Coin Heist (8 page)

“What? How?” Jason asked.

“Don't you remember? On the tour?” she continued. “The coins with the mistakes. Error coins. And only a few of them ever get out into the world, which is why the ones that do are worth a ton of money. So here's what we do: We take a real error coin and we mint a bunch of those, pretend like they've been lost for years but newly uncovered. And because it'd be made on the floor of the Mint, it would be legit, totally authentic. We'd need a lot fewer copies to make a lot of money and bail the school out.”

She was talking like it was a bake sale or a car wash, something she could just whip up with a little can-do spirit. Then again, I realized, maybe that was exactly what we needed to get this thing going again, especially with Jason ready to jump ship at the first sign of a challenge.

“Huh,” Jason said, with a frown. “What do you think, Al?”

At least he was still asking my opinion. “I think it would need an excellent design. A forgery, essentially. None of us have that kind of skill,” I said. It annoyed me that Dakota was acting like it was all figured out when she'd just waltzed her way over here minutes before. It annoyed me that she'd thought of stuff I hadn't thought of.
I'm supposed to be the card-carrying nerd around here.

“Yeah, well, Jason can make the design. He's brilliant at drawing. Didn't you guys know that? He already got an A on his project. His medal was perfection.”

“You did?” I asked him. I thought he blew off every class. I thought he'd been copying off me.

He shrugged like it was no big deal. But it was.
No one
got an A from Rankin. I was actually jealous. “Yeah. How did you know that?”

Dakota laughed. “You have to know your competition.”

Yeah, okay. Whatever. So she was the all-knowing oracle of HF.

“And Alice, you're great at math and tech stuff. I'm sure you can figure out the computer part.” She gave me her dazzling smile, which was only slightly less luminous than her bright blue eyes and highlighted hair. It hit me right on the flattery bone. Damn her. “So it's airtight. And of course, I'll help with the organization.”

The last thing I wanted was for her to distract Jason with her boobage, but if we let her in, we could at least continue with the plan. And with her help, the plan could actually go from lunch table discussion to the big time. It was a small price to pay, wasn't it? Still, she couldn't just steamroll over the rest of us. “That's Jason's job,” I pointed out.

“Really?” She laughed. “C'mon, Jason. These people must not know you very well, then.”

Now she was the expert on him?
That
bugged me. And I guess Jason, too, because he was like, “What? It's my idea. I'm in charge.”

“Fine. Fine. Then call me the project manager. I'll make sure we're on track. You're the boss, but I'll do the follow-through.”

She still sounded like a student council speaker, but even I had to admit I was impressed. Her plan was solid. She'd clearly given this some thought. Which meant she must have been watching us for a while. Were we that obvious?

“So?” she asked. “What do you guys say?”

“Sounds like she knows what's up,” Benny said. “It could work.” It was the first time he'd said anything in awhile. I'd almost forgotten he was sitting with us. But it was obvious that when the silent guy actually spoke, we had our final vote.

And if we were letting her in, it was game on.

Holy crap.
We were doing this thing. Actually doing it.

We all looked at each other with suspicious acknowledgment, letting the reality sink in.

“Just one question,” I said. “How'd you know about us?”

“Come on now.” Her eyes made a semicircle, trailing from one of us to the next. “You don't think the three of you hanging out wasn't a dead giveaway? It defies all social logic.”

Darn. Maybe I'd underestimated Dakota all along. And maybe we'd have to be more careful about where we all met from now on.

“Do you think anyone else knows?” I asked.

“Would I get involved and risk my
precious reputation
?” She threw my words back at me. “No. I'm the only one who knows. Consider yourselves lucky.”

Well. I wasn't about to go that far.

Ten

JASON

Free period. In
the library. A bunch of library books spread out around the table in front of me. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either, but for once I was enjoying doing research.

The irony. If only my dad realized that it wasn't all his lectures but his colossal eff-up that finally inspired me to sit in the library and do research. That and Dianne. I'd looked into it and there was no case for the kitchen staff. If the school was in this kind of deep financial doo-doo, even the union couldn't help Dianne.

Thankfully there was a Plan A. Apparently there were some serious errors going on in 1983 with the Roosevelt dimes—no mint marks, two years running. Another option was the Lincoln double ear, a penny where the Lincoln head had an extra lobe due to a two-timing die strike. Pretty hot, but it was only worth $250, and that was for the very best examples. A 1950 S over D dime could fetch $500 and up. There was a Wisconsin state quarter with a misplaced leaf (it could be either high or low, according to
The Frohman's Field Guide to Coin Collecting
). Certified, perfect-condition versions went for $1,500. Not bad.

Still, we had to think bigger if we wanted to do this right. An error coin to end all error coins. Someone had to have made a mistake that brought in the megabucks.

An error coin. I had to admit, Dakota's idea was kinda brilliant. I wish I'd been smart enough to think of it myself.

Of course, now she was calling all the meetings, taking notes in code on her phone, and checking in on everyone's progress through regular texts. So far, we knew that Alice was going to go into the Mint as a tourist over the weekend to plant her hacking device in a low-visibility outlet—a utility closet or a corner somewhere. At home, she would run commands from her computer and analyze the system's weak points. Once I had the right design picked out and completed, she'd tunnel through the Mint system firewall, scan the design in, and basically trick the system into making our coins on a predetermined date. That part was well figured out, but we'd have to do some more recon to determine when and how to get into the building to pick up our stash.

And then I had to come up with a way to fence our counterfeit goods. Alice insisted that we had to slowly trickle them into the market—that selling them all at once would diminish their value. I said I would work on it, and I planned to, just as soon as I got the design squared away. I didn't have the best criminal connections—I really only knew a few weed dealers, but I figured someone would know someone who knew someone. After we fenced the coins, we'd donate the money back through an anonymous Annual Fund contribution. People made anonymous donations all the time.

Dakota had even given our mission a name: Operation EagleFly, after the Mint mascot. She said all criminal plots needed a name. Whatever. It was annoying, but I was willing to put up with Dakota in all her Dakota-ness if it meant we could really do this thing.

Still, I could tell Alice was more than a little bugged out by Dakota's presence on the team. She seemed to have some kind of beef with Dakota that I didn't get. And Benny was Benny—he never seemed to show much emotion, so his opinion on the matter was anyone's guess. He annoyed me too, sometimes. Everyone listened to him whenever he decided to open his mouth, like what he had to say was automatically going to be deep or smart. I got the feeling he thought he was better than the rest of us, like growing up in the hood made him more real or something. But we needed him to make the access IDs for us and to help us get a vehicle to make this work.

No one said we all had to be best friends. We just had to get this done.

Hands waved in front of my eyes. “You're working?”

My startle reflex had me slamming the book shut with a bang, almost capturing a set of fingers in the process. Zack's fingers, it turned out.

“Yo. You could have amputated me there.”

“Sorry,” I said, all flustered. “Yeah. Just something for Design.”

“Didn't you guys already have that project last week?”

He was keeping track of my assignments now? “We did,” I said defensively. “But I'm doing something for extra credit.”

He jumped up and jogged over to the window, then walked back with a lazy smile on his face, his dark hair flopping over his eyes.

“What was that?”

“Had to make sure the sky wasn't falling,” Zack said.

“I
have
been known to do a little homework from time to time, you know.” For some reason I felt myself getting worked up, even though it was defending a flat-out lie. I wasn't doing an extra credit project, and Zack knew it.

But Zack didn't know that I'd gotten that A on the coin drawing, or that it had kinda made my day. My month, really. I couldn't believe it—people liked Rankin's class because Rankin was cool, but everyone knew he never gave As. I looked at that red letter over and over, and I could almost imagine, for a minute, what it would be like to actually work hard and get good grades, like, as a regular routine. Of course, the reality was that it was never gonna happen. It was only because I needed an excuse not to visit my dad again that I'd even bothered to finish and turn in the assignment.

“Not in public, though. And not with, like, books.” Zack slumped down in a chair across from me. “Did you get the space yet?” A few days before, he'd emailed me a link to a place and asked me to drop off a deposit for $500 to reserve it, which of course I'd ignored. I still had no way of coming up with the cash, which to them was one week's allowance, but for me might as well have been $2 million. I figured if I ignored their request long enough, they'd eventually forget. That was the way things always went with Mixed Metaphors. We were dysfunctional, yeah, but it worked for us.

“Haven't had time,” I said. “But we can still meet in the basement today, right?”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Naw, dude, that's why I came. The guys said they're boycotting until you get us the new space.”

“Boycotting? Come on. And by ‘the guys,' you basically mean Chaddie, right?”

“Max, too. He doesn't like practicing at home. He said his mom's on his case about it. I don't know. Maybe they're right.”

“Chaddie's always losing it about something. So why can't
he
figure it out?”

“Because you said you'd do it. We'll pay you back, if that's what you're worried about. It's a great space, the only one in a ten-mile radius. But if you don't get that check in by tomorrow at nine am, we'll lose it.”

There was no money to front. But of course Zack, whose parents were both surgeons, wouldn't get that. He would always have someone to help him out, no matter how bad he messed up. It was easy to be laid back when you had a trust fund.

“I'm really busy. I can't do everything myself,” I said, too embarrassed to admit that I had no money. “Can you do it?”

“I'm busy. Family stuff.”

I didn't say anything.

“Whatever, maybe we can just get the Uh-Ums to play in our place. They'd probably be better than us anyway.”

“We can't do that.” There was no way in hell I was going to let the Uh-Ums take our gig. They barely knew three chords, let alone anything about real music. The only reason they were popular around school was because their singer was Allison Stadtler, and she was hot.

We needed to practice. We only had a month left until prom.

The thing was, I
was
busy. I'd promised the others I'd scope out Rankin's office tomorrow morning to try to find the temporary ID he'd used at the Mint. Benny said he could make a copy of it for us to use when we wanted to go pick up the coins. I had planned to do it before Rankin got to school, so I really didn't have time to go to the practice space.

“They're not so bad. They said I could jam with them. Chaddie, too.”

“Why were they asking you? They know you're in a band,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “They play
reggae.
” Which was ridiculous in and of itself.

“They said they like my style. I guess they heard Chaddie complaining and they thought we were breaking up after everything, losing our space . . .”

“What?” Now he'd gone and dropped the bomb. I didn't care about Chaddie, but I couldn't lose Zack to those idiots. I felt myself scrambling. I had to stop this. “We're not breaking up. Look. The reason I haven't gotten the space is I'm broke. It wasn't just the school. My dad lost everything.” I hadn't wanted to admit that to anyone, especially since all this time I'd worked so hard to seem like a real Friendian. Now Zack knew the truth, and he saw how upset I was. I almost felt like crying.

“Oh,” he said.

“Hey. Don't tell anyone that, okay? It's just between you and me?”

“Right on,” he said, his tone so even that he could have been responding to a Happy Mondays song or the pattern of light on the ceiling.
Right on
was his go-to motto, and he used it way too often. I wished for once he could act like something actually mattered. “Hey, you could borrow it from someone, right?”

I glanced up, hopeful. “Are you offering?”

“Me? Remember what happened the last time I lent you money? For the Florida trip? A year ago?”

Shoot. “I'm still good for that, man. Just not . . . now.”

“I can ask the guys, if you want.”

“Don't!” I yelped. I knew he'd have to explain it to them, and I didn't want him to do that. It occurred to me then that there was a reason they wanted me to front the money: No one trusted me with their share. “No worries. It's cool. I'll think of something. Just don't join that band, okay?”

He shrugged. “I have to consider my options, dude.”

“I'll get the space.” Even as I promised him, though, I knew I'd never be able to pull it off. It just wasn't doable.

We both heard some dudes laughing then, and we looked up. Arno and Dylan were in the corner mocking us, Arno playing me with a sad look on his face. “You homos having a fight?” Dylan called out when he saw us looking.

Zack shot them a middle finger. “I guess I can't be seen with you anymore—it's hurting my reputation. I'm out.”

He was joking, so I forced a laugh. “See ya, sucker,” I said.

I watched him go, feeling uneasy. Without Mixed Metaphors, I had nothing.

Well, maybe not nothing. There was Operation EagleFly to think about. At least with that crew, I had an important role to play.
If you have what it takes to be a leader
, I heard my dad saying.

When Zack was gone, I opened up the book again.

There it was. The answer.

The 2009 American Samoa quarter.

For one thing, the date was perfect, fitting Alice and Dakota's stipulation for a recent example, so the metals would match what the Mint uses now. Close enough that an expert wouldn't be able to tell our version from the real error coin.

The error was doable, too. A missing motto: “Samoa, God is First.” They were now selling for $205,000 per. I got out my phone and did a quick calculation. That meant we'd only need two hundred and forty-three coins or so. A quick job, timewise. And that was only—I did some more figuring on my phone—six rolls of quarters, which would weigh three pounds. I could fit that shiz in my shoes if I had to.

“Ladies and gentleman, we have a winner,” I murmured.

I took the page over to the photocopier and set it down on the glass top. The light of the machine flashed as it scanned the image, and I felt a wave of excitement. I'd take this home and start on the rendering right away. If it was anything like my medal drawing, it would be a piece of cake.

I carefully set the still-warm copied page inside of my history notebook and put them both in my bag. As I walked out through the library's double doors, I was almost tempted to sing out loud. For once I was going to get something done and see it through to the end. Something big. Something that really mattered.

The next morning I got to school earlier than I ever had before, which was made even harder by the fact that I had to bike the whole way. My mom had finally bitten the bullet and sold her car, so these days she was driving my Jetta.

When I got to the end of HF's winding driveway, my face was burning from the wind but I felt good—better than I'd felt since the whole thing with my dad had gone down. The school was mostly empty, and the plan was still ticking along like clockwork.

My dad was one of the few people to ever show up this early. He said it was so he could read the paper in peace and quiet, but now I had to wonder if it was so he could do more shady stuff with no one looking over his shoulder. Whatever. He was still waiting to post bail. Every time I saw my mom sitting up at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and a stack of bills, I wanted to kill him. And then there was the night I heard her yelling at him over the phone. “How am I supposed to do this on my own, Jim? How could you put us through all of this?”

Well, I was going to get the school's money back and fix his gigantic mistake.

I walked through the main halls of the Upper School and down the breezeway to the Arts Center. All of the classrooms were still dark, and the only light was the early morning sun streaming through the skylights.

Outside Rankin's classroom, I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the school's master key. I'd been carrying my own copy for years, ever since I'd swiped it from my dad and made a copy at the local hardware store. It came in handy for borrowing band equipment and pulling pranks.

The master key fit so easily in the art room lock that I was almost embarrassed.

The door creaked open and the room—all of Rankin's gallery posters, our half-finished projects, and the giant Day of the Dead skeleton we'd built out of recycled soda cans last semester—was cast in shadow, all spooky-like.