June Sparrow and the Million-Dollar Penny Page 15

  She grabbed the ladder and started climbing as fast as she could. She didn’t know what she’d find at the top, but every step brought her closer to the Big One and going home! Indigo wanted to come with her and whined anxiously, but she couldn’t carry him up without a backpack.

  “I’ll be down soon,” she called back, a little shocked at how far away the ground looked already. “I’m just going to look at the view!”

  This didn’t seem to reassure Indigo, who began circling the bottom of the ladder, but June kept going. She had never been afraid of heights and she hoped to learn to mountain climb someday. She had taken some beginner classes at climbing walls just for the fun of it, and she loved the ropes, the special knots, and launching herself into the air from one toehold to the next on her way back down.

  The silo was higher than it looked, and when she finally reached the silvery roof and looked back down at Indigo, he appeared very small, even for a miniature pig. I’ll just stay a few minutes, she told herself, and climbed up the last few steps so that she could peer inside.

  For some reason, she hadn’t expected the silo to be full of grain, or maybe it was just that she hadn’t expected it to look so vast. It was like a huge well filled with grain instead of water, deep and wide. She turned back to look at the view and the farmland spread before her like a quilting pattern with the tree breaks as stitching. The houses looked tiny, clustering together in Red Bank, then scattering again just past the edge of town.

  “Indigo!” she yelled as loud as she could. “I did it! This is the ladder to the top of the world!”

  June’s words were whipped away in the wind, and she couldn’t tell if Indigo heard her or not. She hadn’t really thought about the wind, which picked up as she climbed and seemed even stronger now that she was at the top. It blew her hair around her face and into her mouth, but she didn’t want to take a hand off the ladder to brush it aside, so she turned her face directly into the wind and tried closing her eyes halfway. She could see better this way, and she felt the silo swaying like a mast on an old-fashioned sailing ship far out at sea. The sky had turned a solid gray that wasn’t so solid when you really looked at it, and there was an elemental taste in the air that made her wonder if Aunt Bridget could be right, there might be a Thanksgiving snowstorm.

  Turning back toward the silo, June saw a small metal platform just inside the opening, like a bridge leading from one side of the silo to the other. Maybe her mom had climbed this very silo when she was a kid, and that’s why she wrote it on the list. Maybe there was even a clue about the Big One inside! June climbed onto the platform, but it was pitch-dark except for the bar of light from the opening. Her own shadow fell across the wide circle of grain in front of her.

  “Lordy, Lordy Liberace,” she swore.

  “Liberace!” the silo echoed back. Even though the wind was whistling across the opening, the inside of the silo was like an echo chamber. She let go of the ladder and moved carefully to sit on the edge of the platform and dangle her feet. The air was so still inside the silo, it was almost as if there was no air at all, and she had to look at the opening in the roof to remind herself that there was, in fact, plenty of air. But the light from the opening was filled with dense particles of dust, which might be why it was so hard to breathe. Dust was whirling up from the grain in tiny circles, and June tried not to give in to the eerie feeling that she had just stepped into the den of an ancient troll who gathered grain like gold.

  “Saskatchewan Sunday!” she called louder.

  “Sunday!” the silo echoed back, and June giggled nervously.

  The silo giggled nervously.

  I wonder what kind of grain this is, she thought. It definitely wasn’t corn, though Bob had a huge cornfield stretching out behind the barn. If you thought about it in a certain way, this whole part of the country was like a Russian nesting doll with squares inside of squares. Starting with the square of the farmhouse, then the yard, then the fields. A geometric pattern repeating itself all the way from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.

  June leaned down to pick up a piece of grain and taste it. But the grain was farther away than it looked—and suddenly June lost her balance, falling right into the silo on top of the mountain of grain. At first she thought it was kind of funny and was glad nobody had seen her do something so klutzy. But when she reached up to get back onto the platform, the slippery grain gave way before her arms like water. Kicking her feet to move upward, June suddenly felt the grain sucking back on her legs, and she sank even deeper. Her heart froze. The slick kernels of grain worked like quicksand, and June did what you are never supposed to do in quicksand—she panicked.

  “Help!” she screamed as loud as she could.

  “Help! Help!” echoed the silo.

  June gave a huge wrench with her arms, and her fingers grazed the underside of the platform, but then she sank back even lower. The platform looked farther away, like she was looking up at sunlight from the bottom of a pool. She thrashed desperately, sinking quickly down to her armpits. Now she started crying, and the silo echoed back her sobs like an evil genie. June shut her eyes and spit out the grain that had gotten into her mouth. She sank down another inch. That was when it started to snow. The inside of the silo went even darker as the first flakes began to blow straight inside with the wind.

  “Help!” June yelled again, but her voice sounded strangely hollow. “Indigo! Help!”

  The wind was whining across the narrow opening of the silo, and she knew there was no way that anyone would hear her up there. What if she never got out? What if she never saw Indigo again? Would Aunt Bridget turn him into bacon when she wasn’t there to protect him?

  “Indigo!” she called again as she slipped down a little farther.

  She tried to remember what they had told her in swimming class: never panic in the water; rest in a floating position. But how could she float when she couldn’t lift her legs? Every time she moved, it only got worse. She could still hear her own voice calling distantly, “Indigo! Indigo!” but it was only the echoing silo.

  I don’t want to drown! she thought desperately, trying not to move, but when the grain got up into her nose she started thrashing again, spitting and choking. There were spots in front of her eyes now and she could hardly breathe, terrified that this time she might not come back up. Her lungs were bursting, but she couldn’t stop trying to swim to the surface even though a part of her knew that struggling only made things worse.

  June Sparrow was drowning in the middle of a snowstorm.

  Suddenly she felt an excruciating yank on her scalp. She looked up and saw Bob on his knees on the platform, pulling her up by the hair. She felt nothing but pain at first. Then his hands were under her armpits, and the sucking sensation gave way as he pulled her up next to him and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

  “It’s all right,” he said, his voice shaking. “You’re safe.”

  She took great big gulps of air and Bob patted her back, holding her up like a rag doll. Then he moved her in front of the opening so that she could breathe the clean air, dense with white flakes and a sharp cold that stabbed her lungs. She still couldn’t get her breath, and she was gasping, crying, and coughing all at once. Every breath she took felt like swallowing broken glass. Bob turned her around to look at her. She had never seen him look so scared.

  “You all right?”

  June nodded—she couldn’t speak. She was still taking deep, gulping breaths.

  “Okay,” Bob said. “We’re going down.”

  June never really remembered how they got down that ladder. She was aware of Bob’s big body between her and the snowstorm, and his voice encouraging her to keep moving one foot then one hand, one foot then one hand, as they slowly descended the narrow ladder, which seemed to have grown even longer, like the magic beanstalk that grew as high as the sky in “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Once they made it to the ground, Bob scooped her up in his arms and ran for the farmhouse.

 
The next thing she remembered was being on his couch with a blanket over her and Indigo madly licking her face and hands as Bob made her drink a huge glass of water and a teaspoon of whiskey. She coughed hard, burst into tears, and this time she thought she’d never stop crying.

  “It was your little friend here who saved you,” Bob said, looking at Indigo. “I heard him scratching at the door when I saw the first snow flurries, but he wouldn’t come into the house. He kept pulling me over to the silo.” Bob’s voice was shaky, and the white stripe between Indigo’s eyes was furrowed with worry. “He wouldn’t quit till I started climbing up. Never occurred to me that you’d go up there.”

  June hugged Indigo hard. She had settled down after Bob got her a large box of tissues and made a pot of tea along with the usual plate of cookies. Bob hadn’t called Aunt Bridget yet, and June wondered if he was as reluctant as she was to tell her aunt what had happened. “I have to tell you that was lucky,” Bob said quietly. “About four people die a year in silo accidents. Fall in and drown, just like that.”

  June shivered and Indigo snuggled up even closer. It was very strange to have just escaped drowning and still be bone-dry. Bob looked at her again, and she knew she owed him an explanation. He didn’t look angry, and she realized he must have been just as scared as she was. Then she realized something else—Bob had saved her life.

  “Thank you,” she said. Bob shrugged and looked at Indigo.

  “He’s the one to thank. That’s one smart little pig.”

  June pulled Indigo close and kissed both of his ears. He knew what she meant.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Bob. “I just—I had this big problem and I was looking for a place to think. I didn’t know it was so dangerous.”

  “It’s my fault. I should have told you not to go up there.” Bob shook his head. “I keep forgetting you’re not from around here. You look so much like your mother, and you know all the trouble she used to get into. She used to climb silos too, though I don’t think she ever fell in.”

  “That’s what my problem is! I mean—” June’s throat was sore and it was hard to talk, but this was too important. “Not her getting into trouble, but me! The only reason I keep getting in trouble is because of her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the Penny Book,” June said, deciding to come clean no matter what the consequences. Bob had saved her life and she owed him the truth. “Her Penny Book that talks about you. The one that you have right here in your pantry.”

  Bob stared at her. “How did you know that?”

  June flushed. “Me and Joe were looking for it when you caught us looking in the windows. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry! But I found it in Mom’s closet. Then Aunt Bridget took it, and she said you had taken it to the This ’n’ That shop, and—”

  “And it wasn’t there, so you came looking for it over here,” Bob finished.

  June nodded. “I’m very sorry about spying on your house,” she said quietly. “I know it was wrong, and I got Joe in trouble too.”

  Bob got up from his armchair, and June figured this was it. He was going to call Aunt Bridget, and June would be put into South Dakota Chore Jail for the rest of her life. But instead of going to the phone on the wall in the kitchen, Bob walked right through to the pantry and reached up to the highest shelf. He pulled down the Penny Book and walked back to the living room. He placed it in June’s lap without a word.

  “It rightly belongs to you,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have kept it after Bridget told me to take it down to the drop box, but she was going to get rid of it, and I couldn’t see that as right either. I didn’t know what to do with it. I’m the one who owes you an apology, not the other way around.”

  June stared at the notebook in her lap, then up at Bob. He was clasping and unclasping his hands, looking down at the rug as if he didn’t want to look her in the eye. And suddenly it hit her: he was still in love with her mother and had been for all these years. It was kind of awful and sad, but also terribly romantic and tragic—just like La Bohème.

  “Have you looked through it?” June asked. Bob shook his head.

  “Let’s look together.” June moved over on the couch so that Bob could sit next to her, and they started flipping through the Penny Book. Bob laughed at some of the entries. He knew much more about each of the pennies than Roseanne had written down.

  “Do you have a Penny Book?” June asked.

  “No,” Bob said. “I got rid of mine when your mom left town.”

  There was a silence. It seemed so sad to get rid of your Penny Book.

  “Did you guys ever go to New York?” June asked. “I mean, before my dad came along.”

  “No, we never did.” Bob sounded a little sad as well. “I should have listened more to your mom, that’s for sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your mom always dreamed big. Just like she says right here. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in South Dakota, and once your dad came along, well . . . , the rest is history.”

  “The rest is history,” repeated June. They had come to the entry about being handed a penny by a boy named Jimmy, and the torn-out pages at the back. June closed the book, hoping that Bob hadn’t seen the part about her father, but she knew he had, and she impulsively reached out and patted Bob’s big hand. He started a little in surprise, but he didn’t move away.

  “How did they meet? My mom and dad? I mean, how come he came to Red Bank at all?”

  “They met at the Vaudeville Palace,” Bob said quietly. “That old theater in town that’s all boarded up now. Back then it still showed movies, and your mom worked in the box office on weekends. Your dad was driving from California, and I guess he wanted to take a break and catch a movie. I think it was Grease.”

  Grease! thought June. No wonder her mom had the album on her record player. It was their movie!

  “Jimmy took one look at your mom, and, well—I think he decided she was a girl worth sticking around town for, which she certainly was. . . .”

  “That was it?” June asked. “He just stayed on after he met her?”

  “Jimmy got a job working at the Vaudeville Palace so he could date Roseanne,” Bob said. “He dreamed big, just like your mom, but he hadn’t made it big yet. He stayed in town for about a year. He worked concessions and she sold the tickets. Then, after she graduated high school, they got married and lit out together for the Big City.”

  June knew better than to let Bob know how absolutely perfect and romantic this was.

  “What happened to the Big One?” June asked quietly. “It was a 1943 copper, wasn’t it? Struck in copper?”

  Bob stared at her without saying anything.

  “Do you have it?” June asked. “Is it glued onto one of the missing pages?”

  “It was a 1943,” Bob said. “Struck in copper. Very rare, but she found it and we authenticated it. It was the real thing and worth a lot of money, even then.”

  “Where is it?” June asked urgently, still patting his hand as if he was a big, scared child.

  “I—I . . .” Bob looked her in the eye. “To tell the truth, June, me and your mom parted company over that penny. I wish that wasn’t the case, but—well—” Bob took a deep breath. “I asked her to marry me and save that penny for a nest egg to someday buy a farm of our own, kind of like this one.”

  June blinked hard and Bob kept talking. “But I was just the boy next door. We never even went on an actual date. She always said we were only good friends, but I guess I kept hoping. I figured she wouldn’t take me seriously unless I asked her to marry me, so I did, even though we were still in high school.”

  “Really?” June breathed. “I mean, I know she was young when she had me, but I didn’t know she had already been proposed to twice!”

  “She was quite something, your mom,” Bob said, smiling again. “But by the time I worked up the courage to pop the question, she had just met your dad, and we could never agree about how
to spend the money from the Big One, so—”

  “So?”

  “So she went ahead and cashed it in for something she really believed in.”

  “What?” asked June, not sure she wanted to know. Had her mother blown all the money on a fancy wedding dress?

  “Your father,” Bob said. “She believed in him, and even though she told me that he didn’t want her to cash it in either—guess that’s why they kept working at the Palace—in the end I figure she must have changed his mind, and they used it for that invention of theirs, Sticky Glue. We all thought it sounded crazy, but it turned out to be a gamble that worked out well—for all of you.”

  “Really?” June said. “They spent the Big One? Are you sure?” She and Indigo locked eyes. It couldn’t be true. The Big One couldn’t really be gone!

  “Absolutely,” Bob said. “She told me they had gotten married and she was cashing it in, and I’m afraid—I’m afraid we had a fight over that too.” He shook his head and looked down at the Penny Book across their laps. “It is nice to hear her voice again in here, though.”

  “She spent the Big One,” June repeated, as if she had to try to make herself believe it. “She spent it, and now the company it started is bankrupt.”

  “That penny was spent a long time ago,” Bob said.

  “Numismatics Corporation,” June said slowly, the empty feeling inside getting bigger. “It must be why they named it that, even though it was a stationery company.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Bob. “Honoring the penny that got it all started in the first place.”

  Now I’ll never get out of here, June thought miserably, but she didn’t have the heart to say this to Bob. It was more obvious than ever that he’d never gotten over her mother.

  “There’s some other things in the box your aunt gave me,” Bob said. “I’m not sure if they belonged to Roseanne, but if they did, maybe you’d like to have them.”

  June nodded dumbly, and he headed back to the pantry. It was snowing hard and starting to get dark outside. The wind had picked up even more, and June looked out the window at the storm—blizzards were something she’d have to get used to now that she was going to be stuck here forever.