A Boy Called Duct Tape (2 page)

I gave one last desperate kick and I was there.

Stretching my arm into the bed of shiny pebbles and stones, I pulled loose the bright golden one. The water blurred my eyes so I couldn’t see the stone all that well, but I could tell from the feel that it was a perfect skipper. It was flat on both sides. Pia would love it.

Clutching the stone, I swam out of the deep hole, up toward the sunlight, breaking the surface with a giant smile.

“Got one, Pia!” I cried, sucking in a big breath and holding my prize above my head.

“Let me see!” she cheered, swimming over to me.

Treading water, I inspected the stone.

But what I held in my hand was not a stone.

“It’s a coin,” I observed softly. It glistened in the Missouri sunshine.

It was unlike any coin I had ever seen.

“A …
coin
?” Pia asked, wrinkling her nose. She squeezed in for a better look.

“Yeah, I think so.”

On one side of the coin were the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA inscribed around the rim. In the center of the coin was a fancy picture of an Eagle. Beneath the Eagle were the words TWENTY DOLLARS.

“Wicked,” I muttered.

I turned the coin over. On the opposite side was an engraving of a woman’s face—she was wearing a crown. The word LIBERTY was written across the front of her crown.

“Yeah, Pia, a coin,” I said.

There were tiny stars around the rim of the coin. I counted 13. Probably for the 13 colonies, I guessed. The date was engraved below the woman’s face: 1879. The letters
CC
were beside the date.

“What kind of coin?” Pia said, her eyes flickering with curiosity.

“Sweet,” I said in a hushed voice. “A twenty-dollar gold piece.”

Mrs. Henshaw glanced up from her computer screen. “Pablo Perez. You lost, child?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, cracking a grin. “This is still the Media Center isn’t it?”

She stretched her mouth into a wide frown. “Okay, Pablo, enough with the jokes.”

Mrs. Henshaw had hair the color of a robin’s egg. Sort of bluish. Deep wrinkles crisscrossed her face like the lines of an old roadmap.

She looked at me over the top of her glasses. “So what brings you back to my Media Center after all these months?”

“Looking for a website.”

“And …?”

“A website about old coins. I was thinking the search words could be
old
coins
, but …”

“But what?”

“But there might be better search words.”

“Are you interested in
antique
coins, Pablo?”

“Yeah,
antique
coins.” That was the word I was trying to remember.

“Still no working computer at home?” Mrs. Henshaw asked.

“It keeps freezing up.” Mom had bought it at a garage sale. The stupid thing had never worked right. Besides, what good is a computer without the Internet?

My fingers brushed against the $20 gold coin in the front pocket of my jeans.

“A website with pictures of antique coins would be great,” I said.

It hadn’t been easy convincing Pia to loan me the coin. It was, after all, officially now hers. I had kept my promise to give Pia the next stone I found at the bottom of Harper’s Hole. It was her good luck that the stone turned out to be a shiny $20 gold piece.

“Numismatology,” Mrs. Henshaw said.

“Huh?”

“The study of coins is called numismatology.”

“If you say so.”

“Not to be confused with numerology, which is the study of numbers and their supposed influence on human life,” Mrs. Henshaw observed. “Never believed in that stuff myself, but some people put stock in it.”

“Uh-huh.” Mrs. Henshaw was always talking about things no one understood.

“Do an
antique
coins
search, Pablo. Most of the sites should have photographs or drawings of antique coins.”

I thanked her, then went over and sat at one of the dozen or so computers that lined the far wall.

I was dying to know more. Was Pia’s coin worth $20? I knew that $20 in 1879 was probably worth a lot more today. Maybe even $50. Maybe more.

I did a Google search, my fingers nervously tapping the keys. There were thousands of sites, and I scrolled down the first page of results. My cursor stopped at a site called VINTAGE COINS. I muttered the words on the screen before me. “Vintage gold and silver coins can be traced as far back as the Greeks in the years before …”

Not this one
, I thought.

I clicked on the next site: COLLECTIBLE COINS. I read the summary under my breath. “Collectible coins dating back to the Middle Ages are thought to be …”

Nope
.

Then it hit me.
What are you thinking, dude?

I changed my search words to
$20 Gold Piece.

The screen flickered before my eyes. The first listing read
:
A GUIDE TO U.S. COINS.

The website was divided into seven categories. Each one showed pictures of various antique coins. I began reading CATEGORY 1, which described the many coins that had been minted during the English colonial days of the 1750s. There were pictures of each coin. A chart listed the value of each coin based on its condition. There were four classifications
:
GOOD, VERY GOOD, FINE, and VERY FINE.

My eyes widened. Many of the coins in VERY FINE condition were worth hundreds of dollars, and a strange tickling of excitement crawled over my skin.

I continued to scroll.

CATEGORY 2: QUARTER DOLLARS

CATEGORY 3: HALF DOLLARS

CATEGORY 4: SILVER DOLLARS

The faster I scrolled, the faster my heart thumped.

CATEGORY 5: $3 GOLD PIECES

CATEGORY 6: $4 GOLD PIECES

When the cursor reached CATEGORY 7 the flesh on my arms bubbled up. The title jumped off the screen at me: $20 GOLD PIECES.

Yes!

There were pictures—front and back—of different $20 gold coins minted from 1848 until 1933.

I glanced around the Media Center. It was occupied by several other students, but none of them were paying much attention to me. Besides, there was no one at any of the other computers. I pulled Pia’s coin out of my pocket and held it up to the computer screen.

Looking for a match, I began to scroll down CATEGORY 7.

Pia’s gold piece didn’t match the first picture, and I compared it to the second. It wasn’t a match, either. The third one was a bust, too.

When I compared Pia’s coin to the fourth picture my breath got stuck in my throat like a wad of bubblegum. On one side of the coin on the screen were the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA written around its rim, and an Eagle with its wings spread. Beneath the Eagle were the words TWENTY DOLLARS
.

Just like Pia’s coin!

A second picture showed the opposite side of the $20 gold piece, and I turned Pia’s coin over, hoping it would match the one on the screen.

The computer picture showed an engraving of a woman’s face. She was wearing a crown. The word LIBERTY was written across the front of her crown. Tiny stars circled the rim of the coin on the computer screen. I counted thirteen.

Just like Pia’s coin!

The $20 gold piece began to tremble in my hand.

I directed the cursor to the bottom of the page where the value of each coin was listed by date and condition. I took a big gulp of air and scrolled until I found a listing for Pia’s coin: $20 GOLD PIECE – 1879 – VERY FINE.

I stared at the dollar amount for the longest time. I thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. I looked away for a few seconds, and then turned back to the screen.

No, my eyes were not playing tricks. The amount read:
$6,250.

I tried to draw a full breath, but all the air had been sucked out of the room.

That was more money than Mom made in four months.

My mind spinning out of control, someone came up from behind and whispered in my ear, “Hey, Duct Tape!”

I flinched and jammed Pia’s coin into my pocket.

It was Jimmy Coleman, captain of the Jamesville Middle School basketball team. Jimmy was with Sara Miller, a cheerleader and the prettiest girl in school. She was the one kneeling at the top of the human triangle they always formed at halftime.

“Yo! When you gonna buy some new sneakers, Duct Tape?” Jimmy gave Sara a wink and told her, “This dude is in desperate need of new rides.” When I didn’t reply, Jimmy grinned around his dimples and asked me, “Cat got your tongue?”

“No,” I said. “Besides, duct tape is in. Haven’t you ever heard of the
grunge
look?” I thought that was a pretty good comeback on such short notice.

Jimmy laughed. “Pablo Perez—the king of grunge.”

I pushed my duct-taped sneakers further under the computer desk.

Each August, since fourth grade when Dad was killed by a drunk driver, Mom would remind me that money was tight and my new Walmart sneakers would have to last the school year. They never did. Duct tape to the rescue.

Jimmy stooped down and gazed under the table at my feet. He jabbed a finger at them. “Dude, those bad-boys are lame!”

I glanced at Sara and gave her a clumsy smile.

“Oh, leave the poor boy alone, Jimmy,” Sara said. “And I do mean
poor
.”

I felt the heat rise in my face.

Sara giggled and grabbed Jimmy by the sleeve of his letter jacket. “Come on. Let’s find that article for science.”

“So long, Duct Tape!” Jimmy said. He and Sara sailed down to another computer.

I glanced under the desk at the shoes that had earned me the nickname I hated, and for a few moments I forgot all about the gold coin in my pocket worth $6,250.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, so I asked Mom to repeat it.

“I said your cousin Kiki will be staying with us for two weeks.”

“Kiki Flores?”

“How many cousins do you have named Kiki?” Mom asked, giving me one of her best impatient glares before passing the meat loaf across the table to Pia. “Her mother is going on a business trip to California with her father, and
please
put your napkin on your lap, Pablo.”

“Kiki Flores! She’s stuck up!” I said, unfolding the paper napkin and laying it across my lap.

“I like Kiki,” Pia said, a smile skipping across her face. “She always sends me a birthday card.”

Kiki also sent me birthday cards—real ones, not those online things I’d heard so much about—but I wasn’t about to admit I liked them.

“Do I have to hang around with her, Mom?”

We were seated at the baby-sized table in the baby-sized kitchen of our baby-sized mobile home.

“You have to show her the same respect she would show you if you visited her in St. Louis,” Mom said. “And if I’m not mistaken, Kiki showed Pia and you a wonderful time when you were there two summers ago.”

“She took us to the St. Louis Arch,” I moaned. “Big deal.”

“I liked it,” Pia said. “From the top of the Arch you could see all the way to Jamesville.”

I shot my sister a frown. “Could not.”

“Could to,” Pia said, nodding her head like a bobble doll. “I could see the top of the courthouse steeple.”

“Pia, it’s 300 miles from St. Louis to Jamesville.”

“So?”

I gave a sad groan. It was pointless arguing with a little sister.

“You can take Kiki to the Outlaw Days Festival,” Mom said, giving me a little smile. “She’ll like that.”

“Kiki’s thirteen and from a big city, Mom,” I protested. “Outlaw Days would be like … like Hicksville to her.”

“I think you might be surprised, Pablo,” Mom said. “Kiki isn’t like that.”

I blew out a big breath, but said nothing.

The Outlaw Days Festival was held at the Jamesville city park each year over the Memorial Day weekend. The festival celebrated one of the town’s most famous guests: Jesse James. According to legend, Jamesville had been named for Jesse after he and his gang began using the caves in the area as hideouts.

“Remember what your father used to say about the future, Pablo?” Mom reminded me. “Only a fool pretends to know tomorrow.”

“I remember,” I said, recalling my father’s words almost as if he’d spoken them yesterday.

“Kiki might surprise you.”

“But where will she sleep?”

“Kiki will sleep in your bed,” Mom said. “I’ll make a place for you on the couch.”

I breathed a big sigh and rubbed my face. It was definitely a sad beginning to my summer vacation.

“What did the website say about the coin?” Pia asked, gazing down the road for the school bus early the next morning. A clap of thunder rolled in from the south.

“It said the coin was worth some money,” I said. “Provided it’s in Very Fine condition.”

“Huh? What’s that mean?”

“It’s the way coin dealers judge a coin’s value—like if it’s worn smooth or not,” I explained. “The better the condition, the more a coin is worth.”

“So, how much is it worth?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Sixty dollars.”

If I told Pia the truth, everyone in town would know about it before lunch. I’d tell her later. Maybe. Besides, I still had some doubts about the true value of the gold piece. A GUIDE TO U.S. COINS might be wrong. I’d have to do more research.

“Sixty dollars! Awesome! Maybe that will help fix Mom’s car!”

“Maybe,” I replied.

Mom’s 1995 Buick Skylark was in bad shape. Something about a cracked block.

As Pia and I waited for the bus, it began to sprinkle. The raindrops made little moon craters in the dusty road that ran in front of the Ozark Mobile Home Park.

“Is it still hidden?” I asked.

“Is what hidden?”

“The coin! Duh!”

“Yeah, and I’m not telling where,” Pia announced.

“I don’t care where. Just don’t lose it, that’s all.”

I glanced down at my sneakers. One side of my left sneaker had blown out again, and I had added a fresh strip of duct tape that morning. I hoped I didn’t run into Jimmy. It was bad enough that I had to wear sneakers wrapped in duct tape. It was doubly bad when Jimmy broadcast it to the whole world.

“Wait for me as soon as you get home from school today,” I said. “I have an idea about finding more coins.”