June Sparrow and the Million-Dollar Penny Read online

  Shirley told her that now that her parents were gone, these were “pennies from heaven”; and every time you found a penny, it was a message from somebody who loved you in heaven. Even then, June knew that she was too old for that answer, but she always thought of her parents when she found a penny on the street. She figured that there must be another reason, and it must be a very important one, for her mother to set twelve pennies aside when she was only a baby. Each penny was numbered on the outside of the case, and for the hundredth time June wished that her mom had left a note telling her why she always gave her a special penny. But her mother had never expected that she wouldn’t be there for every birthday, or that on the day she turned twelve, June would be handed a one-way ticket to South Dakota.

  Indigo nudged her her ankle.

  “Okay, okay, Indigo, I’m coming.”

  This was the last penny in the envelope. Maybe her mother had thought that after turning twelve June might want other, more grown-up presents. June held the small blue envelope in her hands and closed her eyes.

  “Pennies from heaven,” she whispered to herself, and opened the flap for the last time. Sure enough, there was the final penny in its little plastic case with the number twelve written on the corner in Magic Marker. June looked automatically at the year of the penny showing through the clear plastic window: 1965. Not an incredibly old coin, so it probably wasn’t very valuable. Her mother and father had always been collectors, and some of the coins they saved were ones that they thought might become more valuable in time.

  June stared at the gold coins locked safely inside the case, trying not to feel disappointed. Should she break it open? Smash the glass? Indigo growled warningly at her.

  “You’re right.” She sighed. “I don’t want to end up in jail like Mr. Mendax.”

  Indigo tugged hard on the lace of her ballet flat, with a glance toward the open door to the library. Now June could hear police sirens, and suddenly there was a loud pounding at the front door.

  “Open up! Police!”

  Indigo squealed and leaped into her arms. June pulled the secret door shut, quickly replacing the copy of Alice in Wonderland before she ran for the back door, which led out of the kitchen. She heard the front door opening and the thud of heavy feet. She slammed the kitchen door and ran down the stairs.

  As soon as they got to the front entrance, Antonio blew twice on his silver whistle and waved his hand in the air as if there were no taxis left in all of New York City. A bright yellow cab pulled up, and Antonio practically pushed June and Indigo into the backseat. “Take her to the airport!” Antonio said to the driver. He started to close the door, but June held on to the silver buttons of his uniform, wishing that her arms could reach all the way around his wide stomach. Antonio looked right into June’s eyes, which were suddenly very blurry. Indigo whined and gently licked a tear she couldn’t keep back. Antonio touched a hand to his heart. “I will pray for you,” he said.

  June stared at him as the taxi pulled away from the building. Then she looked up at Yoko Ono’s living room and thought she saw a figure there—a petite woman with black hair and large sunglasses, dressed all in white. June Sparrow didn’t exactly know Yoko, but they were neighbors and June worshipped her from afar. John Lennon and Yoko Ono—it was one of the greatest love stories of the twentieth century, and so much of it took place right there in the Dakota (even the horrible part). Growing up in the building, June had thought a lot about how strong and brave Yoko must be. She may look small but she is mighty, June explained to Indigo, who knew exactly what that was like.

  June leaned her head out the back window, taking big gulps of air to steady her breathing. Looking up, she thought she saw Yoko brush her index finger against the side of her nose like Santa Claus. But Yoko would never do that, would she?

  Broke. Flat broke. This was going to take some getting used to, June thought as she looked out the airplane window. Indigo Bunting stirred impatiently inside the purse on her lap. It had taken the rest of her cash to pay for the taxi to the airport and the fee for Indigo to travel as a carry-on pet. The journey from Gray’s Papaya to her seat on this airplane still seemed like a slow-moving dream to her—one of those nightmares that are so real, you force yourself back up to the surface to find yourself home in bed and safe as toast. Unfortunately, June Sparrow was wide awake.

  The plane had flown through the night, and now it began its descent as the sun rose over the patchwork of fields below them. If she purposely blurred her vision, the landscape simplified into colored geometry. June pulled her tired eyes away from the window and took out the ziplock bag that Mr. Mendax had given her. Maybe there was a forgotten credit card in there, maybe she could check into a hotel when she got to South Dakota! She and Indigo Bunting could share a nice hot bubble bath, order room service, and the next day hop on a plane back to New York!

  But Mr. Mendax was right: no cash, no credit card—these were the contents of her mother’s wallet: an old South Dakota driver’s license with a picture of her mom squinting at the camera, some gym membership cards that expired years ago, and a folded piece of paper that looked like it was ripped out of a spiral notebook. June unfolded the paper carefully, and inside was a wallet-size photo of her mother holding June as a baby. June suddenly realized that this might be the only picture she would ever have of herself and her mom, and she wished her dad was in it too—but he was probably behind the camera, so he was there too, in a way. She rubbed her finger gently over the image to wipe away any dust. Then she saw that something was written on the piece of paper in her mom’s familiar handwriting.

  At first she thought it was a shopping list, but what a strange list! At the top was what looked like a series of numbers and initials:

  J.S. 2 R.B. 4 B.D.

  Travel inside a beehive

  Climb a ladder to the top of the world

  Hug my oldest friend

  Eat ice cream for breakfast

  Take a ride on the La-Z-Boy express

  Find metal that won’t stick to a magnet

  Let gonebyes go bye-bye

  June read it over twice, then read it aloud to Indigo.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked him. Since her parents had died nine years ago, this paper was at least that old. “They must have found the wallet on her bureau at the hotel or something, after the accident. A list of things she wanted to do?” June stared at the paper in her hand. “Anyone can eat ice cream for breakfast, I guess, especially if they’re a grown-up—but travel inside a beehive?”

  Indigo started snuffling hard at the top line with the initials.

  “What is it, Indigo?”

  Indigo rubbed his snout under the first two letters, then pushed his nose into her stomach. “J.S. 2 R.B. 4 B.D.?” June asked.

  Indigo nodded vigorously, then shoved his nose hard into her stomach again.

  June looked at the paper again.

  “J.S.? J.S.! Wait! That’s me! June Sparrow! Oh, Indigo, you really are a genius!”

  Indigo gave her a smug look. He was better than June at riddles, and he was a master of the New York Times crossword puzzle, though June nearly always beat him at Scrabble.

  “But what about the rest of it? ‘2 R.B. 4 B.D.’ What does that mean?”

  Indigo looked hard at the paper for several minutes, then gave a deep sigh.

  “We’ll figure it out,” June said. “J.S. is me, it’s always been me. She even wrote it on my birthday envelope. So one thing is for certain: this list has something to do with me.”

  The plane bumped onto the runway, and the force of the brakes pushed June hard against the back of her seat. Indigo scurried back inside the purse on her lap and she held tightly to it as the plane began to slow down. She suddenly whispered, “I love you, Indigo.” Indigo nudged her with his nose through the side of the purse, and June took a deep breath as the plane taxied toward the gate.

  June Sparrow was terrified.

  June had always been able to find a way to
make things work out the way she thought they should. She had been incredibly bored by preschool. (The endless singing! The forced companionship! The ruthless diet of organic apple juice and sugar-free graham crackers!) So when it came time to apply to kindergarten, when most of the children who came from wealthy families were being brushed and drilled and even forced to wear something approximating a private-school uniform, June and Shirley Rosenbloom decided it was time for homeschooling.

  Shirley and June hired a tutor for kindergarten, and June had plenty of play dates, but she could sleep as late as she wanted in the morning. Her parents’ will left everything to her, and while Mr. Mendax was the designated trustee of her fortune, the will did not specifically state that he was empowered to make all decisions concerning June. June was an extremely articulate child, and Mr. Mendax was an extremely nervous person, even in the best of times. As long as Shirley Rosenbloom agreed, he thought it was fine for June to be privately tutored indefinitely. What Mr. Mendax didn’t know was that for the last year June had decided to tutor herself. She gave the tutor a rather large check and told him that Shirley Rosenbloom was going to be taking over her lessons now that she was in middle school. Mr. Mendax was none the wiser.

  Shirley was June’s primary source of information about her parents, since she had been June’s nanny before graduating to babysitter and eventually housekeeper, now that June didn’t really need a babysitter anymore. June loved Shirley, and June was able to keep Shirley happy by eating well and never coming home late from one of her self-imposed field trips. June inhaled books and was extremely organized, so she always took her daily exercise in Central Park before settling down to read or study. She loved math, English, history, and science (after all, she got to choose what to study). In fact, the only thing that held zero interest for her was cooking, and Shirley Rosenbloom felt the same way: “I love you, darling, but I am too old to cook!” Shirley declared around the same time that June said good-bye to her tutor. So they ordered out for dinner (there were Chinese, Thai, Ethiopian, Indian, and Italian restaurants all within a few blocks). Shirley had whatever snacks June might be in the mood for during the day delivered by the grocery store where they had an account.

  June was never lonely, because when she began to look into the best way to homeschool herself, she read that forming close friendships was an important part of the school experience. That very same day she saw a picture of a miniature pig online, and once she found out what neat and companionable pets they were, she sent off for the very best one she could find. Indigo Bunting arrived special delivery in his own crate filled with sweet grass and cotton wool. She hadn’t been lonely since the day he arrived, and she never quite understood what it meant to be bored when you had an apple in your pocket and a great city to wander.

  But now all that was over.

  “Welcome to Sioux Falls, South Dakota!” read the banner opposite the gate as June walked off the plane. She looked around expectantly, but there was nobody there to meet her. Did her aunt even know she was coming? Her heart sank. She went into the ladies’ room, and once she was inside a stall, she took Indigo Bunting out of his bag. He had slept on his velvet cape and was wearing his top hat—which was a little crushed but still gave him a jaunty air.

  June held him to her chest and gulped hard; now that nobody could see her, she couldn’t manage to be brave anymore. Indigo snuffled her cheek, she kissed his perfect pink snout, and after a few minutes she managed to blow her nose. She held Indigo up so that he looked her right in the eye, and he gave her an encouraging nod.

  “You’re right, Indigo. This is a temporary setback, that’s all. We’ll find our way back to the real Dakota no matter what.” Her voice trembled, and Indigo licked her cheek again. “I know,” she said, snuggling him close to her chest. “The main thing is . . . we’re together.”

  June didn’t see any sign of a taxi stand, which seemed a little strange, but even stranger was the fact that there was nobody else in the terminal. Before she went into the bathroom, there had been a few people waiting for their baggage and talking on their cell phones. She hadn’t been gone that long, but now this entire airport, which was really just one big room, was totally deserted. The empty baggage carousel was still going around, and even though June didn’t have anything to collect, she walked right up to the opening where the baggage disappeared behind dirty rubber flaps and yelled, “Hello! Anybody there?”

  No answer. She looked out the front door. Nobody. She looked through the windows at the tarmac. There were three fat planes painted solid gray that looked like cartoon drawings of the United States Air Force, but not a soldier in sight.

  Indigo wriggled in her arms and looked up at her with a cocked eyebrow.

  “What is it, Indigo?”

  She set him down, and he trotted over to the door facing the parking lot and scratched expectantly.

  “Okay, okay.” She walked over to let him out, figuring he needed to use the facilities. But once she opened the door, he ran around behind her and nudged her legs forward. “Fine! I guess we’re going outside,” she said. “Not that there’s anything out there.”

  But as soon as she got through the doors, she stopped. Right there in front of her was this gi-normous sky! There were no tall buildings, just rows of trees placed like toys on the landscape, and the sky took up most of the space for your eyes.

  “Holy Saskatchewan Sunday, Indigo!” Then she felt the wind. It might have been unseasonably warm in New York City the night she left, but here in South Dakota there was a cold wind whipping across the farmlands without any buildings to break its impact on her bare legs. It turned out that a silk dress with pink tulle was not highly functional outerwear in the South Dakota prairie.

  June stamped her feet in the cold, hoping that would make a difference, but it didn’t. Indigo was shivering, and she picked him up to give him a hug. Where were all the people? Where were all the cabs? There wasn’t even a vehicle in sight.

  No, that wasn’t true. There was one small silver rectangle moving slowly along the highway in the direction of the airport. Great, one car, June thought, and I don’t even know if it’s coming to the airport or on its way somewhere else. She went back inside the terminal so that she and Indigo wouldn’t catch colds that turned into pneumonia and hastened them to an early grave, just like Mimi in La Bohème. It was all Mr. Mendax’s fault. Some guardian! It was ridiculous that she had been packed off to South Dakota without even a phone number to call her mythical aunt Bridget.

  She walked back and forth, wishing she had her cell phone or a book. For once she had none of the above since she had only been going to the opera, and the purse she’d brought with her had exactly enough room for Indigo Bunting, cash, and a house key. Now the cash was gone and the house key was useless.

  The doors to the terminal slid open with a loud swoosh to reveal a bulky figure with a stern expression on her face. Even though June had never met her in person before, there was no doubt about it: Aunt Bridget had arrived.

  She was wearing serious rubber boots, nothing like the fashionable rain boots that women wore in New York. These boots were army-issue green, and the brown over the toes was not a design element; it was mud. Aunt Bridget stood in the doorway, hands on hips. As a matter of fact, she stood directly in the doorway, so that the automatic doors kept trying to close and, finding her immovable, bounced back. She had short brown hair with some streaks of gray, and the kind of face middle-aged people get when they’ve spent most of their lives outdoors. June stared and Aunt Bridget stared. Then June remembered her manners and held out her hand.

  “Aunt Bridget?”

  “You’re June.” A statement, not a question. Her aunt still didn’t move forward, though June had taken a few steps toward her. June let her hand drift down. Apparently a handshake was not going to take place, never mind a hug. “Any luggage?”

  “No.” June was usually a motormouth, but she couldn’t quite make small talk at the moment. The woman in front o
f her looked about as much like a farmer as June could imagine. Aunt Bridget was wearing overalls, a checked shirt, a John Deere cap, and one of those heavy men’s coats that look preppy when clean, but when serving their original purpose as a farm jacket most likely never get cleaned at all.

  “Come on then,” Aunt Bridget said, and she turned and walked out. June picked up Indigo from where he had been hiding behind her legs and followed Aunt Bridget out the door. A silver Cadillac Seville was parked at the curb—the shining rectangle she had seen in the distance. June stared at the car, then back at Aunt Bridget, who was already opening the driver’s side door. This couldn’t really be her car! But Aunt Bridget got into the driver’s seat, and June suddenly thought that her aunt might just leave without her. June hurried around to the passenger side and scooted in, placing Indigo on her lap. He put his ears back and tried to become even smaller than he already was. Aunt Bridget wrinkled her nose.

  “What’s that?” she asked, her hand on the ignition key. Everything in the car was perfect, and the scent of pine drifted from a tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.