”
He turned the hose on the flames, but the fire had already grown too large and out of control.
23
nummus animabilis
Coin Island — Three days later
All the Raiders who had participated in Operation Jackpot returned to their originating bases and were welcomed as heroes, except at the Grand Canyon Bullion Base. There, Darla Dime proclaimed a week of mourning. She shut down the base’s CBS and posted coin sentries along Havasu Creek to ensure no one used the river to contact any other base or coin, all of which Darla said were also mourning “the Reno disaster.”
Coin Island celebrated through the night upon the return of Ned, the chief, and their Raiders. Franny the Peace Dollar was the guest of honor, and the base did what it could to make her feel welcome. They didn’t set her on a pedestal with a canopy or treat her like a princess, but Franny was glad about that. Although unused to roughing it, she never thought of herself as anything but a silver dollar who happened to commemorate the end of World War I, and that was enough to be proud about.
It was mid-February, bitter cold, and the island was still recovering from the last snowstorm. Because winter on the island could be very boring for a dormant, unactivated coin, Leo Lincoln assigned a sleigh drawn by the recently rescued Bruce the beetle—sleigh bells and all—to shuttle Franny about Coin Island.
The following day Ned suggested he take Franny for a sleigh ride to the south end of the island to show her The Hugh and Shadow. Franny had heard some of the stories about the mysterious man and his odd relationship with the island, and the fellow intrigued her.
Ned led Bruce the beetle along the snow-covered coastal road, and when they arrived at their destination, he nudged Franny off the sleigh. He pushed her across some ice, and then propped her up against a big four-inch ‘snowcoin’ that some of Leo’s engineers had made for fun.
Across the channel they saw The Hugh on his bench. He was wrapped tightly in his navy blue peacoat, a wool cap on his head, and reading a book. Shadow lay beside the man, a blanket on top of him, his tail hanging out one end, and his head on The Hugh’s lap. An army-green knapsack hung from the backrest, and what looked like parts of a fishing pole stuck out from inside the ruck.
Franny said, “Thank you for dragging me around, Ned. The others too. But I must say, it‘s a little embarrassing, and it makes me feel fat.”
Ned laughed and assured Franny that she’d learn to buck ‘n’ roll in no time, and that a whole new life awaited her.
“Will you be teaching me?” she asked hopefully.
“I’ll get you on your rim, but we have some excellent instructors who will help you make the most out of your embossments.
“I see,” Franny said, a little disappointed.
“You’re nummus animabilis,” Ned said in explanation.
“Am I sick? Is that some sort of disease?”
Ned chuckled. “Latin. Nummus is coin, like numismatics, get it? And animabilis is animal. Deirdre coined the term. That’s what we call a coin who is humanlike on the obverse and has an animal on the reverse, like an eagle or a buffalo.”
“Well, that’s ‘a relief’,” Franny punned.
“That’s right. You have a big, beautiful eagle on your reverse, and so you’ll become a pilot and join the air force. Camille Quarter will train you. She’s among the best, and a great gal. I’m sure you two will hit it off.”
“We chatted some alrea
dy. She’s very nice.” Franny looked away and added, “Everyone’s been very nice to me…”
“What’s the matter?”
Franny lowered her gaze in embarrassment. “It’s just…well, everyone here knows I’m your girl. And you’re The Four, and everyone knows how important you are, and, well, maybe they’re just being nice to me because of it.”
“No, Franny,” Ned rejoined, “it’s not like that here. Maybe you felt so at The Six’s bullion base, but things here are different. You’ll see.”
“I feel so useless,” Franny grumbled. “Everyone is so far ahead of me. I wonder if I could ever do some of the amazing feats I’ve witnessed.”
“Everyone feels that way at first.”
“That’s what Deirdre told me.”
“And she should know,” Ned said. “Deirdre was with me when we first arrived here, and she was also the last to buck ‘n’ roll. Once she overcame her doubts, she caught up in no time. Remember, self-doubt is your biggest enemy. It fuels resistance and undercuts progress. As the chief told me many years ago, a drop of self-doubt can neutralize an ocean of faith. You must banish the black hounds of doubt from your mind.”
“I’ll remember that,” she promised. Franny chuckled and shook her head.
“What’s so funny?”
“Deirdre Dime. She commands so much respect, despite her teensy size. The little dynamo can be quite intimidating too, even though others are two or three times her size.”
“Aw, that’s just part of the show she puts on,” Ned said. “She’s all heart.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Franny was quick to explain. “She’s been nothing but kind, and boy is she smart too. I just can’t get over how self-possessed and indomitable she appears.”
“She has faith, and like I said, it wasn’t always so. When I first met her she was actually quite insecure, though she masked it with all those smarts of hers. Eventually, Deirdre realized brains weren’t enough, and that without faith she’d never understand all she was capable of doing.”
Coinworld [Book Three] Page 22