Nickel Bay Nick (7 page)

“Yeah,” I say. “It's a long one, though.”

Mr. Wells spreads his arms wide. “I've got all the time in the world.”

“Well, okay.” I finish my last spoonful of soup and take a deep breath.

“D'you ever hear about the big fire that burned down the Nickel Bay Furniture Works?”

“I heard it was horrible,” Mr. Wells says. “But I also heard that there was one particularly heroic firefighter. Saved a dozen lives, if I remember correctly?”

I nod. “That was my dad.”

Mr. Wells blinks in surprise. “Dwight? Really?”

“Yeah. Anyway, because of that, he got written up in papers all over the country. He even got interviewed on the
Today
show. I was three and a half at the time, so I really had no idea how famous my dad was, if only for a few weeks.

“Then the bad news started. After the factory closed, people started leaving town to look for other work and more businesses shut down. So the town of Nickel Bay cut the fire department's budget, and Dad lost his job. Six months later, when the doctors found out I'd need a new heart, the same reporters who wrote about Dad's bravery wrote stories about me. Y'know, things like, ‘Hero's Child Needs Heart!'

“When I finally had the operation, it got reported everywhere. Mom even came back to see me and gave a few interviews. But she had a job singing on a riverboat outside St. Louis, so she had to leave before she could visit the hospital.”

“Is that when she sent you the Rolex?” Mr. Wells asks.

“Uh-huh.”

“Even though you were too small to wear it and too young to tell time?”

“It was her way of apologizing, okay?” I say, feeling a little defensive.

Mr. Wells holds up his hands. “Whatever you say.”

“Anyway,” I continue, “my hospital room was flooded with all kinds of
heart
gifts . . . heart-shaped candies and heart-shaped balloons and pajamas and T-shirts with hearts on them, and—”

“Okay.” Mr. Wells smiles. “I get the idea.”

“Dad donated most of that stuff to other kids in the hospital, and one of the only gifts he kept was a wooden box with this inside it, hanging from a leather cord.” I squint at my pendant. “There was no card, Dad said, so we never knew who it came from. Or what it was supposed to be. We thought it looked like a monkey, but we were never sure. Dad says I used to swing it back and forth and stare at it for hours, but then I got over it and stuck it in my sock drawer.

“I didn't think about it again until the day my third-grade class took a field trip to an art museum upstate. I happened to look into a room we were marching past, and I saw a stone statue as tall as me, exactly like my carving. I got yelled at for breaking out of line, but I had to get a closer look. And before my teacher dragged me off, I read the card next to the statue that told how Hanuman was a god of India with the head of a monkey and the body of a man.”

“Oh, that's Hanuman, is it?” Mr. Wells asks, leaning forward for a closer look. “Hmm. So it is.”

“You know about Hanuman?”

“Of course. I once lived in India. He's very popular there.”

“Anyway, when I got home from the museum that day, I pulled this pendant out and told Dad how I'd learned that Hanuman is a monkey and a man. ‘Do you believe it?' I said. ‘He's two creatures in one body. Like me!'”

“Hold on,” Mr. Wells says. “You thought of yourself as two creatures in one body?”

“I still do.”

“Explain, please.”

“Well, after my operation, nobody would ever answer when I asked where my heart came from, so I never knew anything about this . . . thing I've got living inside me,” I say, thumping my chest. “Over time, my imagination filled in the blanks, and I started having these awesome dreams. Like, there was one where I had the strength of ten men because I'd received the heart of a lion. In another one, I got the heart of a dolphin, so I could swim under any ocean on the planet.

“I told Dad that if anyone would understand what it's like to be two creatures in one body, it would be Hanuman. So that day, he tied this around my neck. And I've been wearing it ever since.”

“You know, millions of people in India wear carvings like yours in the belief that Hanuman will protect them,” Mr. Wells says. “Like a guardian angel.”

“And does he?” I ask. “Protect them?”

“You fell from my roof onto my front lawn, and yet here you are.” He shrugs. “What do you think?”

• • •

After Dr. Sakata clears our lunch plates, we spend the afternoon rehearsing. First, Mr. Wells makes me memorize the exact order of the stores I'll visit tomorrow as well as the item I'm supposed to buy in each one. Then I have to walk around the room, stopping every few feet, pretending to make a purchase and announcing stuff like, “At Veckens Stationery
, I buy the box of twenty letter-size white envelopes on sale for two dollars and nineteen cents.” Boring, right?

“Why can't I just take my notes with me?” I ask after the third rehearsal.

“Because you don't want to . . . what?”

His words come back to me. “Attract attention,” I mumble.

“Exactly!” he practically shouts. “You want to be a spy? Think like one.”

Before I can give him any grief, he plunges ahead. “Now, let's discuss your wardrobe. Everything you wear,” he warns me, “must be in drab colors. Nothing flashy. Nothing that anyone might notice.”

He cautions me to avoid salesclerks who know me. “Most of these stores still have temporary holiday cashiers, so be sure to buy your items at their registers. And
do not make conversation
!” He pounds a fist. “I don't want anyone to have any memory of you.”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

“And in every store that you enter, be sure to note the location of surveillance cameras.”

“Why? I'm not doing anything illegal.”

“No, you're not. But when you reshelve the merchandise the next day, you want to avoid being caught on video. You know how that can come back to haunt you.”

I curl my top lip. “Ha-ha. Very funny.”

The hands of my Rolex are creeping toward four o'clock when I collapse in a chair and ask wearily, “Are we done for today?”

“Hardly!” Mr. Wells exclaims, and he buzzes the desk intercom. Dr. Sakata enters and takes up his position behind Mr. Wells's chair.

“Of the three missions in Operation Christmas Rescue,” Mr. Wells says, “the one that concerns me the most is the last one. The White Mission. It's also the most”—he waves a hand, trying to find the word—“
popular.
”

“Which one's the White Mission?”

“That's the one where Nick maneuvers through a holiday crowd and slips money into the pockets and purses of unsuspecting shoppers.”

“Yeah, that always gets a lot of buzz,” I remember. “So, why are we talking about it now?”

“Because it requires a skill that I'm afraid you're lacking at present.”

I sit up, insulted. “And what's that?”

“I don't believe you know the first thing about being a pickpocket.” He points toward my police files on his desk. “There's nothing in your record of arrests to indicate that you've ever cultivated that talent.”

He's right. Jaxon's always trying to get me to try it—to walk into a crowd and walk out with someone's wallet or cell phone. But I never have.

“Just because I haven't doesn't mean I can't,” I say, cocky.

“I'm curious,” Mr. Wells says. “You obviously have no problem with taking things that aren't yours. Why do you draw the line at pickpocketing?”

“I don't know.” I shrug. “Maybe cuz I don't like to see the people I'm taking things from.”

“Well, well, well.” Mr. Wells nods. “Perhaps Sam has a conscience after all.” My cheeks flush with anger, but before I can explode, Mr. Wells moves on. “You need training, because once you acquire the skills to be a pickpocket, you can be a put-pocket.”

“A what?”

“A
put-pocket.
Instead of taking something
from
someone—we'll call that person your ‘mark'—you can slip something
to
them.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “You'll start your training with Dr. Sakata here.”

Hearing his name, the big guy moves out from behind the desk and bows slightly to me.

“Fine, let's do this.” I stand and stretch. “How hard could it be?”

Well, it turns out it's not hard.

It's impossible.

Mr. Wells puts us through drills where Dr. Sakata pretends to be an ordinary guy on the street. I'm supposed to casually pass by and slip my hand in a pocket. Every time I do, he nails me.

From the sidelines, Mr. Wells makes suggestions:

“Make believe you've stumbled into him.”

“Pretend you're brushing a spider off his jacket.”

“Divert his attention somehow!”

So I try to distract Dr. Sakata by pointing to the ceiling and crying, “Look! A burning building!” Maybe because he doesn't speak English, he never takes the bait. At the end of an hour, it's clear I've failed my first lesson in pickpocketing. Or put-pocketing.

Whatever.

“You see why I'm starting your lessons early?” Mr. Wells asks.

“I just need a little more practice,” I insist.

“You just need a lot more practice.”

Since I can't disagree, I don't reply. Mr. Wells turns his wheelchair and asks, “What time do you start shopping tomorrow morning?”

“When the stores open at nine,” I answer without thinking.

“And your first visit is . . . ?”

“Colodner's. Where I will buy one box of women's chestnut-brown hair dye, on sale for three dollars and ninety-five cents. That's including tax.” I cock my head defiantly. “You want my whole schedule?”

“I know your whole schedule,” he snaps back, “and as long as you follow our plan, you'll be done in ninety minutes. Accounting for travel time, I'll expect you at my back door no later than eleven.” He wheels out of the room, calling over one shoulder, “And please . . . don't disappoint me on your first day.”

Just as I'm about to make a rude gesture toward the departing wheelchair, Dr. Sakata steps into the doorway, holding my coat and shoes. I can't be sure if the big doctor can understand the language of rude gestures, but I'm not taking any chances.

THE
WISHES
IN THE
JAR

December 27–28

I wait long enough to make sure Mr. Wells's back gate hisses closed, and then I start down the alley, stopping every few steps to practice buying an item at each of the fifteen stores on my memorized list. Halfway through my route, I'm standing under a stuttering streetlight when I hear the idling of a motor. Down the alley I can see Crummer Sikes watching me from behind the wheel of his white van, the one that says
NICKEL BAY DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL CONTROL
across the side. People joke that the only animal in Nickel Bay that needs controlling is Crummer Sikes.

He went to high school with my dad, but Crummer dropped out before graduating when drug-sniffing police dogs made a beeline for his locker during a random inspection. These days Crummer wears his greasy hair in a long braid down his back and always smells like a spilled beer and the herbal cigarettes he smokes. But somehow, despite all the cutbacks in city services in Nickel Bay, he's managed to hang on to his job as the town's dogcatcher.

“Hey, Crummer,” I call.

“Sam.” He nods and rolls up alongside me in his van. “Who are you talkin' to?”

“Me?” I realize Crummer caught me rehearsing the Red Mission, so I do what I do best. I lie. “I'm talking to the voices inside my head. But, then, you know all about talking to the voices inside your head, right, Crummer?”

He sneers. “You oughta have some respect for your elders.” He flicks the smoldering butt of his stinky herbal cigarette in my direction, and I jump out of its way. Crummer laughs like a Halloween witch, hits the gas and peels out, splattering me with snowy mud and pebbles.

My cell phone rings, and I check my wristwatch. Seven thirty.

“I'm taking my pill, okay?” I answer.

“Where are you?” Dad asks.

“Heading home. What about you?”

“Three minutes away.”

I suddenly freeze. Staring down at my Rolex, I try to remember whether I put Dad's velvet box back in his closet after pulling the watch out earlier.

“See ya there!” I shout, snapping my phone closed and racing down the alley like a cat on fire. On my way, I unstrap my watch and shove it into my pants.

As I feared, I hadn't replaced Dad's velvet box, and I hadn't returned the kitchen stepladder to its place next to the washing machine. I do both in record time, and I'm still panting when Dad walks through the front door.

“Are you okay?” he asks, leaning close. “You're sweating like a racehorse.”

“I'm fine, I'm fine,” I insist and push past him, terrified that he'll hear the
tick tick tick
of the Rolex in my pants.

“Wait.” He follows, trying to put a palm on my forehead. “Are you running a fever?”

“No!”

“Sam, you're very warm!”

“That's . . . because . . .” I stall until an idea hits. “
Because
Mr. Wells gave me a cup of hot cocoa before I left, and
whew
!” I fan my face with both hands. “Hot cocoa, y'know?”

“So take your jacket off,” Dad suggests.

“Great idea!”

And that
would
be a great idea if Mr. Wells's envelope of cash wasn't under my jacket, sticking out of my waistband. So I rub my arms vigorously and do my best to shiver. “But am I the only one in here who's freezing?”

“Do I need to take your temperature?” Dad asks.

“I'll do it!” I dash past him into the bathroom and close the door. Three minutes later, I shout out, “Ninety-eight-point-six!” and that puts an end to that conversation.

• • •

I'm sprawled on the couch, eating take-out fried chicken and watching TV, when Dad leaves to meet Lisa for dinner. As soon as I hear his car pull away, I dump my plate in the kitchen sink and start making preparations.

From my pants pocket I retrieve the wristwatch, and once I use it to reset the correct time on the oven clock, I slide it between my mattress and box spring.

Digging through my closets and drawers, I find the dullest colored sweater, scarf and knit cap that I own.

Then I count out Mr. Wells's cash—$54.17—and zip it into one of the many pouches in my backpack.

What I'm doing tomorrow is totally legal, and yet my pulse is pounding like I'm about to crack Fort Knox.

• • •

At breakfast the next morning, Dad's looking over his monthly bills. “Where does the time go?” he worries, running his hand through his hair. “It's already December twenty-eighth.”

Without thinking, I blurt, “The third day of Christmas.”

Dad looks up. “The what?”

I stop breathing. “Huh?”

“You said ‘the third' what?”

“You think I said ‘third'? I didn't say ‘third.' Wow. Your ears need cleaning.” I laugh too loudly, thinking fast. “I said . . . ‘the
worst.
' The worst kind of Christmas.”

“Ain't that the truth?” Dad agrees, and goes back to writing his checks.

Waiting for the stores to open is agony. I get dressed, check my backpack, wind my wristwatch, pocket my cell phone, pull on my gloves . . . and it's not even eight o'clock yet. Mr. Wells warned me about getting downtown too early and attracting attention, so I sit on the edge of the bed and try to slow down my breath. At 8:40, I finally leave the house and head for the first stop on my buying tour.

I stroll through the doors of Colodner's Drugstore on First Avenue at 9:02. Luckily, I don't run into Mr. Colodner on my way to the hair care aisle, where I quickly locate a box of women's chestnut-brown hair dye. At the cash register I keep my head bowed and count out $3.95 for a tall, skinny lady clerk I've never seen before.

“So,” she says brightly, “how was your Christmas?”

I wince and whimper, “Can we please not talk about it?” as I slide the bills and coins across to her.

She doesn't ask any more questions.

In my haste to get out of there, I grab the plastic shopping bag but don't bother to zip it into my backpack. As I exit the store, I hear the crackling static of a bullhorn, and an amplified voice behind me bellows, “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!” I gasp and whip around to find Jaxon and Ivy on a bus stop bench. Jaxon's hands are cupped around his mouth, and when he shouts, “WHAT'S IN THE BAG, YOUNG MAN?” he sounds exactly like a police car loudspeaker.

I guess I must look pretty shocked, because Jaxon doubles over with laughter. “I wish I had a picture of your face, Sammy-boy!” he howls.

“Ha-ha, very funny.” I try to sound casual, but my pulse is pounding.

“Hey, Sam,” Ivy says, tossing back her long blond hair.

“Hey, Ivy,” I answer timidly.

Jaxon recovers enough to say, “Hey! I thought you had to work for that old man today.”

“I . . . I do,” I answer nervously, and I wave the plastic bag as proof. “He's got me doing his shopping.”

“What'd ya buy?” Ivy asks.

“Oh . . . uh . . . you know,” I stammer. “Stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Jaxon demands, and before I can react, he grabs the bag from my hand and yanks out the . . .

“
Hair dye?!
” He looks up. “What's your boss gonna do with hair dye?”

My jaw flaps. “I . . . I just buy what I'm told.”

I reach for the box, but Jaxon pulls it back and reads the label.

“
Women's
hair dye? Your boss is twisted, man.”

“That's not so twisted,” Ivy says, snatching it from Jaxon's hands. “Lots of guys color their hair nowadays.”

“Ivy's right,” I announce, slipping up beside her and reaching for the box.

“Not so fast,” she says, holding it up, out of my reach. “I'm reading the warning.”

“The
warning
?” I blink.

“Yeah. It's so interesting, all the chemicals they warn you about these days. And hair dye's full of chemicals, so there's always a warning.”

“I got a warning for the Samster,” Jaxon says, grabbing the dye from Ivy. “Try to get it back!”

“C'mon, Jaxon!” I lunge at him, but he jumps off the curb, laughing as he dashes into traffic. Ivy runs after him, but before I can follow, a car and three trucks whizz past.

“Jaxon!” I yell across the busy street. “
PLEASE?!
”

The desperation in my voice makes Ivy stop and reach for the box in Jaxon's hands, but he twists away, and with a wicked gleam in his eye, he shouts, “Sam, go long!” Then, as he does a perfect imitation of a referee's whistle, he lobs the box of hair dye like a football across First Street.

Running alongside parked cars, I open my arms to receive the missile coming my way. But it's Dad, not me, who's the football player in our family. The box bounces off my chest, drops into the street and splits open, sending the plastic bottle of coloring rolling out. Before I can get to it, the bottle rolls under the tire of a passing bus, and
splat!
Chestnut-brown hair dye squirts all over the pavement and even some of the parked cars. By the time the bus passes, Jaxon and Ivy are gone.

As I stare in horror at the flattened box and the explosion of dye that's seeping into the roadway, my head aches with a horrid realization. In my backpack, there's only enough money—
exactly
enough money—for the rest of the things I have to purchase. Yet I don't dare return to Mr. Wells's with only fourteen items.

I consider throwing myself in front of the next bus.

I consider marching right back into Colodner's Drugstore and shoplifting a second box of hair dye. But I promised Mr. Wells that I wouldn't do anything illegal, so I have to keep considering.

Finally, I make a new plan. Squaring my shoulders, I step back onto the sidewalk, point myself toward stop #2—Hopkins Hardware—and set off on the rest of the Red Mission.

Like a hot knife through soft butter, I move through the next fourteen assignments on my memorized list. As I go from store to store in downtown Nickel Bay, I pass the paper-covered windows of so many other businesses and restaurants that didn't survive. In each store I visit, I follow Mr. Wells's advice. I scope out the surveillance cameras. I avoid eye contact with the staff. And I take my purchases to cash registers that are staffed by temporary employees who've never seen me before. The only person who recognizes me is old Mr. Tuck, who owns Wonderland, the toy and game store.

“Hey, there's my buddy!” he shouts the minute I walk in the door.

“Hey, Mr. Tuck,” I call out.

“Did ya have a good Christmas, Bob?” he asks. “And how about those pretty sisters of yours?”

Mr. Tuck is at least five years older than dust, so he's not real great in the memory department. A few years back he decided that my name is either Bob or Arnie and that I've got two or three sisters. So I don't worry about him remembering that I'm here today to buy a pack of playing cards.

Once I make my final purchase—a shrink-wrapped tin of Altoids breath mints from the Nickel Bay Newsstand and Confectionery—I have spent every last penny Mr. Wells handed me the day before. But now I need an additional $3.95 to replace the purchase that got squished under the wheels of the First Avenue bus. I check the time. Ten thirty. I have a half hour to buy another hair dye and still get to Mr. Wells's back door by eleven.

Through potholed alleys and backyards, I race home. Once there, I slip off my now-bulging backpack and tear through our apartment, digging for coins in the backs of kitchen drawers (one nickel), under the cushions of the living room couch (one dime), and behind Dad's easy chair (three pennies). I turn my long-neglected piggy bank on its head and shake out the coin I can hear banging around in there. A lonely quarter.

Which brings my grand total to forty-three cents.

“Think, Sam! Think!” I mutter to myself until I whirl and see, in an alcove above the refrigerator, the answer to my problem.

Our penny jar.

The penny jar was Mom's idea. “Every penny is another wish that will come true,” she used to say right up until she left.

“Yeah, well, you can see how well that worked out,” Dad grumbled after Mom was gone. Then he stuck the penny jar on top of the fridge, where nobody ever fed it another cent.

Climbing the kitchen stepladder, I reach the dusty, heavy jar and carefully lower it to the counter, where I count out three hundred and fifty-two pennies. Added to the forty-three cents I found earlier, I now have exactly $3.95. I sweep the coins into a sandwich baggie, screw the lid back on the penny jar and replace it above the fridge.

All those coins—and the fourteen purchases from earlier—jostle in my knapsack and bang on my spine as I race downtown. It's only when I turn the corner at Griffin and Eighth that a horrible thought hits me, and I stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

I'm not supposed to be noticed. Yet only a blind salesclerk with the IQ of a meatball would fail to notice a scrawny, sweaty kid who's trying to pay for a box of chestnut-brown women's hair dye with almost four hundred pennies.