The Year Money Grew on Trees (24 page)

After church my sisters and I worked on my mom until she agreed to take me to the bank in Farmington after school the next day. Lisa volunteered to come too, but I told her she better not neglect her homework and extra reading anymore. She readily agreed.

I had Lisa put all the money into little brown paper bags grouped by denomination. She found some rubber bands and counted out groups of $100 and put the rubber bands around them. The little bags were then placed in a big grocery bag. We kept all the quarters, dimes, and nickels we had in a large jar, and I put that in a grocery bag too.

***

I hurried my mom out the door as fast as I could on Monday so I would have as much time as possible at the bank. We rode in silence, and she didn't ask what was inside my bags. She dropped me off at Citizens Bank at four o'clock and said she would be at the supermarket and would pick me back up at five.

I walked uneasily into the bank and stood in a short line of people waiting to see tellers, holding the money very close to me. There were four tellers helping people and three people in front of me. I looked over the tellers nervously, trying to guess which one would end up helping me. By the time I got to the front of the line, I had gotten a good look at all of them except the one on my far right. A large man was standing in front of that
spot, blocking my view. He moved away suddenly and I heard a female voice call, "Next, please."

I moved cautiously to my right and got my first look at the face behind the voice. She was young and very pretty, with bright green eyes and golden brown hair. I could feel myself turning red as I moved more slowly toward her.

"What can I do for you today?" she said smiling.

"I uh ... uh..." I kept staring at her teeth, which were very white and straight.

"Do you have something in the bag you need help with?"

"It's money," I said obviously. "I was hoping to get it counted and change it for some larger bills."

"That sounds easy enough. How much do you have?"

I didn't really want to say, so I started pulling out the little sacks that had been marked with the kind of bills they contained. The teller looked inside a few very cautiously.

"Wow, there's quite a bit here. Where did you get all this?"

She asked in such a friendly and sincere way, I felt that it was best to explain the whole story. I left out select parts like the manure and the dump boxes, but painted a pretty complete picture of the rest. She made for a good audience, too, even looking amazed at certain parts of my explanation.

"We better get counting, then, if we're going to finish by tomorrow," she said. "Let's start with the biggest bills."

The biggest bills we had were twenties, and she grabbed them all and piled them into a stack while counting. She wrote a number down and moved on to the tens. Her hands flew as she counted, and her lips moved very fast whispering out numbers. I peeked over at them shyly, amazed at how red they looked against her white teeth.

She made good progress until she came to all the dollar bills. I began to wish that Lisa had given more of those as change to people. The teller counted over fifteen hundred of them, and the clock hit five even before she was done. All the other customers were gone, and the rest of the bank employees were starting to leave.

"Do you have to go?" I asked when she finished with the dollars.

"I can finish up," she said happily.

"I'm sorry it's so much counting."

"That's okay. I'm kind of interested to find out how much is here."

When she looked at the jar of change, she squinted and said, "We might need some help on that one."

She took the jar and poured it into a shiny machine that did all the counting and separated the coins. She wrote down the total and came back to me. She added
up some more numbers, wrote it on a piece of paper, and then held it close to her.

"Are you ready for the total?"

"Yes," I said slowly.

"It's $9,180.30."

I was amazed both to hear her say such a large number and that Lisa had been exactly right.

"That's about what I thought," I said, trying to react calmly.

"Would you like to deposit that into an account or maybe get a cashier's check?"

I felt dumb asking what a cashier's check was, so I just said, "Can I just get it in large bills?"

"Whatever you want. Just hope you don't lose them. Do you want hundreds?"

"Can I get $8,000 in hundreds and the rest in twenties and tens?"

She counted out the money and then said, "Let me get you an envelope or two for that."

She brought over some manila envelopes, and we slid the money inside. I noticed for the first time that she wore a small nametag that read Kelly. I felt kind of nervous using her name but said, "Thank you so much for your help, Kelly. I'm glad I got your window."

"My pleasure," she said smiling.

"Can I ask you one more thing? Do you know where I can get a document copied?"

She looked around. "If it's just a page, I can copy it for you."

I reached into one of the paper sacks and pulled out the piece of paper I had gotten from the lawyer's office with Mrs. Nelson. Kelly looked it over curiously and then went over to a copy machine. She came back a few minutes later.

"I think this was a copy, so now you have a copy of a copy and it doesn't look that great," she said.

"That's okay. It'll be good enough."

I thanked her repeatedly as she walked me to the door of the bank. As I turned to say goodbye, I wished I had more money to count. I tried to wave at her again through the glass doors, but she had already walked away.

My mom was sitting in her car waiting for me in the parking lot. "What took so long in there? Where's the money from the grocery bags?"

It had to be obvious why I needed the bank, even if she hadn't brought it up earlier. "There was a line to begin with," I replied, "and ... I'll explain later." I wanted to tell her all about Kelly and the money counting, but I stopped myself and hoped she wouldn't press for details.

"Okay. It's your secret little project. I just hope your father doesn't beat us home."

I ran into my room when we arrived before Lisa or Jennifer could stop me. I closed the door and hid the envelopes of money deep in my closet. All I said to Lisa
that night was "You were exactly right about the total." She was so happy with herself that she didn't ask about anything else.

***

The next day after school, I grabbed the envelope full of tens and twenties and knocked on my cousins' door. Sam answered.

"Wanna go for a ride?" I asked.

He walked out the door before asking, "Where to?"

We climbed on the tractor, and I let him drive to General Supply. I put the envelope down my shirt so it wouldn't blow out of my hands.

We walked through the doors, and I was surprised to see Jimmy behind the counter.

"I thought you only worked during the summer," I said, walking up to him.

"After school too, remember?" he replied. "You ever get those boxes?"

"Yep, and we just finished selling them all," I told him proudly. "Thought I should come and pay the bill."

Jimmy went and got the card he usually wrote our charges on and started adding things up.

"You owe $534," he said when he was done.

"Wow, how much for each thing?" I asked.

"It was $300 for the boxes, almost a couple hundred for the poison, rolls of plastic, cans of pop—it adds up."

I reached into the envelope and handed him the money and then watched as he crossed off all the items on the card.

"Do you think you could start a fresh card for my dad, with none of those things written on it?" I asked him.

He looked at me, smiled, and tore up the card. "Sure," he said.

"And can I get a receipt for all that stuff? Actually can I get two copies for my records?"

He shook his head, teasing me, but wrote out the receipts I wanted.

"Thanks, Jimmy," I said as we walked off. "You working next summer?"

"We'll see," he called out.

When Sam and I got home, I said to him, "Can you ask Amy to come over and talk to me in a couple of hours?"

I went into my room and started writing a letter to Mrs. Nelson. I had a feeling that she wouldn't answer her door and talk to me, but I hoped she would read a letter. I tried to explain in it that I had lived up to my part of our deal and that I was putting the $8,000 into an envelope with the letter, along with a copy of the agreement and a receipt for the supplies we used. I also wrote about how much I learned and how much I appreciated her believing that I could do it. I promised to take care of the orchard too.

When Amy came over, I took her into my room and let her read the letter.

"What do you think?" I asked when she had finished.

"Sounds pretty good. Do you think it will convince her?"

"I don't know. Would it convince you?"

"I'm not crazy in the first place. Let's see the money."

I pulled out the envelope full of hundreds and handed it to her.

"Whoa!" she said as her eyes widened. "I don't think I've ever seen a hundred before." She spread the money on my bed, running her hands over the top of it. A strange look came over her face. "Let's just keep it!" she said. "With our share, we could both buy cars! Cool ones!"

I bit my lip. "I'm afraid to." I could feel heat rising on the top of my head. "I've got to keep my part of deal," I said.

"Okay, I know," she said, looking a little embarrassed.

"So can you come with me tomorrow to give this to her? I want you there as a witness so no one can say we didn't give her the money."

"Let's do it right after school, then," she said.

I didn't sleep well that night. I kept going over the first conversations I had with Mrs. Nelson and our trip to the lawyer's office. It all seemed so long ago.

***

After school on Wednesday, I stuffed the money and papers into the manila envelope Kelly had given me. I sealed it, wrote Mrs. Nelson's name on it, and headed over to get Amy.

I met Lisa in the kitchen. "What are you doing? What's that?" she asked, pointing to the envelope.

"Business," I said, and hurried away before she could ask any more questions.

Amy and I stood on Mrs. Nelson's porch and looked at each other. I was thinking hard about what to say in case she answered the door.

"Go ahead," said Amy pointing at the doorbell.

I let out a sigh, reached over, and pressed it. We could hear the chimes inside but nothing else. After half a minute, I looked over at Amy.

"She's got to be in there," Amy said loudly. "Her car's right out front." She pounded on the door. When that didn't work, she pounded again while yelling, "Open up, we know you're there!"

I pulled her hand away from the door. "That's just going to make her mad," I whispered.

"So what?" she spit out. After calming down a little, she asked, "Now what should we do?"

"What if we just leave it?" I suggested.

We couldn't think of anything better to do, so we jammed the envelope full of money into the crack of
the door. It was hard to walk away from it, especially after Amy reminded me it would buy a nice new car, but we eventually backed off the porch while keeping our eyes on the door.

"What if she just takes it and never says anything?" Amy asked.

"I guess then we'll have to tell our parents," I said, dreading the possibility. "But you're a witness. And Lisa knew exactly how much money there was, and so did the woman at the bank. I'm going to keep an eye on the door from the orchard. Besides, we forgot to take some apples down to the Wheelers, so I'm going to try and pick some."

We returned home, and I grabbed some cardboard boxes my dad had brought home from work. They weren't fruit boxes and were an odd shape so we hadn't used them before, but I didn't think the Wheelers would mind. I kept my eye on the envelope as much as possible, which was still visible in the door. The weather had turned colder, and I could see my breath if I blew hard enough. I moved up and down several rows trying to find enough good apples to fill the Wheelers' boxes. Without the pressure I had felt just a few days earlier, I realized that I recognized the features of individual trees and could even remember picking and spraying certain ones. I even had my favorites—the trees that produced
fat, low-hanging apples. It seemed silly to name them, but I had studied them so closely, I could recognize them by sight.

I finished with the boxes and then sat in a spot secluded in the orchard where I could keep an eye on the envelope and door. There was no movement, and eventually I had to stand and pace back and forth to keep warm. Darkness settled in and I couldn't see the door anymore, so I reluctantly returned home.

***

The next day on the way to the bus stop, I could see the envelope still there. I looked over at Amy with a worried expression. She shrugged her shoulders knowingly. I thought about running and getting the envelope and hiding it back in my room, but just kept moving toward the bus.

School seemed to last much longer that day. I squeezed out of the bus in the afternoon with an urge to run and check the envelope, but walked coolly next to Amy instead. We made it halfway down the dirt road wordlessly until the door came into view. The envelope was gone.

I gulped and stopped walking. "Now you just have to wait and see what she does," said Amy, trying to sound reassuring.

To take my mind off the envelope, Sam and I drove down to the Wheelers' to deliver the apples I had picked.
Jerry was more excited than ever to see us, and grabbed an apple and bit into it without wiping it off or washing his hands.

"Delicious!" he said enthusiastically. "What's your secret, boys?"

"Lots of fertilizer," I said, smiling.

"That's got to be it. This place only makes the best." He laughed.

Sam and I carried the boxes over to the building Jerry always came out of. "This has to be the sweetest trade I've ever made," he kept saying. I had the feeling as we drove off that he would have liked us to stay the rest of the day.