Suddenly, Ben dove. Seconds later he rose from the water, slowly and dramatically. Above his head he held a grinning Olive.
“All hail Princess Aquamarina!” she squealed. Then she leaped, spun, and splashed back into the water.
Ben laughed and clapped. “Bravo, young Olive!”
Seeing them together made me think about all the fun Dad and I used to have. Maybe not swimming, but other stuff, like shooting baskets in the driveway and go-karting at Speed Zone.
“Hey, Nolan, did you see me?” cried Olive. She swam over to the edge near my lounge chair. “Did you see me be a mermaid? I’m a real mermaid!”
I wanted to be happy for her, but the bats were back. I scowled. “Yeah, I saw. So what?”
“Oooh, meet Mr. Crabby Pants,” she drawled. “You should jump in, Nolan. Every ocean needs crabs.”
“You’re hilarious.” I looked around. “Where’s Ben? I want to get out of here.”
Olive pointed.
The lesson had broken up, and Ben was out of the pool. But he was still hanging around a couple of moms who were complimenting him on his “teaching abilities” and his “charming way with the children.”
Mrs. Delacruz wrapped a towel around his dripping shoulders. “We wouldn’t want you to catch cold, now, would we?”
Another lady pecked him on the cheek. “You are a dear, sweet man.”
“Oooh la la,” squealed Olive. Then she started chanting, “Ben and some mothers swimming in the sea. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
“Cut it out,” I grumbled.
Ben didn’t seem to mind, though. Instead, he kissed each of their hands. “Adieu, dear ladies.”
Smooch!
Smooch!
Smooch!
Then he strutted over to us.
“The ladies like you,” said Olive.
“It is a gift,” Ben replied.
“Time to go,” I said. It wasn’t very polite. But that’s the kind of thing you say when you’re the only crab in the sea.
TEN MINUTES LATER, WE were back out on the sidewalk, heading down Augusta Street.
“Hey, why are we walking so fast?” asked Olive. “Where’s the fire?”
That was an expression my dad always used. I could feel my mood getting worse, the bats flapping harder in my belly. Gritting my teeth, I nodded toward Ben, who was once again dressed in his goofy colonial getup. “Why do you think?”
“I think we’re hurrying to get…” Olive grinned. “ICE CREAM!” She pointed to the Long John Shivers truck parked at the curb.
“Did you say ice cream?” said Ben. “The last time I sampled that scrumptious delicacy was while visiting Governor Fauquier at his palace in New Jersey. Just before dinner, a summer storm erupted, producing enough hail for the servants to create a most astonishing strawberry confection.” He smacked his lips at the memory. “I confess I have not tasted anything like it since.”
“You should try the Jelly Roger,” said Olive. “It’s my favorite. Strawberry ice cream with strawberry jam and strawberry sprinkles. It’s pink.” Grabbing his hand, she tugged him over to the order window. “What do you want, Nolan?” she called back to me.
“I want to go home,” I said. “We need to get home.”
“I’ll get your usual.” She turned to the ice cream man, who was wearing an eye patch and a fake parrot on his shoulder. “Two Jelly Rogers and a vanilla cone.”
At least she remembered my favorite.
The ice cream man handed the treats out the window. “That’ll be four dollars.”
Olive turned to me expectantly.
With a sigh, I reached into my jeans pocket.
“Allow me,” said Ben. He pulled out a strange-looking bill and handed it through the window.
“Hey, old man, what are you trying to pull?” asked the ice cream man. “This isn’t real money.”
“It most certainly is, good sir,” retorted Ben. “That is a ten-shilling note. It is legal tender in all the American colonies. I should know. I printed it myself.”
The ice cream man stuck his head out the window so he and his fake parrot could look Ben in the eye. “You want to know what I do with homemade money, good sir? Watch this.” He wadded Ben’s bill into a ball and tossed it into the trash can.
The fake parrot rocked back and forth. It kind of looked like it was laughing.
“How dare you toss away legitimate money?” demanded Ben. He held the ice cream with one hand and put the other sternly on his hip. “Fie on you, sir!”
“Oh, yeah?” replied the ice cream man. He flipped up his eye patch and made a fist.
I pushed between them. “I got it,” I said, handing up four singles.
The ice cream man took the bills. “Crazy old coot,” he grumbled under his breath. Flipping his eye patch back down, he slammed the window shut.
“What an impolite fellow,” muttered Ben. He turned away and took a bite of his ice cream. “Mmmm, but he does serve a delicious confection.”
“I told you so,” said Olive through pink-smeared lips.
We strolled through the town park. It was the middle of the afternoon, and people lounged on the shaded benches, escaping the heat. Kids climbed on the playground equipment. Dogs panted under the trees. A teenager slooshed by on a skateboard.
Ben watched her, transfixed. “A decidedly odd form of amusement,” he finally commented.
“I can ollie,” said Olive.
“No, you can’t,” I said.
“If I owned a skateboard I could,” she retorted.
Oh, brother.
“Who, pray tell, is Ollie?” asked Ben.
“It’s not a who, it’s a what,” began Olive.
I interrupted. “Just forget it.” I could feel peoples’ eyes boring into us. “Let’s walk faster, okay?”
“On the contrary,” said Ben. “Let us sit a moment.” He lowered himself to a bench with a loud sigh and an even louder…
TOOT!
“Ewww, gross,” said Olive.
“The best of all medicines are rest and farting,” replied Ben. He took a last lick of his ice cream.
Olive made a face. “I’m going to go swing.”
“We have to go,” I reminded her. “And soon.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She raced to the playground, a trail of melty pink drops marking her path.
Ben patted the bench space next to him.
The last thing I wanted was to sit. But Ben looked tired. I guess stunt swimming, not to mention traveling almost three hundred years, will do that to a guy.
“Do you promise to stop…uh…that?” I asked.
“I shall strive to control the whirlwinds in my bowels,” he replied.
I perched with my half-eaten cone at the far end of the bench. I hoped I was upwind.
“Tell me,” said Ben. “Was that a likeness of my good friend George Washington on the money you gave that peddler?”
“He’s on the dollar bill,” I said, catching a vanilla drip with my tongue. “Other denominations have other faces.”
“Famous faces, I presume.”
I nodded. “Famous Americans. You know, people who did important stuff.” I twirled the cone around in my mouth. “Abraham Lincoln is on the five-dollar bill.”
Ben sniffed. “Him again.”
“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “You’re on the front of the hundred-dollar bill.”
“You don’t say? One hundred dollars?” His face lit and he turned to me. “I should very much like to see one of these bills.”
“Wouldn’t we all,” I said.
From the playground, Olive shouted, “Hey, Ben! Watch this!” She hung upside down on the monkey bars.
“Be careful, young miss!” he hollered back. Then he said to me, “You know, Nolan, my daughter was once a little girl like Olive—high-spirited and full of fun. Sally, we called her. She is grown now.”
“I’m an orangutan!” cried Olive. She scratched under her arms and hooted like an ape.
“I also have two…ahem…I
mean, had one son,” said Ben. For a split second he looked kind of lost. Then his confusion, or whatever it was, cleared. He went on. “Dearest Franky, stolen from his mother and me by smallpox at age four. To this day I cannot think of my little boy without a sigh.”
He gazed at Olive, who was now swooping back and forth on a swing, shouting, “I’m flying! I’m flying!”
“I missed most of Sally’s childhood,” he finally said. “At first I was too much occupied with my printing business and my electrical experiments to spend time with her. Then I journeyed to London on behalf of Pennsylvania’s colonists to take up the matter of taxes.” He paused. “I did not expect to be away from home for seventeen years. By the time I returned, we were strangers.”
“Our dad is in London,” I said. “He moved there two months ago. My parents are getting a divorce.”
Right away, I wished I hadn’t told him that. Believe me, talking about the divorce was not something I did. Ever. When my friends asked why they didn’t see my dad around anymore, I just told them he’d gone away on a business trip. A long business trip. Even Tommy Tuttle hadn’t ferreted out that secret yet.
Ben watched me for a long moment. “Ah, Nolan,” he finally said. He laid his hand on my shoulder.
I didn’t brush it off.
We sat there together, each of us lost in our own thoughts, until Olive came running back. She wiggled in between us. “Oooh, comfy cozy.”
Ben smiled. “Snug as a bug in a rug.”
I have to admit, it was pretty nice. I leaned back, letting myself relax. I even joined in when Olive started humming “Yankee Doodle.”
“Oh, how jolly,” said Ben. “I know that tune.”
“I just bet you do,” came a familiar voice. Then the branches of a nearby lilac bush started to shake. A second later, Tommy Tuttle, wearing a camouflage jumpsuit and a pair of binoculars around his neck, stepped out in front of us.
I shook my head in bewilderment. What was with this kid and bushes? And where did he buy those clothes?
Olive looked at him and pointed. “Were you peeing in there?”
“What? No!” snapped Tommy, his cheeks turning red. “I was staking you out. See?” He held up a notebook labeled Crime-Solving Journal. “I’ve had you three under surveillance all morning.”
“Under what?” asked Olive.
Tommy ignored her question. “I took detailed notes on everything I saw and heard,” he went on. “And believe me, chumps, what I saw and heard was beyond strange.”
“Hey!” huffed Olive. “He called me a chimp!”
“Chump,” I corrected her. “And who says chump anymore?”
“Both words sound most impolite,” added Ben.
I tried to act casual. “I don’t get what’s so strange,” I said. “We’ve been to the library and the pool, had some ice cream.” I shrugged. “Seems like an ordinary summer’s day in Rolling Hills to me.”
“There’s more to it than that.” From the pages of his notebook, Tommy pulled out a small square of paper. “And this proves it.”
I recognized it right away. It was the shilling note Ben had printed; the one the ice cream man had thrown into the trash can.
Tommy waved the money triumphantly. “Now what do you say, hmmm?”
“I say you’re a sneaky little snoop!” hollered Olive.
“Sneaky is in my blood,” replied Tommy with a little smile. “My grandfather is a security guard.”
I was stunned. He really had watched us all day. My mouth opened and shut, opened and…I blurted out the first thing that came into my head. “Yeah? Well…um…my grandfather is a dog groomer. That doesn’t make me Skippyjon Jones.”
“Huh?” said Olive. “I thought Grampy was an accountant.”
“Who, pray tell, is this Skippyjon Jones?” asked Ben.
“Forget it,” I muttered.
Tommy started strutting around in front of us like a lawyer in some courtroom drama. “This is colonial money. It’s real. I know because I looked it up on Factopedia. It came from his pocket.” Pointing at Ben, he paused to let the words sink in before adding, “So where did he get colonial money? There’s only one explanation: he brought it with him from colonial times.”
“Maybe he bought it at the Antique Barn over on Linden Street,” I said.
“Yeah,” Olive cut in. “The Antique Barn on Linden. Bet you didn’t think of that.”
“The Antique Barn went out of business,” said Tommy. “I know because I looked in the windows.” He stroked his chin. “So just how did Benjamin Franklin and his money get here? Hmmmm?” He was silent a moment. Then the corners of his mouth turned up. “There’s only one way to find out the truth.”
“Oh, yeah, like what, Detective Dork?” I said. “A hidden camera? A bugging device? Maybe you could just ask George Washington.” It wasn’t a great line, I know. But I was nervous. I didn’t like the sly look on Tommy’s face.
“There are better ways,” he replied. “Yes, much better ways.” And turning on his heel, he abruptly walked away.
“Butt head!” Olive hollered after him.
TOOOT!
We looked at Ben. His face was red with glee. “I obviously and heartily agree,” he said with a giggle.
“Gross,” said Olive, giggling too.
I didn’t join in. Instead, I watched as Tommy hurried out of the park, past the ice cream truck, and down Augusta Street. “We should go home,” I said.
“And let that meanie ruin our day? No way,” said Olive. She flung her arms wide and exclaimed, “Last one to the fire station is a rotten egg!”
She took off running.
SINCE ROLLING HILLS IS located smack-dab in the middle of Illinois—the flattest place on earth—the town isn’t exactly rolling. Or hilly. In fact, it only has one little hill (my teacher last year, Mr. Druff, calls it a hillock), and the fire station is built on top of it. Today, the station’s garage doors stood wide open, displaying Rolling Hills’s one and only fire truck to passersby. Brave and red, the truck’s spotless chrome and brass glinted in the sunlight.
Ben stopped short in his buckled shoes. He gasped. He pointed. He squealed like a little kid. “Oh, look yonder!”
The truck’s bright reflection flickered in Ben’s glasses, and his face beamed with joy and excitement. “It is fantastic. How I wish my fire company had such a conveyance.”
“Yeah, it is real shiny, but we really don’t have time to stop,” I said. I was still worrying about Tommy.
Just then, a troop of wide-eyed little kids came down the sidewalk. Each clutching their buddy’s hand, they shuffled toward us two by two, like some weird version of the animals boarding Noah’s ark. Each of them had on a yellow T-shirt that read PITTER-PATTER DAY CAMP and a red construction paper name tag shaped like a fire hydrant.
The kids looked slightly lost, gazing here and there, bunching up when they stopped. One boy, whose hydrant identified him as Paulie, asked, “Where are we?”
“It’s the fire station,” chirped their counselor, who also wore a fire hydrant. Hers read “Miss Missy.” A wide, white-toothed smile spread across her face. “We’re here to meet Fire Chief Sid and see the fire truck, remember?”
“Fire trucks are dumb,” grumped Paulie.
“Yeah, dumb,” said his buddy, whose hydrant read “Braydon.”
“I like digger trucks,” grumbled Paulie.
“Yeah, digger trucks,” said Braydon.
Paulie scrunched up his face. “Stop copying me!” he howled. “Miss Missy, he’s copying me.”
“And I like cupcakes,” said Braydon.
The other kids nodded. “Mmmm, cupcakes.”
“People, we are talking about trucks here,” Paulie corrected them. “Cupcakes are not trucks.” His little hands turned into little fists.
“Now, now.” Miss Missy playfully wagged a finger at the boys. “Come on, you two. Turn those frowns upside down.”
Braydon smiled.
But Paulie stuck out h
is lower lip.
“Come along, gloomy Gus,” said Miss Missy.
“My name’s not Gus, it’s Paulie.” He looked down at his name tag, squinting closely at the letters. “D…E…N…3…X…F. See? That spells Paulie.”
Miss Missy burst into song. “The happy train is coming. Get on board. Choo-choo!” She tugged on an imaginary whistle. “The happy train is coming. Get on board….”
“Choo-choo!” chimed in the other preschoolers.
A boy named Kevin pulled his finger out of his nose and pointed it at Paulie. “Gus didn’t choo-choo,” he tattled.
“It’s Paulie,” cried Paulie. “D…E…N—”
By this time the other kids were beginning to wander distractedly. We found ourselves surrounded.
“Are you the oatmeal man?” a girl labeled Gloria asked Ben.
Olive giggled. “He looks like the man on the Quaker Oats box, but he’s really—”
“You dress funny,” piped up Kevin, poking Ben in the belly with the same finger that had been up his nose.
“I can tell you eat cupcakes too,” said Braydon.
“Mmmm, cupcakes,” said the other kids.
“I like corn,” said a boy whose hydrant read “Clarence.” “I eat corn every night.”
Miss Missy clapped her hands. “Boys and girls, look who’s here. It’s Fire Chief Sid!”
“Hooray, Fire Chief Sid!” chimed the kids. They swarmed around a smiling firefighter who’d come out onto the sidewalk carrying a stack of toy hats.
“Let’s get a fire hat,” said Olive.
“Hats?” squealed Ben. “There are hats?”
Oh, brother.
We joined the group of kids just as Fire Chief Sid tried to put a hat on Paulie’s head. “Here you go, kiddo.”
He pushed it away. “You got construction hats? I like construction trucks.”
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