Finding Fortune

by Delia Ray

  “Well, I’m heading over to get breakfast in a few minutes, which is sure to be a treat.” It was ten hours later where Dad was. I could picture him running his hand over his bristly crew cut, breaking into a crooked smile. He had told me stories about the mess hall food before, about how the scrambled eggs always tasted sandy and the soldiers had contests to see who could figure out what was in the latest mystery meat stew.

  I started to ask Dad if his unit was going out on patrol that day, but then stopped myself. I didn’t really want to know. “Are you being extra careful, Dad?” I asked instead.

  “Absolutely, Schnitzel,” he soothed. “Hey, we’re in the homestretch, remember? In just a few weeks the four of us will be sitting on a blanket by the river having a picnic. I’m putting in my order now for those brownies of yours, okay? The ones with the caramel and the marshmallows?”

  “I’ll make you a double batch,” I told him with the word four echoing in my ear. Suddenly, Nora was standing in front of me, holding her hand out for the phone, and for the first time this year, I was glad when my turn to talk to Dad was done.

  TWELVE

  MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE LEFT MY BUTTON BLANK at home on Monday morning. So far, it had failed me as a good luck charm, and by Monday afternoon I was convinced that the blank I had picked up in Hildy’s museum was a complete dud.

  SAG was even worse than I thought it would be. The bus ride took forever. We had to make stops in three other towns in order to scrape up enough kids to fill a classroom at the community college. And our counselor at the Academy was a short, bouncy guy with gelled hair who asked us to call him Stretch and made us spend the whole morning playing embarrassing icebreaker games. We started out with: If you were a fruit or a vegetable, what would you be? I knew I was in for a long month when Arnold Morales said, “I’d be an orange because I’m always ready to be squeezed.”

  When Ollie Pasternak said she’d be a tomato because it’s well-rounded—technically a fruit but also accepted as a vegetable—Stretch gave her a high five like she had just scored a game-winning basket.

  I didn’t get a high five for wanting to be a kumquat. “Why?” Stretch asked, drumming his fingers on his chin. His eyes darted to my name tag. “Ren. Why a kumquat?”

  “Because”—I shrugged, but then decided to be honest—“it’s a really cool-sounding word?” Stretch nodded politely and went on to the next person.

  As if the fruit/vegetable exercise hadn’t been enough torture, he brought out two fat red balloons and challenged us to keep them both in the air without using our hands. Obviously that meant a lot of blowing, which isn’t very fun when you’re in a circle with thirteen strangers, including a couple who have really bad breath.

  After lunch, Stretch said it was time for our first project. We were going to design imaginary cities. “No holds barred!” he sang out, throwing his hands in the air. “Be bold! Be creative! You want your city to be on the planet Mars? Go for it! Just make sure you and your partner figure out how to get water and oxygen up there. Oh, and don’t forget you’re gonna need one heck of a cooling system.”

  I almost stopped listening when he mentioned partners. Group activities weren’t my favorite, and of course Stretch had come up with a particularly inventive way for how we would pair up. He passed out seven cards labeled with different state names and seven more cards listing their matching capitals. I got Alaska.

  I was so nervous about who my partner would be, I suddenly couldn’t remember Alaska’s capital, even though I’d been able to recite capital cities as easy as the ABC’s back when I was in fourth grade. My hopes fell when Seraphina, the one girl I might have wanted to team up with, held up her card. Topeka. At least I remembered enough to know that Topeka went with Kansas, not Alaska.

  Then all at once, Arnold was marching toward me. “Juneau who your partner is?” he asked with a toothy grin as he flipped over his card. I blinked my eyes closed and forced out a weak smile.

  Juneau. The capital of Alaska. How could I forget?

  Mom didn’t feel the least bit sorry for me that week. As soon as she came home from work each day, I’d tell her my latest SAG horror story—how awful it was riding on the hot bus and partnering with Arnold, who left sweat prints on all our papers and insisted that our imaginary city should be underground with a pipeline that would transform hazardous gases into a renewable energy source. “And he wants to call it Moleville,” I wailed. “Who would want to live in a place called Moleville?”

  Mom thought it was all hilarious. “This is good for you, Ren,” she said with a laugh on Friday evening after I had poured out the unpleasant details of our field trip that day—a tour of the local dump and recycling center. “This is what they call character building.”

  “Who’s they?” I muttered, but she didn’t answer. She was too preoccupied with making cookies for some sort of fund-raiser at the farmers’ market the next morning. I had to ask about ten questions before I finally figured out who the bake sale was for.

  The Bellefield Volunteer Rescue Squad.

  “What’s wrong?” Nora asked when I came stomping upstairs.

  “Rick Alert,” I snarled as I slammed my bedroom door.

  * * *

  On Saturday morning Allison called to see if I could come over to swim that afternoon. Mom shook her head back and forth as I held the phone to my stomach mouthing pleeeeaaase. “Sorry, Allison.” I heaved a sigh into the phone. “I’m still grounded.”

  But at least Mom budged enough to say I could ride my bike over to check on Old Blue while she was off helping at the bake sale. Uncle Spence liked to sleep till noon on the weekends, so I didn’t even bother ringing his doorbell when I arrived. I went straight to the backyard and found Blue lying in front of his plastic doghouse with his chin on his paws. As soon as he heard my voice, he sprang to his feet, let out an overjoyed coonhound howl, and began hurling himself at the chain-link fence surrounding his narrow run. Once I had unlatched the door and squeezed through, it took another fifteen minutes of wriggling and licking and jumping before Blue would sit still while I knelt in the dirt stroking his glossy blue-black ears and the tan spots over his sad eyes.

  I was longing to let him out of the cramped pen, but I couldn’t find a leash or a single piece of rope in Uncle Spence’s shed. Luckily I had remembered to bring a baggie full of cut-up hot dogs, and Blue’s nose got a good workout sniffing and snuffling around my pocket. I finally gave in and fed him most of the bag. The last few pieces I threw in the deepest corners of his doghouse so he’d be distracted rooting under his blanket and I wouldn’t have to see him staring mournfully through the fence as I made my getaway.

  Back in Uncle Spence’s driveway, I was pushing the plastic baggie to the bottom of my pocket when I felt the button blank and realized I was wearing the same shorts that I had worn to SAG on Monday. Somehow my unlucky charm had survived its trip through the wash. I pulled the blank from my pocket and stood rolling it around in my palm for a second. A metal garbage can sat in front of Uncle Spence’s garage, only a few feet away. I took a step toward it, and then stopped. “I’m giving you one more chance,” I warned out loud before I tucked the button blank into my pocket again.

  THIRTEEN

  THE URGE CAME over me the second I climbed back on my bike—like an itch that I was desperate to scratch—and suddenly I was flying past the Short Stop, on my way out to Fortune. I won’t stay long, I told myself, pedaling faster. Mom won’t even miss me.

  I had just breezed past the first block when I heard a scraping sound coming from an alleyway up ahead. I slowed my feet on the pedals and coasted along, glancing down the passageways between the empty buildings on either side. My heart gave a little skip when I spotted the nose of a familiar green truck poking out from behind McNally and Sons.

  I was so excited about seeing Garrett again that I forgot to be embarrassed as I parked my bike next to my old bench and hurried down the alley. Garrett was heaving a shovelful of shells into the bed of his
pickup, and it wasn’t until he looked up with a startled expression that I remembered all those faces around Hildy’s dinner table staring at me in shocked silence.

  “Hi,” I said sheepishly. “Remember me?”

  “Ren.” Garrett lowered his shovel. “How could I forget? It seems you have a knack for turning up in unexpected places.” He propped his big boot up on one side of the blade. “So what brings you out to Fortune on this fine Saturday?”

  “I like to come here sometimes,” I told him shyly. “It helps me think.”

  Garrett nodded as if that made perfect sense. I wanted him to keep talking, just so I could hear more of his English accent. “How’s the labyrinth coming?” I asked.

  “Good,” he said. He fished a red rag out of his jeans pocket and mopped his sweaty brow. “I’ve got the design mostly laid out and after this load”—he nodded at the pile of shells punched with holes in the back of his truck—“I should have enough to see the project through.”

  “I’m surprised Hugh’s not here helping you.” I smiled sadly. I hadn’t said Hugh’s name out loud since I left the school, even though I had thought of him at least a dozen times in the last week. “How’s he doing?”

  Garrett’s furry blond eyebrows drew together. “I haven’t seen much of Hugh lately. I think the arrival of Hildy’s grandson might have knocked him off his perch a bit.”

  “Really? How come?”

  “Well, he was used to having his run of the place, you know. Popping in and out of the museum and around corners at all hours. But that Tucker is as sharp as a fox, and I reckon he’s put Hugh off by keeping too close an eye. And Mine mentioned there could have been some hurt feelings when Tucker gave Hugh a ribbing about those slippers he wears.”

  My mouth dropped open. “He made fun of Hugh’s slippers?”

  “I’m not exactly sure what was said, but it didn’t go over very well.”

  Garrett had gone back to shoveling, and I stood in silence for a minute, seething inside as I pictured the scene at the school—the ugly smirk on Tucker’s face as he teased Hugh about his Cubs slippers … and the pencil behind his ear … and his index cards. Why was I so surprised? I’d seen Mr. Baxter in action, the way he had needled Mayor Joy and Garrett at dinner. Like father like son.

  I gave myself a shake and raised my voice over the clatter of shells echoing through the alley. “Can I help?”

  “That would be lovely,” Garrett shouted back. He stopped long enough to point at a rake propped against the edge of the tailgate. “You can climb up in the truck and drag the pile toward the back so I can get more in.”

  It was fun helping Garrett. Standing ankle-deep in shells, I almost felt like I was back in the old days—one of those kids Hildy had talked about who earned their keep in the button business. I figured the alley hadn’t changed much from the way it looked a hundred years ago, as long as you didn’t pay attention to the empty beer bottles and soda cans scattered along the edges. From my spot high in the truck, I could see through one of the dusty windows of the old factory. A neat stack of baby-blue boxes with lids still perched on a workbench as if they were waiting to be loaded with freshly cut buttons. And when I looked the other way, past a big metal shed that stood behind the factory, I could see a slice of the river and a flock of seagulls dipping and diving overhead.

  After the truck was finally full, we sat on the tailgate to rest and Garrett passed me his battered jug of water once he had taken a long swig. “I don’t have any germs.” He grinned, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Do you?”

  “Not that I know of.” I took a sloshing sip, and just like that it felt like we were friends. Garrett hadn’t asked me a single question about the awful scene with my mom, and from what I could tell, he didn’t really care.

  “So you’re from England?” I asked.

  “Mostly,” Garrett said with a mysterious smile.

  “How’d you meet Hildy?”

  “I was passing through Bellefield a few months ago and saw an advertisement for a handyman she had posted.”

  I sat up. “At the Short Stop?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s how I met Hildy!”

  “It’s funny where life takes us, isn’t it?” he mused. “If you had come to me ten years ago and said I’d pitch up in a place like this”—he waved his hand out at the shell-filled alleyway—“I’d never have believed you. But here we are.”

  “I heard you used to fix up old buildings in England.” Just saying it sent a tingle through my veins. “That sounds so cool. Why would you want to leave that to come here?”

  “Oh, the age-old story,” Garrett said with a rueful laugh. “A girl.”

  I didn’t want to be nosy, but Garrett must have sensed how curious I was. He gave me an amused glance. “Her name was Lenore and she came to England to study ancient turf labyrinths.”

  “Turf,” I repeated. “What’s that mean? They’re made of grass?”

  “That’s right. You walk on paths of lawn with grooves cut in between. Lenore had come to visit a famous one in Lincolnshire that’s been around since medieval times. It’s called Julian’s Bower. I was working nearby, restoring an old church that had copies of the Bower design set into the stained-glass windows. Lenore came to see them and that’s where we met.” Garrett smiled faintly. “We hit it off, and the next thing I knew we were traveling together, visiting all the turf labyrinths the United Kingdom has to offer. I eventually followed her back here to the States.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Oh, things didn’t work out between us,” he said. “But I decided to stay on for a bit and explore.”

  Garrett glanced over at me again, chuckling at my perplexed expression. “I know it sounds daft, Ren, but I’ve spent my whole life drifting about. I like landing someplace and then learning the history of all the pieces I’m putting back together.” He picked up a shell and weighed it in his big hand. “Look at this incredible thing, for instance. It’s got one, two, five … twelve holes,” he marveled, and passed it to me. I held it up to my eye like a spyglass, peering through one of the holes at a cloud and then a seagull breezing past. “Must have been a top-notch cutter who did that one. See how the holes are so close together with hardly any of the shell wasted?” Garrett shook his head. “Now there’s a job I wouldn’t envy.”

  “How come?”

  “Oh, being a cutter was a wretched life,” he said with a grimace. He pushed himself off the tailgate and turned to face me, bending over like a hunchback. “Standing in the same position like this for hours, and the air was so thick with shell dust their noses and lungs would be clogged with the stuff from morning till night. And the machines?” Garrett made a tsking noise in his throat. “A menace. If you happened to lose your focus or look away from your saw, you could lose a finger in the blink of an eye. There were so many accidents that the owners of the bigger cutting shops would put finger jars on display to frighten their workers into being careful.”

  “Finger jars? What’s a finger jar?”

  “Why, just what it sounds like. A jar full of chopped-off fingers floating in formaldehyde.”

  I probably looked sick to my stomach.

  Garrett laughed. “Forgive me, Ren. I didn’t mean to keep nattering on about such gruesome stuff. Though it’s fascinating, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but it’s so much different than I pictured. I thought making buttons out of shells sounded so … peaceful.”

  “Well, it was peaceful in many ways,” Garrett said as he screwed the lid back on his water jug. Then he paused. “Apart from the smell, of course.”

  “The smell?”

  “Oh, this town must have stunk to high heaven on a hot summer’s day. Not hard to imagine when you think of what was inside these tons of shells.” Garrett swept his big hand up at the load in his truck. “According to the old-timers, you could smell Fortune coming from a mile away.”

  Garrett smacked his forehead with a loud laugh. “B
ut hold on! I’m supposed to be telling you about the nice bits.”

  “Yes.” I smiled. “What about the nice bits?”

  “Well, let’s see,” he said, leaning back on the tailgate again and crossing his arms. “Lots of families used to set up camp down by the river in the summers and the kids got to sleep in tents and help their parents with the clamming.” He cut his eyes over at me. “How am I doing?”

  “Better,” I said.

  “Oh, and of course there were the pearls. Those were certainly the nicest bits of all.”

  I twisted around to face him. “Pearls?”

  “Cleaning out these shells probably wasn’t very pleasant, but some clammers made their fortune off the pearls they found inside.”

  “Really? I thought people only found pearls in oysters, from the ocean.” I could feel my heart speeding up. Hildy’s father had been a clammer.

  “Nope. You can find pearls inside freshwater clams and mussels too. It wasn’t too hard to find slugs,” Garrett went on. “That’s what they called the odd-shaped pearls, and those could fetch a good bit of money from the pearl buyers who came through town. But the real prize”—his low voice deepened even more, filling with suspense—“was a perfectly round pearl. Those were much rarer to find, and the clammers could practically name their own price.”

  I racked my brain trying to think of the exact words Hildy’s brother, Tom, had written in his letter—something about how upset Pop would be when he discovered his missing box of treasure. Was that what Hildy had been looking for? Her father’s pearls?

  It had to be.

  Garrett was looking at me funny. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Do you need another drink of water?”

  “Oh, no,” I said in a fluster. “I’m fine. I was just—” I glanced at my watch. Almost an hour had passed since I’d ridden my bike into Fortune. “I guess I better be getting home.” I had been on the verge of asking Garrett straight out: Did you know Hildy’s looking for something in the school? Could it be her dad’s long-lost stash of pearls? But I was worried if I started talking I might not stop, and soon I’d be getting Hugh in trouble for spying and both of us in hot water for opening Hildy’s safe. And what if Garrett told Hildy what I’d been talking about? She thought I was enough of a sneak already. I didn’t want to make her impression of me even worse.