The Dollar Kids by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

Author:Jennifer Richard Jacobson [Jacobson, Jennifer Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780763699857
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2018-08-07T07:00:00+00:00

At the next house, they agreed that Lowen would talk about the pasties first, but the thin man who answered the door said he was gluten intolerant and couldn’t eat crust. Before he could shut the door, Sami called out, “Your neighbor decided to make money by selling clothes she no longer needed.”

The man paused. “Come again?”

Sami pointed out the bags of clothing they had collected so far and gave a brief pitch for Restored Riches.

That’s when the man’s wife, a short woman with dark bangs, peeked out from around the door. “You’re that talented young soccer player!” she said to Sami. “I have some dresses I no longer have the opportunity to wear.” While she went to retrieve the dresses, Lowen handed the man a menu. “Look,” he said. “The Cornish Eatery has gluten-free crust. You just have to call ahead.”

The man glanced at it for a moment and was about to give it back when he pointed to the classic Cornish pasty that not only had beef and onion and potato, but had rutabaga as well. “Rutabaga! I haven’t had rutabaga since —”

“Since Janelle,” his wife interjected, handing Sami the dresses zipped into a garment bag. They smelled like vinegar.

“Janelle used to live on the other side of us.” She pointed to the empty house next door. “But she moved away when the mill closed . . . she and her husband and their three extremely athletic kids — two of them were All-State, weren’t they, Dave? Their yard was always immaculate, wasn’t it, Dave?”

Water dripped off the roof and down Lowen’s face.

The man sighed. “As I was saying, I haven’t had a rutabaga since Janelle used to drive to a co-op in Ranger and bring us back fresh produce.”

“Oh, I miss that produce,” said the woman. “Don’t you, Dave? Janelle —”

“My mother gets a shipment of rutabagas from Canada every week,” said Lowen. He didn’t add that since the Cornish Eatery had so few customers, he and his brother and sister usually ended up eating most of those rutabagas in soups. In fact, all of the leftover meat and produce went into soups. He was really, really tired of soup.

“Oh . . . your mother opened the new lunch place,” the woman said. “We always eat at the Busy Bee, don’t we, Dave? We’re predictable that way. Plus, we do like to give our business to Virginia Corbeau. Virginia and I go all the way back to — when did we meet the Corbeaus, Dave? Was it 1973?”

The man looked up at the sky. “Looks like we’re going to have another shower,” he said. “You probably want to get going.”

“Thanks,” said Sami, handing him a receipt.

The man nodded, folded the menu and receipt, and tucked them into the back pocket of his trousers.

At the next house, they secured a bag of high-heeled shoes, and at the one after that, they received two whole bags of baby clothes. They made their way back to Restored Riches to empty the wheelbarrow, then headed out again.

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