st0ries.com

“Chessie, look what I found.”

I was lying on the rug in my room, watching the rainbow that my mirror makes on the floor at the same time every day. I was wishing that it weren’t Thursday, and that Mom wasn’t at the hairdresser, and that I could be at Beth’s working on my history assignment. I was also wishing that someday Peter would call me Jessie, not Chessie.

“Chessie, why didn’t you answer me? Hey–what are you doing lying on the floor? What are you looking for? Do you want to see what I found?”

Peter appeared in the doorway of my bedroom. He was mostly freckles and missing front teeth, disguised as a brown-haired, seven-year-old boy.

They should have named him Question Martin Rogers instead of Peter Martin Rogers. I have never heard anyone who could ask so many questions at once.

“Why aren’t you outside playing with your trucks?” For a change, I asked Peter a question.

“Because I wanted to show you this.”

 

He held up what appeared to be a very dirty penny. He had tried to scrape some of the dirt off with his finger. I took it from him and looked at it quickly.

“That’s just a penny, Peter. Why don’t you put it on the kitchen counter so Morn and Dad can see it? Go back outside to play until Morn gets home.” I handed the penny back to Peter, then turned back to my rainbow. I was so lost in my daydream that I almost forgot about my brother.

“… some funny writing and a picture of a lady on it.”

“What? What did you say?”

“My penny has some funny writing and a picture of a lady on it.”

“That lady is Abraham Lincoln and that writing is Latin. Now go outside and play.”

“No, it is a lady sitting down,” Peter insisted. “Here, look at it again.”

He was right. There was a lady sitting on a bench or something, holding a wand. The kid was pretty observant for a seven-year-old. It was hard not to be interested in Peter’s discovery.

“Where did you find this, Peter?”

“Over by the stone wall. Do you want me to show you, Chessie?”

We went out back to the stone wall, where Peter had been playing. He had used the garden trowel to dig up small mounds of dirt near the wall.

“Don’t forget to put the trowel away,” I said absently. “Now where did you find this coin?”

Peter pointed a dirty finger toward a space between the rocks at the bottom of the wall. I tried to put my hand in the space, but it wouldn’t fit. The best I could do was wiggle my fingers around in the emptiness.

“You try it, Peter,” I said. “Your hands are smaller than mine. Feel around in there and see what you can find. Be careful not to scratch yourself on the rocks.”

A look of intense concentration came over Peter’s face. He frowned; he shut his eyes; his tongue came out and followed every move his hand made. After a couple of minutes (which seemed like hours), he began to smile. He pulled out his hand. In it was a small pouch. The pouch was badly decayed, but it looked as if it were made of leather.

Peter had a look of surprised victory on his face now. It was almost as though he hadn’t been sure there was something hidden in the wall, and he had been afraid to be disappointed. He tried to shake the pouch. At the first movement, the seams split, and several coins fell out onto the ground. We both reached for them at the same time. Each of us picked up a coin. Since I was thirteen (almost fourteen) and therefore much wiser, I decided to impress Peter with the importance of his discovery.

“What you have here, Peter, are some very old coins. They were probably hidden in the wall a long time ago by one of the owners of our house. You have heard Mom and Dad say that our house is one of the oldest houses in Westfield. This could be an important discovery. We will have to show Dad what we found. He will give us advice.”

“What I found,” Peter corrected. “You were only a helper.”

“OK, what you found. Let’s go in and wash all the coins. I’ll carry them. You take your trucks and the trowel.”

“I’ll carry the coins and come back later for the trowel and the trucks,” Peter retorted.

His seven-year-old logic sounded so right that I let him have the coins. I picked up the trowel and the trucks instead.

He was standing at the sink, waiting for me. “You can wash and dry them, Chessie. You are better at that than I am.”

Carefully, he placed the coins in my hands. In the excitement, we hadn’t stopped to see how many there were. I put them on the counter. There were nineteen of them–twenty, counting the one Peter had found in the dirt. Not a fortune, but probably someone’s nest egg.

“This was probably a nest egg, Peter,” I said aloud.

“Did a bird put that there? I didn’t think birds had money. Do they, Chessie? If I were a bird, I’d build my nest in a tree, not way back in some dirty stone wall.”

How did he always manage to ask crazy questions?

“A nest egg is when people put some money in a safe place for an emergency. They hide it so they can get it quickly if they need it. Like the money you hide in your toy box.”

Peter’s discovery caused a lot of excitement in our house that night. Both Mom and Dad said the coins were antique, but they didn’t know anything about them. Dad was going to the library after work on Friday to borrow books about old coins and the history of Westfield. Mom was going to the college to do some research about the former owners of our house. Peter was a celebrity; he fell asleep with a glowing smile on his face. I hated to admit it, but I was pretty proud of him, too.

I hurried home from school on Friday. I didn’t want to miss finding out what Mom and Dad had learned about the coins. Peter kept following me around when I got home, so I was glad when Dad drove up the driveway.

Dad had a big smile on his face. He tried to hide it, but we all knew he had good news. Peter tackled him on the front lawn, demanding to know all about the treasure.

“Those coins are the type used around here in the early 1800s,” Dad began. “They have some value, but they are not made of gold. There are coin collectors who will buy them. You would have to advertise in a coin collectors’ magazine. So that’s one option.”

There was a lot of conversation at the dinner table that night. Mom and Dad did most of the talking; it was hard to tell whether Peter was paying attention.

Finally Mom said, “Well, Peter, what do you think? Have you decided what to do with your treasure?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I am going to keep one of the coins.”

“But what about the other nineteen?” I asked.

“I am going to give them to the museum in Westfield so other people can look at them,” Peter said firmly.

“Why, Peter!” Mom exclaimed. “How wonderful! Did Jessie give you that idea?”

I was flattered, but, to tell the truth, it had never entered my head.

“No, I thought of it myself,” he said. “We are going to take a field trip to the museum in the spring. We talked about museums in school.”

Mom and Dad said they would take Peter to the museum the next day to make arrangements for his contribution. He was very excited. I tried to fight back the tiny feeling of jealousy that was creeping into my head.

That night when I was getting ready for bed,. I noticed something wrapped in a tissue on my pillow. “Love, Peter” was scrawled on the note beside it. Inside the tissue was one of Peter’s coins. I didn’t understand what was going on. I went across the hall and stood at his door.

“Peter,” I whispered. “Peter, are you still awake?”

“Yes. Did you find it?”

“‘Yes, I did. But why did you give me one of your coins? You are going to give them to the museum.”

“I know, Chessie. but you were the helper. And besides, I thought you might want to start a hen’s nest.”

“You mean a nest egg, you silly! Thank you very much, Peter.” I tiptoed over and gave him a big hug and a kiss. “This is the nicest present I’ve ever gotten. I’m going to put it in a safe place.”

“You can put it in my toy box, Chessie. That’s where I put mine.”

I couldn’t answer him because I was afraid he would know I was crying. I just gave him another hug before I tiptoed out of the room.

At the door, I stopped. “Good night, Peter. See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Jessie,” came the sleepy reply.

By Carol S. Meldrom, Children’s Digest, Nov/Dec2006