Mine!

by Natalie Hyde

  Well, that seemed about right. Even when things were going well for a Dearing, disaster was just around the corner.

  “Filthy rats got away with it too,” he added.

  “Who were the filthy rats?”

  Dad poured the boiling water out of the pot and into his mug and stirred in silence. “The same filthy rats that are everywhere, just waiting to lie and cheat and leave you jobless and homeless,” he said finally. Then he took the mug of coffee and went to the couch. “Same filthy rats that live around here.”

  I followed him, still clutching the photo. “Why didn’t he tell someone: the police, the sheriff, the Mounties or whoever is in charge up there?”

  “No use.”

  “No use?! It was his claim. It was his gold!” I was almost shaking I was so angry. “Why didn’t he DO something? Why didn’t he fight for what was his?” Like you should have done with mom, I added silently.

  Dad stiffened. “Weren’t nothing he could do.”

  I wanted to argue with him, but you heard about stuff like that happening. Something was stolen and the police were too busy or there wasn’t enough evidence or they didn’t believe you. In the end, the crooks got away with it. Speaking of crooks …

  “That guy from the bar, Randy, was snooping around for papers or a deed or something when he was here last night.”

  “That creep from the bar who was in the kitchen helping himself to our food?”

  I nodded.

  Dad grinned. “Well, he didn’t find it, now, did he?” He took the picture from me and undid some little clasps on the back. The cardboard lifted away and he pulled out a worn and tattered piece of paper. He unfolded it carefully. It looked like some official form. Inside that was a yellowed newspaper article. It fluttered to the ground, face up so the headline caught my eye.

  GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!

  Lucky Wally Dearing Strikes It Rich!

  His bad luck turns good after failed attempt to back out of land claim deal.

  I picked it up to read the rest of it.

  Wallace Dearing walked into the Bank of British North America this week with $10,000 worth of gold nuggets from his claim on Cottonwood Creek near Dawson. This is the same claim that Wally disputed with the North-West Mounted Police only a month ago. Mr. Dearing reported that two young men, Ben Odle and Jonah Stuckless, sold him the claim for $800 one night while he was intoxicated. They believed it was worthless. When he tried to get his money back, Dearing’s case was denied and he was stuck with the claim. He says that he has since found a pay streak on the claim of untold riches. Ben Odle and Jonah Stuckless could not be reached for comment.

  “Filthy rats,” I said.

  “Exactly,” my dad said.

  “So what happened to the claim and all that gold?”

  “After your granddad found the pay streak, Ben and Jonah went back to court and argued that it was all a joke and that they hadn’t really sold him the claim. They produced registration papers proving that it was still theirs. Said your granddad’s papers were forged. The judge sided with them and they took back the claim.”

  “I don’t believe it!” I said. “How could the judge side with them? It’s obvious what they were up to.”

  “Some say the judge was bribed.”

  We stared at the picture.

  “So what happened then?” I asked.

  “Grandma Emma took us to live in Dawson where she worked as a seamstress to pay the bills. Granddad leased a claim nearby and I helped him mine it, but it was a dud. When I was old enough, I left the north to find work farther south. That worked out well,” he said sarcastically. “Your granddad never gave up though. He died in the Yukon, a gold pan in his hands, they said. I only went back once, and that was when he was dying.”

  “Did the filthy rats get rich on Granddad’s gold?”

  A small smile played at the corners of Dad’s mouth. “Nope. They never found the pay streak, though they looked for the better part of sixty years.”

  “What happened to the claim?”

  Dad leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “My buddies up north told me that after Ben died, Jonah kept renewing the lease so that our family couldn’t buy it back.”

  “Even though he didn’t find the gold? Why would he do that?”

  “Spite.”

  Dad picked up the picture again and studied it. “I always wanted to go back and look for that pay streak.” He put the picture down and stared off into space. “He told me where it was, you know, on my last visit.”

  All this was a bit much for me to take in. The gold mine being real. The swindlers stealing Granddad’s claim. Deathbed confessions. It was like I was reading a novel.

  “Where was it?”

  Dad just smiled. Then the smile left his mouth. “Well, it’s a pipe dream anyway,” he said, getting up. “You’d need a ton of equipment and that’s not free. And I’m not sure that Granddad wasn’t delirious when he told me about this vein of gold. Maybe the others didn’t find any gold because it’s not there.”

  He didn’t sound convinced, though.

  Then I remembered I hadn’t told him the other bad news. “Oh, Dad? Uh, the landlord came around last night.” I swallowed. “He says we need to have two month’s rent today in full or he’ll kick us out.”

  “Did he now? I’d like to see him try.” Then he sighed. “Where’s the money?”

  “You took it.”

  Silence.

  “Oh yeah.” He paused. “Well, pass me my wallet.”

  I got it from on top of the TV and gave it to him. He opened it and frowned. “Nothin’ left?”

  I reached into my waistband and pulled out the fifty. “Just this.”

  Dad took the fifty and stared at it. “I don’t remember having a fifty.”

  “You didn’t. You took twenties out of the tea tin.”

  “Then where did this come from?”

  “It was in the wallet when that guy, Randy, brought it back last night.”

  “Really,” he said. “Is it fake?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I waited nervously while Dad held it up to the light and rubbed it between his fingers.

  “Well, is it real?” I asked, unable to wait anymore.

  “Close enough.” He handed it to me. “Hey, shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “Right. Well, when crotchety Critch comes screeching, give him the fifty and tell him we’ll have the rest in a day or so.”

  “He said we had to have it all, or he’d evict us …”

  “He won’t.”

  I didn’t really want to face the landlord again. Especially with only fifty dollars.

  “You won’t be here to do it?” I asked, trying not to sound desperate.

  “I’m gonna go get the rest.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Where was he going to get that much money in one day?

  I didn’t have the guts to ask him though.

  “Oh, and Dad? Someone else came around yesterday.”

  “What was it here? A revolving door?” He took the last gulp of coffee and took the cup to the kitchen.

  “Family Services came ’round. The lady wanted to talk to you. She said the school board sent her.”

  “You in trouble at school?”

  “No. I mean, I’ve missed quite a few days …” I let the words trail off because I didn’t want to lay a guilt trip on my dad by saying I missed all those days to take care of him.

  “Then stop skipping classes.”

  He seemed to think that this would take care of the problem. He put his mug back in the kitchen, grabbed the empty wallet and went out the door. I didn’t think it was that easy. Mrs. Family Services was not making a simple visit; she was bringing the police.

  I wished I could close my eyes and when I opened them again this would have been all a bad dream. Mom would be coming into my room with a basket of clean, folded laundry while she hummed. She was always humming. Humming can hid
e a lot of sadness. Most times I couldn’t recognize the song, but it sounded nice. Dad would have steady work and we would have our own place, with no landlords threatening to evict us.

  I knew it was stupid, but I closed my eyes, just in case. But when I opened them, all I saw was a rundown apartment, an empty tea tin and an old picture of a man who lost everything.

  CHAPTER 6

  UP FOR GRABS

  I usually love Saturdays. If I hurry down to the Cornish Pasty bakery before it opens at eight, Alice will sometimes slip me some day-old sausage rolls out the back door for only a dollar a bag. And on the way back, I would share one with Bandit. He was the little stray that hung around our building Dumpster looking for food. Shard said he had some beagle in him. For weeks after I first saw him he wouldn’t come near me, but now he sits patiently by the hole in the wire fence waiting for me. He knows what the rustling of the paper bag means.

  But today I couldn’t hang around and try and get him to come closer by holding the sausage roll in my outstretched hand. I had to leave it on the ground and sprint back to the apartment because I had the hateful chore of the rent payment hanging over my head. I did not want to have to face Mr. Critch again. He scared me. I’d never seen him smile the whole time we’d lived here. Not once. I was going to go crazy sitting here waiting for him to come around for the rent. And who knows what he was going to do when I told him we didn’t have it all. Maybe he would rip my arms right out of their sockets. Or maybe hang me upside down by my toes from the ceiling. Or … I couldn’t stand it.

  I banged on Shard’s door. Merle answered.

  “Not in handcuffs yet?” she asked, looking hopeful.

  “No. Get Shard, will ya?”

  “Merlow Jane Kent!” I heard Mrs. Kent call. “Get in here and pick up these blocks. You near crippled me for life when I stepped on one. Reesling Marie, go and help her.”

  Shard came to the door and slipped out, closing it behind her. “Better get out of here fast. When Mom starts using full names, you know things are serious.”

  She headed back down the hall toward our apartment.

  “Uh, no. I don’t think we should hang out there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mr. Critch will be coming around today for the rent …”

  “… which you don’t have,” she finished. “Been there.”

  “I’m supposed to give him fifty bucks and tell him to come back for the rest.”

  “No. No. No,” she said, putting her hands up to stop me. “That’s not how you do it. First we go back to your place and wait.”

  “Wait for what? For him to come and tear a strip off of me?”

  “He won’t come this morning; he does rent patrol around suppertime. Look, in about twenty minutes he’ll head to the doughnut shop for a bagel and coffee. He does every Saturday morning. When we’re sure he’s gone, you slip down and give the money to mousy Mrs. Critch.”

  I breathed again. Leave it to Shard to figure out how to do what my dad asked and still keep all my bones intact.

  I watched the sidewalk leading from the front doors toward the coffee shop from the balcony, while Shard watched TV. She seemed totally relaxed while I was a nervous wreck. Well, it wasn’t her neck on the line, was it?

  I was about to tell her that she was wrong when I saw him. Mr. Critch stomped down the sidewalk like he was on a mission.

  “There he goes!”

  “Well come on,” Shard said, flicking off the TV. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I was a bit embarrassed that I was relieved to have her along, but then Dearings never were very brave.

  When we got to apartment 2B, I was ready to just slip the fifty under the door and run, but before I could, Shard thumped on the door.

  “Whaddya want?” a voice asked as the door opened.

  Really, Mrs. Critch looked even mousier standing there in her worn bathrobe with her hair hanging limp, but my heart was still pounding. Shard gave me a not-so-subtle shove in the back.

  “This-is-part-of-our-rent-my-dad-will-have-the-rest-to-you-in-a-couple-of-days-goodbye.” The words came out all in a rush. I didn’t even wait for her to reply, I just turned and took off out the front doors with Shard on my heels. And I didn’t slow down until I reached the corner of Dundas and Wellington.

  Shard caught up to me, puffing. “What were we running from?”

  “I just needed to burn off some energy,” I lied.

  “Uh huh.” She didn’t look like she believed me, but thankfully she didn’t call me on it. “So where are we going?”

  Where were we going? I sure didn’t want to go back to the apartment in case Mr. Critch took a fit at our measly partial-rent payment. What I really wanted was more information on my granddad and the claim in the Yukon.

  “Where would you go to look up property registrations?” I asked.

  Shard looked at me funny. “What property?”

  So I told her about the claim and the gold and the swindlers.

  “Filthy rats,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  Shard thought for a moment.

  “What you need is the internet. You guys still don’t have a computer?” It was more a statement than a question; Shard knew we didn’t have money for stuff like that. I shook my head.

  “I’d let you use ours but Merle spilled fruit punch all over the keyboard last week and it’s still not working.”

  “Where can we find a free computer and internet?” I said, almost to myself.

  “The library,” Shard said, sounding a bit exasperated. “Everyone knows that.”

  Sometimes Shard was a bit of a know-it-all. I said nothing because I didn’t want to admit to her that I hadn’t been through the doors of a public library since we moved here. Back when we lived in the row house on Hester Street, Dad would take me to the library on Saturdays while he checked the want ads. But now, Dad wasn’t often in a reading mood. Luckily, Shard was already heading off. All I had to do was follow her.

  The library really surprised me. I thought it would be like the one near Hester Street, which was housed in a red brick building with huge columns out front. That one had old carved wooden shelves and a librarian with a bun and reading glasses shushing me for coughing. This library had one whole wall that was all glass. There were deep armchairs where people were reading and a huge oval table with ten computer stations around it. People were chatting and keys were clicking and the whole place looked more like a lounge in a hotel than a library.

  I turned to ask Shard where I should start, but she was gone — probably looking for a “Do-It-Yourself Martial Arts Training” book or something. I looked around for help and saw a sign reading Research Librarian on a small table. The woman behind it was young and pretty — she couldn’t be a librarian, could she? A button on her sweater read, Ask me! I’m Helen.

  “Um, I need some help finding information,” I said, keeping my voice low so no one would notice that I had no idea where to go or what to do.

  Ask-me-I’m-Helen smiled. “Then you’ve come to the right place. What sort of information were you looking for?”

  So I explained that I wanted to learn about gold claims in the Yukon.

  “The books we have on the gold rush in the Yukon are fairly general, or were you looking for specific information?”

  “Um, some general information and some specific.” Did that sound as dumb to her as it did to me when I said it? She would probably boot me out now.

  She punched some keys on her keyboard. “I’ve reserved one of the computers for you. Let’s see what we can find.”

  She showed me how to find claim registration sites and even digital copies of old newspapers. I stared at pictures of hundreds of men, dressed just like my granddad in the old picture, standing on a pier waiting for a ferry to take them up the Yukon River to mine. Every one of them had a dream to strike it rich. I wondered how many of them saw it come true? Not many, by the sounds of it. Could my granddad really have been o
ne of the lucky ones to actually find gold on his claim?

  I switched over to the official site that had a document on how to register a claim, soil reports, maps with circles showing land heights all over them and fees. Then I opened another file with pages and pages of lot descriptions, their status and previous owners. One entry made my breath catch in my chest and my hands tremble a bit as I read on. Could what I just read be true?

  “You ready to go? I gotta get home,” Shard said suddenly, over my shoulder.

  “Look at this!” I said, pointing to the screen.

  Shard read the section. “Is that what I think it is?”

  I nodded. “I gotta tell my dad.”

  We sprinted back, only slowing down when Sunnyview Terrace came into sight.

  “Do you think Mr. Critch will be there?” I asked, getting nervous again.

  “I think you’re okay with crabby Critch for a while.”

  I relaxed.

  “It’s Mrs. Family Services you have to worry about.”

  Great. My stomach twisted into knots again.

  CHAPTER 7

  DON’T LOOK BACK

  Shard jogged to her apartment. I stopped outside our door and put my ear to it. I was listening for voices. Cop voices. Family Services voices. Anything suspicious. But it was quiet inside. I decided I would have to take a chance because I was starving and saltines were better than nothing.

  I put my key in the lock and turned it slowly. Were the police and Family Services waiting inside to grab me? I let the door swing open and stepped nervously inside. The apartment was dark and quiet. Then I heard a rustling from my dad’s bedroom. I crept over to it and pushed open the door that was slightly ajar.

  My dad was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.

  “Dad?” He looked up. His eyes were rimmed red and his hands trembled. I sat down beside him. “I’ve got great news.”

  Dad shook his head. “I’ve got news too.”

  Whatever his news was, it didn’t look like good news. I guess he couldn’t get his hands on the rent money. But my news would fix all that, I was sure of it.

  “I did some research at the library. I looked up Granddad’s claim on this government website.”