Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything (18 page)

“A 1909 penny …” Her voice trailed off sort of like she wasn’t even aware that she had spoken out loud.

“Uh-huh,” I said softly. The penny must have been really special to her if she remembered the date after all these years. Finders keepers, Georgie had said, but now it looked like we would give it back. That would mean no money for Six Flags. I had the torn-up receipt from the coin store in my backpack. We’d just go pick the penny up and bring it to Ms. Prott’s house. (I’m not going to call it The Haunted Toad anymore.)

“Elaine was born in 1909. She was older than me. Yes. She was quite an athlete, too. Oh my, yes. She excelled in tennis and could run faster than almost anyone. When she learned she was dying, she sent me that penny.” She leaned back in her chair and hugged the photograph to her chest. “She sent me that penny, that very special penny, because she wanted me to have something that was exactly as old as she was … something that would never die.”

Georgie made a little sound in his throat. I glanced at him. His eyes were watery. Maybe mine were, too.

*   *   *

Ms. Or Mrs. Prott?

1. She told us that she and Elaine were the Prott sisters.
   
2. That meant that they both had the same last name.
   
3. In the olden days women always changed their last name when they got married.
   
4. Glenora Jean was still a Prott, so she didn’t change her name.
   
5. Therefore, she never got married and was Ms. Prott.
   

I checked this logic with Glenn Philips, and he said I was probably correct. If you think I am wrong or that there is another possibility, please go to my website and tell me your idea.

I
looked over at Georgie. “We’ll go get the penny and bring it back.”

“We’ll bring the penny back to you,” Georgie echoed.

Ms. Prott thanked us and walked us out, but because of her slowness and our fastness, we were already on our bikes by the time she waved to us from the front door. She was still holding the photograph of the two dancing sisters.

“I always get a little dizzy on roller coasters anyway!” I shouted to Georgie as we biked back toward the coin store.

“Me too!”

Two liars. That’s what we were. I absolutely
never
get dizzy on roller coasters, and Georgie is way braver than I am. I bet there isn’t a roller coaster anywhere that Georgie wouldn’t try.

Our summer kept changing. We were going to camp … and then not. We were going to Six Flags … and then not. Granpa says that if you ever think you know what life is going to bring you next, stay alert because that’s when you’re going to be surprised.

And if right now you’re reading this and you think you know what happened to me and Georgie next … well, get ready to be surprised.

The coin shop was still closed when we arrived. The clock inside said 9:40. We had a twenty-minute wait. We rocked back and forth on our bikes. Then we got hit with a terrific smell from the bakery next door.

Georgie said, “Man, I’m hungry.”

Remember the five-dollar bill from Gumpy I’d stashed in my backpack? Georgie and I leaned our bikes against the cobbler statue again and went into the bakery. They were just bringing out a tray of hot glazed doughnuts from the back. I bought one for me
and two for Georgie. I love glazed doughnuts. I know that they’re junk food, but I’m just a kid, so I get to eat junk food sometimes. My mother and father
never
eat junk food. And Granpa says he intends to die without ever eating at a McDonald’s. He says he wants that written on his tombstone.

By the way, Georgie and I did a terrific presentation in fifth grade about junk food. It has nothing to do with this story, but it was so cool that I put it on my website. You have my permission to use it if you have to do an oral presentation at your school. But make sure you tell your teacher that it comes from Cheesie Mack. Otherwise, it’s cheating … and, as I said, I hate cheating.

We were just finishing our doughnuts when the inside of the coin store lit up and a man unlocked the front door. I wiped my sticky hands on my socks. Georgie licked each of his fingers, wiped his hands on my
pants, and grinned. I smacked him, and we went into the coin store.

It was a different man from the bookkeeper guy we’d spoken to the night before. I handed him the two pieces of the receipt. “We’d like to get our penny back.”

The man looked at the receipt, then pushed his glasses back onto his forehead and took the small brown envelope out of a drawer. He spread a black cloth on the counter and carefully poured our penny onto it. “This is a very valuable coin.”

“We know.”

“Where’d you lads get it?”

“I found it in my basement,” Georgie said.

The man put a magnifying glass thing on his eye and examined the coin very closely.

“Now, if you lads can prove to me that this coin was not stolen and that you have the authority to sell it—that’s something I have to do when the seller is underage—I’d be interested. Would you like to sell it?”

I shook my head and looked at Georgie. He shook his, too.

“It’s worth a lot of money.” The man examined both sides of the coin. “In this condition—it shows modest wear and has a subtle scratch on the reverse—I could offer you …” He looked up at the ceiling, then back at the coin, then right at us. “Twenty-two hundred dollars.”

Georgie and I fainted.

Of course I am completely joking about fainting. But I will tell you that Georgie and I were stunned. I don’t think either of us could speak or breathe normally.

“Twenty-two hundred dollars?” I repeated.

“Holy moley oley,” Georgie squeaked.

“Twenty-two hundred dollars? Why is it worth so much?” I asked.

Mr. Whelan (he told us his name) turned the coin onto the back side. That’s what we call tails, but there is nothing that looks like a tail on the back side of a Lincoln cent. Then he handed his magnifier to me.

“Look on the bottom.” I saw three tiny letters:
V.D.B
.

Mr. Whelan then explained, with lots of detail, what happened in 1909 and why it made our coin so
valuable. It would take about three chapters to write everything that Mr. Whelan told us, and I’m guessing you’d rather read about Ms. Prott and me and Georgie than three chapters about a man named Victor D. Brenner. So here comes a much shorter version.

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt decided that since 1909 would be the one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, it would be terrific to honor him by putting his face on a coin. But lots of people in the government hated the idea. Here’s why:

1. Since 1861, one-cent coins had had the head of an Indian on them, and many people just didn’t want to change. They thought that Indians were the symbol of America. But what’s weird is that the woman who was the model for the head on Indian Head cents was the daughter of
   a man who worked at the mint where they made the coins—and she wasn’t the least bit Native American! I found this on the Internet.
   
2. No U.S. coin had ever had the image of a real person on it. Even George Washington refused to let the government put his head on a coin because he thought it was too much like what kings and emperors had always done.
   
3. The image of Abraham Lincoln that President Roosevelt wanted to use was sculpted by Victor D. Brenner, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, which is a cold little country bordering Russia. The U.S. Mint artists who had designed previous coins were jealous that he got the job and not them.
   
4. The U.S. Mint had started out 1909 by coining Indian Head cents. But President Roosevelt got his way, and they switched to Lincoln cents in May. Even though some
   government people hated Lincoln Head cents, lots of everyday folks loved them, so when they were released to the public on August 2, 1909, long lines formed outside banks. Each person in line, many of them clever kids, was limited to one dollar’s worth of coins. The kids resold the new coins, three for a nickel, making two cents’ profit each time. Two cents might not sound like much to you, but in 1909, it was a lot of money.
   

Also, because Lincoln had freed the slaves, the new coins were especially popular among African Americans, who called them “emancipation money.”

But on August 4, only two days after the coins were released to the public, the head of the U.S. Treasury found a way to get back at Victor D. Brenner. He said that people were upset because Brenner put his initials (VDB) on the back of the coin, so he stopped production and had Brenner’s initials removed from the metal dies they used to stamp the coins. Brenner was insulted and very mad, but he couldn’t do anything
about it. Coins made after that had no initials on the reverse side.

Since both the Philadelphia and San Francisco mints produced one-cent coins, there were six different cents made in 1909. (There are pictures of all six on my website.)

The Indian Heads minted at the beginning of the year are worth a lot. The Lincoln cents with no VDB are not so valuable because there were millions and millions of them minted. But the Lincoln cents
with
the VDBs are really rare. And the 1909-S VDB, because there were only about 400,000 made, are the most valuable of all … by far.

When Mr. Whelan finished his story, Georgie immediately said, “We looked on the web, and a 1909, not San Francisco, without VDB is worth three dollars. Is that right?”

“Depends on the condition,” Mr. Whelan said, “but that’s a reasonable starting point.”

“Do you have any of those you could sell?”

I had no idea what Georgie was doing.

Mr. Whelan searched through a drawer and pulled
out a small envelope. He laid it on the black velvet cloth next to our VDB coin. The envelope, which had a clear side, held a Lincoln cent and was labeled “1909 $3.50.”

Georgie turned to me. “How much money do you have left?”

“Huh?”

“After you bought the doughnuts. How much?”

I looked in my pocket. “Three-seventeen.”

Georgie looked at Mr. Whelan and pointed at the coin in the envelope. “Could we buy this coin for three dollars and seventeen cents?”

Mr. Whelan nodded.

“What’re you doing?” I asked Georgie.

“Hold on a minute,” Georgie said to Mr. Whelan, then grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. “I’ve got a plan,” he told me. He was staring at me with a lot of determination in his eyes. “We cannot give that VDB coin to Mrs. Prott.”

“Ms. Prott.”

“Whatever.” He put both hands in his hair and rubbed really hard, then took a big breath. “When
we thought that penny was worth ninety-five dollars, and we planned to go to Six Flags, I was willing to give it up and lose a day at an amusement park. That was bad, but this is ridiculous! Twenty-two hundred dollars! I could go—
we
could go—to camp!”

He was right. It’d be enough. But even with my mind rattling with how much we love camp, I mumbled, “Her sister gave her the coin and died.”

“Doesn’t matter. Look, here’s what we’ll do. We buy that no-S, no-VDB coin for the money you’ve got. And that’s the penny we give to Ms. Prott. She wants to remember the year her sister was born. She cares about the date, so we give her the 1909.”