June Sparrow and the Million-Dollar Penny

by Rebecca Chace

  “Roseanne’s daughter,” Aunt Bridget said carefully, without expression. She turned to June. “Bob is our nearest neighbor, next farm over.”

  Bob . . . Bob! June froze. She was the slow one! This was the same Bob from her mom’s Penny Book—it had to be! Her first boyfriend, the one she collected pennies with, and he still lived next door! (Didn’t anybody ever leave home around here?)

  “You collected pennies with my mom!” she said. Bob took another step back and stared at her.

  “How did you know that?” he asked.

  “I found her Penny Book! It talked all about you, and going to New York and—”

  “That’s enough,” Aunt Bridget broke in. “That was all a long time ago. Don’t pay her any mind, Bob.”

  “You have Roseanne’s Penny Book?” he asked quietly, staring harder than ever at June.

  “I found it last night.” June looked at Aunt Bridget, waiting for her to explain. But Aunt Bridget said nothing, and June looked back at Bob. He was blushing so hard that his ears turned red. “May I please show it to him, Aunt Bridget?” June asked as politely as she could. Maybe she could trap Aunt Bridget into bringing it out; then she could just grab it and run.

  “It’s not here,” Aunt Bridget said abruptly.

  “What do you mean? You took it last night. It’s in your room.”

  “No, it’s not,” Aunt Bridget said in a strained voice. “I dropped it off at the This ’n’ That shop’s collection box early this morning, along with a bunch of other junk we don’t need around here anymore.”

  “No!” June exploded. “How dare you? What collection box? That belonged to my mom, not you! Get it back!”

  “I can’t,” Aunt Bridget said. “That box stays locked up to the public. You can put things in but you don’t take things out. It’s gone, girl. Forget it.”

  June stared at Aunt Bridget, too angry to speak. Then she turned to Bob. “Where’s the This ’n’ That shop?”

  “It’s downtown,” he stammered. “But your aunt is right—”

  “It’s my Penny Book! Everything of my mother’s belongs to me!” June said, looking from one to the other. Indigo had trotted out when he heard raised voices, and now he shoved his nose against her shin. June leaned down and grabbed him. “Come on, Indigo. We’re going downtown.”

  “And exactly how are you going to get there?” Aunt Bridget asked. “You think you can just hail a cab at the end of the driveway? This is not Fifth Avenue, Missy.”

  June narrowed her eyes. She had never, ever hated anyone as much as she hated Aunt Bridget.

  “I’ll walk,” she said coldly. “We walk a lot in New York City. I’m used to it.”

  She turned on her crusted boot heels and headed for the driveway.

  It was a good exit, but just before she reached the corner of the barn, she thought of something and turned back.

  “What happened to the Big One?” she asked Bob. He looked at her, then at Aunt Bridget. June didn’t think his face could get any more pink, but it did. A pinkish purple all the way from his forehead to where his chest disappeared under his blue plaid shirt.

  “It was a long time ago,” he said, looking back at Aunt Bridget and then down at his boots.

  “Hmmph!” snorted June.

  “Hmmph!” snorted Indigo Bunting from her arms, and they headed down the driveway to start the long trek into town.

  For a while rage fueled her march down the highway, but when that ran out, June hit a wall of pure exhaustion. To be honest, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure that she was walking in the right direction. In Manhattan it was easy: the numbers went down when you went downtown and up when you went uptown. South Dakota looked all the same to her, the road a straight line through high fields of cornstalks and fewer trees than she used to see out her window overlooking Central Park. What did this place have to do with June Sparrow?

  Then she remembered her mother’s mysterious list in her pocket and the Penny Book tossed into a drop box, and kept walking. There was something Aunt Bridget didn’t want her to find out about the Penny Book, and Bob had something to do with it; that much was obvious. No matter what they were trying to hide—the Big One?—June wasn’t about to let Aunt Bridget decide which of her mother’s things she was allowed to keep. June snorted indignantly, her breath clouding white in the cold air. Someone had once told her that twenty New York City blocks equals one mile. She used to walk forty or fifty blocks when the weather was fine, strolling along the Hudson River just for the fun of it. She could surely walk a couple of miles into town. Indigo Bunting was tucked against her waist inside her jacket, which made a little carrying pouch for him when she zipped it up. She could go faster this way, but not for the first time she wished that he could walk beside her.

  She had almost never felt lonely in New York; being surrounded by so many different lives had made her feel part of a big extended family. Someone was always cooking, playing music, arguing, making up, watching a movie . . . All these parallel lives were comforting. Plus, it was so quiet in South Dakota; no wonder she couldn’t sleep at night. No sirens, no late-night talking or laughter drifting up from the street to influence her dreams. Here there was only wind and more wind.

  As if to prove her wrong, the rattling cough of an engine sounded behind her. She had been walking for about half an hour without seeing any cars. A gray pickup truck with a camper on the back was coming toward her. At least she thought it was gray, but when it got closer she saw that the front grille was silver and the fenders were red. Not a shiny red—nothing on this truck was shiny. Then she realized that the truck was slowing down; in fact, it was stopping right in front of her. The truck came to a shuddering halt, and now she could see a little wooden cabin built onto the back of the pickup with a door facing the rear. It had a curved roof and a window on the side complete with a window box filled with flowers. There was even a black stovepipe coming out of the roof. June took a big step away from the truck.

  Maybe this was one of those people Shirley Rosenbloom was always warning her about: Stranger Danger Alert! June quickly unzipped her jacket and held Indigo straight out in front of her—she hoped that he could bite if he had to, though he had been snoozing away in the warmth of her jacket, and now he looked utterly confused at being thrust out into the cold, eyes heavy with sleep.

  “Act like a guard dog,” June whispered fiercely as the driver leaned across and popped open the passenger door. Indigo yawned widely and June gave him a shake. This was life or death!

  The man inside the truck leaned over so that he could see her clearly. “Want a ride?” he asked. He was not a very young man and he was not a very large man. In fact, he was a little old man. His face was very wrinkled, but there was something about him that made him look younger. Maybe it was the way his whole face seemed to smile. He was wearing a quilted farm jacket and a green baseball cap.

  “No, thank you,” June said. “We’re fine.”

  The old man waited a moment. “I’m heading into town, and you look like you might need a ride.”

  “Nope,” June said firmly. “No, thank you.”

  “Okay, then,” he said, but the door remained open. His eyes were bright as he gazed at them and June realized she might look a little silly with Indigo Bunting held out in front of her like a dangling shield.

  “That’s a fine miniature pig you have there,” the man said. “Excellent specimen of the breed.”

  June stared. She had never met anyone who knew what a miniature pig was before she told them. Usually they just assumed that Indigo was a new breed of dog, or a baby full-size pig. “Thank you,” she said slowly.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Indigo Bunting.”

  “Indigo Bunting! One of my favorite birds,” he said, looking more closely at June.

  “Are you a bird-watcher?” June asked before she could remember not to talk with strangers. Nobody knew that Indigo Bunting was a bird name.

  “I do my best,” he said.
“I keep a notebook. What made you decide to name him after a bird?”

  “I just liked the sound of it.” June hoped that he wasn’t going to laugh or think she was cute.

  He didn’t laugh. “My name is Moses,” he said. “My parents weren’t more religious than most, so maybe they just liked the sound of it too. Moses in the bullrushes, that’s me, but I don’t know a bullrush from a buffalo.”

  June smiled, though she hadn’t meant to. The old man smiled back. “Sure you don’t want a ride? I’m headed to the This ’n’ That shop, but I can drop you pretty much anywhere.”

  “The This ’n’ That shop? You know where the drop box is?” June’s voice cracked, and Indigo squeaked as she tucked him back under her arm a little too hard.

  “I ought to,” Moses said. “I work there four days a week.”

  “Really? Thank you! I mean—yes, we would like a ride to town, to the drop box, that is. Thank you, sir.” She and Indigo could certainly handle a little old man, June thought as she walked toward the pickup and clambered onto the high seat. This was meant to be! Who knew how long it would take for her to walk there, and he actually worked at the shop. . . . This was kismet (one of her favorite words), and she would be a fool to ignore it.

  The first thing she noticed when she got into the truck was that it smelled sweet, but she couldn’t place it. The second thing she noticed was a large bee buzzing against the windshield. June made a sound that was not exactly a shriek, but not exactly something else, and rolled down her window so that it would fly out.

  “Wait a minute!” Moses said quickly. “We don’t want to lose him.”

  “Lose him?” June started to brush the bee toward the window with a piece of newspaper.

  “Now, cut that out.” Moses held up a hand to stop her. “You don’t want to hurt him!”

  “What are you talking about?” June put the newspaper back down on the seat but shrank back. The bee was banging against the ceiling and the windshield right in front of her face. “I hate bees!”

  “Can’t hate bees,” Moses said very seriously as he reached across and rolled up the window. “They’re too important to hate. Just settle down, and he’ll settle down too.”

  So he was crazy. Well, at least she was getting a ride to the right place. June stopped moving, and it was true: the bee settled onto the big gray sun visor that served as a clipboard for a pile of papers stuck between the visor and the ceiling.

  “The bees mostly stay in the back.” Moses gestured with his thumb behind their seat. “They like to stay in the hive when we’re moving.”

  June turned around to look, and Indigo stood on his hind legs to look over her shoulder. She couldn’t see anything but the roof of the cabin and the window box.

  “You have a beehive in the back?”

  “Yep. Built it custom.”

  “I don’t see any bees.”

  “They like to stay inside on the road. Very smart creatures, bees.”

  “Inside?”

  “Inside the hive, not the truck.” Moses laughed.

  Indigo and June looked at each other.

  Travel inside a beehive.

  It was the first thing on her mother’s list!

  “So, it’s sort of like traveling inside a beehive, isn’t it?” June tried to sound as casual as possible, but she knew that Indigo could feel her heart pounding through her jacket.

  “Never thought of that!” Moses shook his head as if it was the most extraordinary thing he’d ever heard. “Traveling inside a beehive. I guess you’re right. I just figured it was the easiest way to keep track of the bees.”

  June touched the front pocket of her jeans, where she had put the list this morning when she got dressed, but she didn’t want to pull it out in front of Moses. What if the list was all about Red Bank? But if things in Red Bank were so important, why didn’t her mother come back after she got married? Something big must have happened to make her stay away.

  There was a loud buzz as the bee left its perch and careened past Indigo’s nose. June pulled him back, terrified, but Moses chuckled. “I know you miss your buddies,” he said to the bee. “You’ll be reunited soon enough.”

  June checked behind her, a little worried that there might be a connecting vent between the cabin and the back of the truck. Indigo had never been stung by a bee, and June couldn’t remember if she actually had or only felt like she had. This buzzing bumble had gotten into the front somehow . . . but she didn’t see a beehive.

  “What does a beehive look like?” she asked Moses. She wasn’t about to tell him about the list or the Penny Book.

  The old man laughed, and though June usually hated it when grown-ups laughed at her questions, this time it didn’t make her feel like a little kid. Moses had a comfortable laugh that rolled along without rushing to get to the punch line. “How could you possibly know? I meant to sort of hide it in plain sight, if you know what I mean. People can get a little nervous around bees.”

  June and Indigo gave each other a look.

  “It’s right there under the window box,” Moses said. “See how it’s kind of built out in a square under there? That’s the beehive.”

  June looked into the side mirror but she couldn’t see a thing. The flowers in the window box fluttered in the wind, but there was no sign of a bee, a honeycomb, or even some stray beeswax dripping down the side of the truck. “Are those flowers real?” she asked.

  “You know, that is the question I get asked the most,” said Moses. “Not ‘Did you build this yourself?’ Not ‘Do you live in this truck?’ But ‘Are the flowers real?’”

  “Did you build it yourself? Do you live in this truck?” June asked.

  Moses turned and looked at her, his hands holding steady on the big gray steering wheel. “The flowers are real.”

  June wouldn’t have known that she had entered the town of Red Bank except for the fact that the houses were built closer together and they didn’t look much like farmhouses anymore. There were no traffic lights, and June figured she must be on Main Street when she saw a coffee shop and a hardware store. There was a woman in a brightly colored apron sweeping the sidewalk in front of a hardware store. She stopped sweeping to wave at Moses when he drove by.

  “Agata is very particular about her sidewalk,” said Moses. “That’s Kazik’s Hardware, more like a general store. They’ve got everything from baling wire to sewing needles.”

  A rack of clothes fluttered in the wind in front of the coffee shop, and two girls who looked about June’s age were sitting in lawn chairs.

  “There’s my competition,” he said. “Keisha and her twin sister set up their own ‘vintage’ clothes sale every Saturday.” He smiled. “I don’t really mind, of course; perks things up a bit on Main Street.” Moses waved at them too, and the girls waved back.

  “Does everybody wave here?” June asked.

  Moses paused a moment. “Now, that’s another thing I never thought about,” he said. “I guess we do. Where are you from?”

  “New York City.” June felt that familiar tightness in her throat just from saying it out loud.

  “People not so friendly there?”

  “No, it’s not that. . . .” How could she explain that despite their bad reputation, New Yorkers were very friendly? Sometimes too friendly! She was always getting stopped on the street by people who wanted to pat Indigo and ask all about him. “We’re not big wavers,” she said finally. “But New Yorkers love to talk!”

  A boarded-up old movie house had the most impressive facade in town, and Moses began to whistle when they got close to it. June and Indigo exchanged looks, she could have sworn that he was whistling an aria from La Bohème.

  “Do you like opera?” June asked a little shyly.

  “I love opera!” Moses yanked his thumb toward the movie house. “That used to be the Vaudeville Palace before it turned into a movie theater. Opera companies still came to Red Bank when I was little, and I went to every single show. I did go to the op
era once in Sioux Falls, and that was pretty good too.”

  June craned around in her seat to look. The Vaudeville Palace had cornices like curlicues and a tragedy/comedy mask sculpted over the entrance. June thought that the building looked like a grand old duchess all dressed up for a ball, somehow frozen in time.

  “It’s beautiful,” June said, but she also thought it was a little sad.

  “You should see the inside.” Moses pulled the truck over in front of the boarded-up box office. “The ceiling is painted blue, with gilt cherubs and constellations that used to really light up in the old days.”

  “Do they show movies there now?”

  “They shut down a couple of years ago,” Moses said. “Guess it’s hard to get people to leave their living rooms. Though honestly, I’m not sure why that is. What’s so special about the living room?”

  “I love going to the movies,” said June. “And I love the opera.”

  Moses nodded in agreement as he drove the truck away from the movie house and whistled even louder.

  They continued along Main Street toward a low metal building at the end of town with a silo towering over it. The silos dotting the landscape in South Dakota reminded June of the water towers that topped lots of buildings in New York City.

  “That silo got shut down after there was a bad accident,” Moses said as they passed.

  “What happened?”

  “A man was killed,” Moses said quietly. “You’ve always got to be careful when you’re working in a silo. Now, over there is the grain elevator.” Moses pointed out a two-story extension to the building with “Coca-Cola” painted on the side. The lettering was so old, it looked like a movie set. “That’s where they weighed it up and loaded it out. Those train tracks run directly into the building, and they could just fill up the freight cars with grain and haul them away. That was modern times.”

  “Do they still do that?”

  “Not so much—not in this building, anyway.” Moses drove past the back of the grain elevator, and June could see that the parking lot had grass sprouting through cracks in the asphalt.