June Sparrow and the Million-Dollar Penny Read online

  “This is Indigo,” June said, holding him up under his armpits, trying to be charming. Indigo smiled, though June could feel his little body trembling. “He’s my best friend.”

  Aunt Bridget looked long and hard at Indigo. “That’s a pig,” she said finally, as if this needed to be confirmed before she drove anywhere.

  “He’s a miniature pig,” June said, accustomed to this response. “They are the cleanest pet you can own.”

  “Hmmph!” Aunt Bridget turned the key, and the engine started with a deep humming sound. “Pigs can be clean if they’re kept right.” This sounded hopeful, if noncommittal. June looked at her aunt’s muddy boots on the perfect black carpet of the car and wondered how she kept it so nice. “He doesn’t smell too bad. But in the future: no livestock in the car.”

  “Indigo’s not livestock!” June said, horrified. “He’s like—like—a cat or a dog!”

  Aunt Bridget eyed Indigo coldly. He curled into a ball in June’s lap, trying to become invisible. “Dogs and cats live outside on the farm,” Aunt Bridget said. “Sleep in the barn.”

  “The barn!” June stared at her and held Indigo up next to her heart. “Indigo always sleeps with me! And he doesn’t smell. He never smells! He’s cleaner than I am.” June realized that this might not be the best thing to say. She tried another tactic: “If he sleeps in the barn, I’ll sleep in the barn too!”

  Aunt Bridget shrugged and pulled out of the parking lot. “I’ve got some clothes you can borrow so you don’t catch your death,” she said without taking her eyes off the road.

  They both stared out of the windshield without speaking for what felt like a very long time. June almost spoke twice, but stopped, afraid her voice would come out with a quaver. She didn’t want to quaver, not here, not now.

  June finally spoke again: “Nice car.”

  Aunt Bridget’s mouth softened just a little. “It was my father’s,” she said. Then, a moment later, she added, “Your grandfather’s. He and your grandmother died within a year of each other when I was fifteen. Roseanne was fourteen.”

  “So you’re an orphan, too!” June said. “You and my mom, I mean.”

  Aunt Bridget nodded without taking her eyes off the road. She pressed down harder on the gas pedal, even though the Cadillac was already going over eighty miles an hour.

  June thought of about fifty things to say, but instead she checked that her seat belt was fastened and looked out the side window. Tall rows of cornstalks whipped by like miniature forests with pathways running through in absolutely straight lines. The heat was on and her bare feet were finally warming up inside her ballet flats.

  “It is a very nice car,” June said again, proud that there was no quaver at all. None on the outside, anyway.

  “Get out of the way, you darn cluckers!” growled Aunt Bridget. She pulled into a long dirt driveway, and several chickens fluttered out of the way. “Talk about dumb!” Aunt Bridget steered the Cadillac expertly around potholes filled with rainwater, and June gripped Indigo so tightly, he had to squeak to tell her to loosen her grip. Aunt Bridget’s highway speed had hovered right around ninety miles per hour; out here there was nothing to slow her down.

  The driveway led up a hill to a farmhouse with a pickup truck parked in front of a high red barn. Aunt Bridget stopped the Cadillac with a jolt in front of the small back porch. “This is it,” she said, and she was out of the car before June caught her breath from the sudden stop.

  June opened the passenger door and tried to step gingerly onto the muddy ground. It did no good—her ballet flats immediately filled with cold, dirty sludge. She couldn’t help a small shriek. She turned to see Aunt Bridget surveying her from top to bottom.

  “I didn’t have time to change,” June began. “I was at the opera, and Mr. Mendax—”

  “Mr. Mendax! Hmmph!” Aunt Bridget gave that expressive snort again. “A man who cries over money is no kind of man. Spilt milk.”

  Well, at least there’s something we can agree on, thought June.

  “I’m going out to the barn.” Aunt Bridget jerked her thumb toward the house without moving from the driveway. “You can use your mother’s old room. Might be some clothes up there. Extra boots on the porch.” She stomped off toward the barn.

  June slogged up the front steps and wondered if her flats would ever come back to life. The back porch was strewn with rubber boots facing different directions as if they had been dropped like jacks from a giant hand. Not one pair looked like it would fit her, and just when she thought she couldn’t cry any more, she couldn’t stop. She stood on that tiny porch and sobbed aloud: big gulping sobs that got louder the harder she tried to stifle them. Indigo whined desperately as he tried to lick every tear, but this time there were too many. She wished Aunt Bridget had taken a moment to let her into the house; now she felt like even more of a stranger. Indigo wriggled down from her arms and pushed the door open with his nose. He ran back and put his front legs on her calves, staring up with a pleading look.

  “I know, I know,” June managed, picking him up again. “I’m just cold and tired, Indigo, that’s all.”

  She took a deep breath, and with one kiss between Indigo’s ears for courage she walked into the house. A light switch illuminated a rose-colored globe in the ceiling, and the soft light was encouraging. She slipped out of her shoes so that she wouldn’t track dirt and continued barefoot down a hallway on braided rugs placed like stepping stones over the cold wooden floor. She passed a dining room that looked as if nobody had eaten there in a very long time, and entered the large kitchen.

  It smelled of apples and cinnamon. There was a case of Mason jars on the counter and a wire contraption hanging in the middle of the room with tiers of drying apple slices swaying in the invisible breath of the house. This is what makes everything smell so good in here, June thought as she looked more closely.

  June’s heart lifted for the first time, and she moved closer to what she thought must be a fruit dryer. How long would it take to core, peel, and slice so many apples? Wasn’t this kind of thing cheaper to buy? She delicately lifted one slice, afraid the whole thing would come unbalanced, but in fact it seemed sturdy enough. She didn’t particularly like dried apples, but she had eaten only a small bag of mini pretzels on the plane and she was starving.

  At first bite her mouth flooded with an ecstatic lemony cinnamon flavor that had nothing to do with those rubbery white things she sometimes found inside an otherwise crunchy and delicious bag of trail mix. Indigo murmured his contentment as she gave him the next slice, then reached for one more, well, maybe two more . . . it already felt like an awfully long day.

  June managed to stop herself from eating a whole layer of apples, mostly out of fear of Aunt Bridget. She did help herself to some milk from an actual glass bottle in the refrigerator (the most modern appliance in the kitchen) and grabbed a corn muffin from a Tupperware container on the counter. Indigo’s nose led them to an earthenware jar containing the best gingersnaps she had ever tasted, with crystallized sugar on top. There were plenty, so June tried stacking up apple slices with a gingersnap on each side like a gingersnap-apple Oreo. Indigo approved. After another glass of milk, four buttered corn muffins and three cookie sandwiches, June and Indigo had finally taken the edge off, and she felt more like herself again—herself in a very strange dream, maybe, but still June Sparrow.

  She leaned back in her chair and placed Indigo on her lap as they took in the place. Hanging on the wall over the kitchen sink was a small decorative plate with a painted pig and chicken. There were white curtains in the windows and a potted geranium on the sill, but this was clearly a working kitchen, not the kind of place where you lingered over coffee and the New York Times crossword puzzle. June and Indigo’s favorite weekends started with the crossword and ended with a nice long Scrabble tournament before bed. She wondered if her aunt even owned a Scrabble board.

  “Not a lot of lingering around here, I’ll bet,” June said to Indigo. “I wonder wh
ere the dishwasher is.” Not only was there no dishwasher, but there were no sponges—just a thin cloth rag draped over the clean dishes in the drainer. June brought the rag gingerly to her nose before using it. Not exactly pleasant, but June went ahead and used the same cloth to wash her glass and wipe up any crumbs that she and Indigo might have left behind. Aunt Bridget sure could cook, but that didn’t make her any less scary.

  June was glad there was hot water coming out of the tap, and that she wasn’t going to have to heat water on the stove like in Little House on the Prairie. She couldn’t remember the last time she washed a dish by hand, and it wasn’t exactly warm in the house, though certainly better than outside. “Guess I’d better find us some clothes,” she said, thinking of her cozy shearling coat hanging in the closet in the Dakota. It was probably sold already! And what had happened to Shirley Rosenbloom? She would have to go live with her son, Harold, in Long Island City, and Mr. Mendax might be in prison for life. June sighed deeply, but Indigo wriggled off her lap and led the way out of the kitchen. June followed, grateful that they were on their own for a bit longer. Maybe, if she was lucky, she wouldn’t see Aunt Bridget until dinnertime.

  Then she saw the hardware-store calendar by the door and stopped: every square was filled with tiny handwriting. June took a closer look. Each day was like a diary, a list of everything Aunt Bridget had done that day, crossed off neatly: “Go to feed store, Refill bird feeders, Pay bills, Take pullets to 4H Club,” and on and on. Did she fill this out before bed every night?

  “I hope she doesn’t make me fill out a calendar,” June muttered, then quickly looked at today’s date. “Pick up niece/airport, Pick up feed for chickens, Recycle milk bottles.”

  “Huh,” said June. “Niece! Nice. I don’t even get a name.”

  Indigo had been circling impatiently, and now he pushed the backs of June’s ankles, nudging her toward the stairs. “Okay, okay!” she said.

  Marching up the wall next to the stairway were framed family photos, and she looked long and hard at each one, looking for her mother, but most of them were photos of her grandparents. Here they were at the farm, here they were in front of the Cadillac, here they were as young parents holding a baby, but how could June tell which baby? Bridget was older and Roseanne was younger; that was about all June knew. Then she saw the one color photo: it was Bridget and her mother as teenagers, leaning their heads together. They were both wearing bathing suits and had their arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling at the camera with nineties hairstyles: Bridget was a layered blonde and Roseanne was a spiky redhead.

  June didn’t even know her grandparents’ names. Shirley Rosenbloom had told her that her grandparents on both sides died before she was born. June wasn’t sure what she really felt looking at these old photos on the stairs. These grandparents looked friendly enough, but how could you miss something you never had in the first place? June looked again at the photo of teenaged Aunt Bridget and her mother, wondering if their own parents were still alive when they took this picture. June never would have recognized Aunt Bridget from the happy girl in this picture.

  “Come on, Indigo,” June said a little harshly, though she had been the one stopping at every picture. Indigo gave her a hurt look and stalked up the rest of the stairs. (He could be a little oversensitive sometimes—it was his artistic temperament.) There was a small landing at the top and three closed doors. June sighed. How was she supposed to know which room was her mother’s? But Indigo had no doubt which way to go. He led her to the door on the left and scratched, looking over his shoulder to be sure she was paying attention.

  June turned the glass doorknob and stepped inside. “Indigo!” she gasped. “How did you know?” The room was painted pink, but not a repellant baby pink, a truly fabulous pink that seemed to have some kind of extra shine to it. There were movie posters from the eighties and nineties on the walls. One whole wall was covered with actual LPs nailed to the wall, with hundreds of pennies glued around them in bright copper rays and curlicues. June stood in the center of the room, trying to take it all in. This was the most color she had seen since she got off the plane! This was her mom’s bedroom—she knew without asking.

  It was exactly how she would have done her own room if she had lived in those days, but to actually glue things directly on the walls! June had never thought of that. Then there was the bed. It wasn’t just a bed, but a canopy bed. There were white curtains above and around the bed, an Indian-print bedspread, and some throw pillows with silk screens of movie stars on the covers: James Dean and Audrey Hepburn. There was even a small desk with a gooseneck lamp. And then June’s heart leaped: a turntable!

  It was one of those old suitcase-style turntables in the absolute perfect color: light blue. There were records stacked next to it and an actual beanbag chair on the floor within easy reach of the music. Her mom might have been born in the eighties, but she had definitely been into vintage stuff. June opened the suitcase, and there was a record still on the turntable: the sound track to Grease! It couldn’t get any better than this, unless . . . June found the volume knob and turned it on so that the little red light glowed. She held her breath as she gently put the needle down on the record, and “Summer Nights” pounded out of the speakers.

  June screamed aloud and immediately started dancing in the middle of the room. Indigo joined her, bumping his hip against her ankle. They had both watched the movie more times than they could count, and they used to take turns being John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, though Indigo always wanted to be Travolta.

  “Thought I told you the pig wasn’t allowed inside.” Aunt Bridget’s voice broke through the music, and June and Indigo both froze. In Indigo’s case this meant he toppled onto his side, a very undignified position, though he quickly recovered himself and scurried behind June’s legs. Aunt Bridget walked into the room and lifted the needle from the record. The silence was stunning. June stood and stared. Aunt Bridget turned back toward her and the silence lengthened. No wonder she lives alone, thought June. She’s just plain mean.

  “So you found Roseanne’s room,” Aunt Bridget said dryly. “And her records.”

  June nodded.

  “Find something to eat?”

  June nodded.

  “Supper’s at six. I’ll expect help with that.”

  June nodded again. Aunt Bridget eyed Indigo. “How much does the pig weigh?”

  “Four pounds, three ounces.”

  “As big as he gets?”

  “He’s full grown,” June said hesitantly. She wasn’t sure what her aunt was really asking.

  “Not much bacon.”

  June’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “No bacon,” she said, and this time she didn’t even try to hide her rage. “No bacon. No sausage. Indigo is my friend. Where he goes, I go.”

  Aunt Bridget seemed unimpressed. “He won’t be going to school with you in the morning.” She shrugged. “But he can spend the day in the barn with the others.”

  “School?!” June shrieked. “I don’t go to school.”

  “No?” Aunt Bridget raised an eyebrow. “Maybe that explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “You go to school here in South Dakota,” she said, ignoring June’s question. “Bus comes at six forty a.m. Against the law not to attend school here, got it?”

  “Maybe.” June was steely eyed.

  “Well, you’re getting on that bus in the morning, and the critter is sleeping in the barn.”

  “Then I’m sleeping in the barn!”

  Aunt Bridget looked out the window. “Nights not too cold, yet.” And she turned and left the room just like that.

  June closed the door without slamming it even though she was tempted, grabbed Indigo, and fell onto her mother’s bed. Indigo wedged himself as close to her as he could. “I hate her,” she whispered to Indigo. “Hate, hate, hate!” Indigo snuffled back with just the right balance of sympathy and indignation. June grabbed her purse and started to rifle through it.
Her entire fortune amounted to $4.65, not including her birthday penny, which she was never going to spend. She pulled out her mother’s list again. Maybe if she could figure out the list, she could figure out a way to get the money to go home.

  She read it out loud to Indigo:

  “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”

  Suddenly there was the sound of a gunshot, then another one, LOUD! June jumped up to look out the window, and there was Aunt Bridget with a rifle on her shoulder, sighting the bird feeder. The bushy tail of a gray squirrel whipped up the tree, and the rifle report came again. This time June saw wood flying off the bark where the bullet hit home.

  “She’s crazy,” breathed June. “It’s safer in New York City! Come on, Indigo. We’re better off in the barn.”

  Indigo shook his head thoughtfully as June carefully folded the list and put it into her pocket. Her old life inside the real Dakota had never seemed so far away. How would she ever get home?

  June opened her mother’s closet. There were mostly summer dresses, but here and there was a flannel shirt, and against the back wall was a small white dresser with a drawer full of blue jeans. They were big on her, but she found a belt and rolled them up. She pulled a dress off a hanger and buttoned a flannel shirt over the top, knowing she would still be cold, but at least it was a little bit fashionable. She grabbed a lumpy green scarf and matching hat that looked hand knit from the top drawer.

  June stopped—woven in between the stitches was a tiny glint of red. She touched it gently. It wasn’t a thread, it was one strand of hair. Her mother’s long red hair, which June wished she had inherited along with her green eyes. June had gotten her father’s dark brown hair and brown eyes, which she thought were terribly boring, though Indigo had brown eyes as well, and he was quite vain about them (she had caught him blinking his long lashes in the mirror more than once). Everything looked better on a miniature pig. June sighed. She held the scarf up to her nose and smelled something she just barely recognized: the scent of her mother. She stayed there for a moment, thinking hard, then wrapped the scarf tightly around her neck, picked up Indigo, and closed the door behind her. How could she miss what she could hardly remember?