Karen's Lucky Penny Read online

  In honor of the birth of

  Elizabeth Carpenter Swomley

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 The Lucky Penny

  2 Two of This and Two of That

  3 T. Rex

  4 Andrew’s Jobs

  5 Funland

  6 The Lost Wallet

  7 Jail

  8 The Police

  9 Money Trouble

  10 Mr. Beadle

  11 Toys

  12 The Movies

  13 Mr. Tastee

  14 Andrew’s Lemonade Stand

  15 Karen’s Shopping Spree

  16 B & N Gardeners

  17 Broke

  18 A Hundred Bottles of Pop

  19 Mr. Beadle Again

  20 Lost and Found

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  The Lucky Penny

  “I am hot,” said Andrew. “Is it summer yet, Karen?”

  “It feels like summer,” I replied. “But it is not really summer yet. Not for about three more weeks. We are still having spring.”

  I am Karen Brewer. I am seven years old. Andrew is my brother. He is four going on five. Andrew and I look alike. We have blond hair and blue eyes. And a few freckles. But I wear glasses and Andrew does not. I even have two pairs of glasses. The blue pair is for reading. The pink pair is for the rest of the time.

  Andrew and I live in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. It is a small town. We like Stoneybrook. We were born here. On that hot day at the beginning of June, we were sitting on the curb in front of our mom’s house. We were hoping some of our friends would come outside and play. I was especially hoping Nancy Dawes would come outside. Nancy is one of my two best friends. She lives next door with her mom and her dad and her baby brother Danny. Nancy and I have another best friend. Her name is Hannie Papadakis, but she does not live nearby. Hannie and Nancy and I are in the same class, though. We are in Ms. Colman’s second grade. We call ourselves the Three Musketeers. We do almost everything together.

  “Hi, Karen! Hi, Andrew!”

  Someone was running out of the house across the street. It was Kathryn. Her brother Willie was right behind her. (Kathryn is six and Willie is five.)

  “Hi!” Andrew and I called back.

  Kathryn and Willie crossed the street. They sat on the curb by the sewer with Andrew and me. The four of us sat in a row. Boy, boy, girl, girl. Willie, Andrew, Kathryn, me. We talked about the sewer. We are never sure whether to believe something my big stepbrother Sam once said: that all the sewer pipes in town are connected, and cats walk around in them. They could walk from one end of Stoneybrook to the other without ever seeing the light of day. That is what Sam told me. Honest.

  “You know what else?” said Kathryn. (We were still gazing into the sewer.) “I heard that lizards and salamanders get into sewers and they grow huge. Enormous. Like dinosaurs.”

  “Well, that cannot be true,” I replied.

  “Why not?” asked Willie.

  “Because they would eat the cats. You can’t have giant lizards and cats walking around the sewers.”

  “Maybe Sam’s story is not true,” suggested Andrew.

  That was very possible.

  “Hi, everybody!” Nancy Dawes was running along the sidewalk toward us.

  “Nancy!” I cried. “Hi! Come with me to Bobby’s house. He left his workbook at school, and Ms. Colman asked me to give it to him.”

  Bobby Gianelli is in our class, too. He lives down the street. I used to call Bobby a bully, but now we get along (usually). And Bobby’s little sister Alicia is Andrew’s new friend.

  Nancy and I left the other kids behind. We walked to Bobby’s house with the workbook.

  “I cannot believe school is almost out,” said Nancy.

  “Me neither,” I said. “Then we can have fun, fun, fun in the summertime.” (I like school, but I like vacations, too.)

  “You know what I want to do?” said Nancy. “I want — ”

  “Hey!” I cried. “A lucky penny!” On the sidewalk in front of me lay a penny. It was shiny and brand-new. It was also heads-up.

  “Ooh, it is a lucky penny,” said Nancy. “Put it in your pocket, Karen.”

  I did. I decided to keep it with me at all times.

  That penny must have been really lucky. When we arrived at Bobby’s house, Mrs. Gianelli gave us cookies. Later, I won a game of hopscotch. After dinner, Mr. Tastee, the ice cream man, drove his truck by. And my penny was with me all the time.

  Two of This and Two of That

  Whenever I have good news — and my lucky penny was very good news — I like to share it with my sister Kristy. But guess what. Kristy does not live at my mom’s house. That is because she is really my big stepsister. She lives in another part of Stoneybrook with her mom and my dad.

  Maybe I better explain something to you. I do not have just one family. I have two. Mommy’s family and Daddy’s family. And Andrew and I live with both of them. See, long ago, when I was a little kid, I had one family: Mommy, Daddy, Andrew, me. We lived together in a big house. It is the house Daddy grew up in. But Mommy and Daddy began to fight all the time. Finally they said they were going to get a divorce. They did not want to live together anymore. They still loved Andrew and me very much, but they did not love each other. So Mommy moved into a little house, and Daddy stayed in his big house. And Andrew and I began to live at both of their houses. Now we live at Mommy’s for a month, then Daddy’s for a month. We go back and forth. (We are spending June at the little house.)

  Guess what. Mommy and Daddy have gotten married again, but not to each other. Mommy married a man named Seth Engle. He is our stepfather. Daddy married a woman named Elizabeth Thomas. She is our stepmother. And that is how Andrew and I wound up with two families.

  This is my little-house family: Mommy, Seth, Andrew, me, Rocky, Midgie, Emily Junior, and Bob. Rocky and Midgie are Seth’s cat and dog. Emily Junior is my pet rat. Bob is Andrew’s hermit crab.

  This is my big-house family: Daddy, Elizabeth, Kristy, Sam, Charlie, David Michael, Emily Michelle, Nannie, Andrew, me, Boo-Boo, Shannon, Goldfishie, Crystal Light the Second, Emily Junior, and Bob. (Isn’t it a good thing that Daddy’s house is big?) Kristy, Sam, Charlie, and David Michael are Elizabeth’s kids. (She was married once before she married Daddy.) Kristy is thirteen and I love her. She is one of my favorite people. (That is why I wanted to tell her about my lucky penny.) Sam and Charlie are old. They go to high school. David Michael is seven like me, but we go to different schools. Emily Michelle is my adopted sister. She is two and a half. Daddy and Elizabeth adopted her from the faraway country of Vietnam. Nannie is Elizabeth’s mother. That makes her my stepgrand-mother. She helps take care of all the people and pets at the big house. And these are the pets: Boo-Boo is Daddy’s scratchy old cat, Shannon is David Michael’s big puppy, Crystal Light and Goldfishie are goldfish (duh), and you know who Emily Junior and Bob are. (They go back and forth with Andrew and me.)

  I made up special names for my brother and me. I call us Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. (I got the idea for those names after Ms. Colman read a book to our class. It was called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.) I decided we are two-twos because we have two of so many things. We have two houses and two families, two mommies and two daddies, two cats and two dogs. I have two stuffed cats that look just the same. Moosie stays at the big house and Goosie stays at the little house. Plus I have two bicycles, one at each house. (Andrew has two tricycles.) And we have toys and books and clothes at each house. (This is so we do not have to pack much when we go back and forth.) And of course I have those two pairs of glasses. I even have my two best friends. Nancy lives next door to Mommy, a
nd Hannie lives across the street from Daddy and one house down.

  Being a two-two is not always easy. For instance, sometimes Andrew and I forget things at one house or the other. Plus, when we are at the little house, we miss our big-house family. And when we are at the big house, we miss our little-house family. But becoming two-twos was the best way to work things out. Usually, I am glad I am a two-two. In fact, sometimes I feel lucky. As lucky as my lucky penny.

  T. Rex

  One day after school, Bobby and Alicia and Kathryn and Willie and Hannie and Nancy and Andrew and I were playing outside. (Hannie had ridden home with Nancy and me after school.) Kathryn was trying to teach Alicia to jump rope. Andrew was trying out Willie’s two-wheeler, which had training wheels. And Bobby and my friends and I were sitting in the grass and talking.

  “You know what I really want to do this summer?” Nancy asked.

  I could not think of anything better than going to circus camp, which is what Hannie and Nancy and I were going to do in July. So I said, “What?”

  “I want to go to Funland.”

  “That would be so, so cool!” agreed Hannie.

  Funland is an amusement park. It is brand-new. It just opened. My friends and I have seen lots of ads for it on TV.

  “Who’s going to Funland?” asked Andrew. He was wobbling by us on Willie’s bike. If he had ridden any slower, he would have been standing still.

  “No one,” I replied.

  “But we all want to,” added Bobby.

  “Could we really go?” asked Alicia.

  Bobby shrugged.

  “Is it very far away?” asked Kathryn.

  Nancy and I looked at each other. “It is probably about an hour away,” I said. Nancy nodded.

  “I want to play games and win prizes!” said Hannie.

  “I want to go on the water rides,” said Willie.

  “I want to go on the Ferris wheel,” said Andrew.

  “I really want to go on T. Rex,” I said.

  Everyone wanted to go on T. Rex. The TV commercials for Funland kept showing people on the park’s best ride, T. Rex. It was supposed to be a wild trip through dinosaur land. People wanted to go on that ride so badly that sometimes they waited on line for two hours. That is what Chris in my class had said. And he should know. He had already been to Funland and ridden on T. Rex — twice. He told us about it during Show and Share.

  “Well, could we go to Funland?” asked Alicia again.

  “All of us?” I replied. “Maybe. Hmm … ”

  “Wouldn’t it be fun to go together?” said Nancy, sounding excited. “We could go after school lets out. All of our families. One big group.”

  Hannie looked disappointed. “My family will not be able to go,” she said. “Not this summer. Because of Daddy’s work schedule and Linny’s camp.”

  “Maybe you could come with my family,” I said.

  “Let’s talk to our parents. Tonight,” added Bobby.

  So we did. At suppertime I held onto my lucky penny in my pocket. I rubbed it between my fingers. “Mommy? Seth?” I said. “Could we go to Funland this summer? With the Gianellis and Nancy’s family and Kathryn’s family? And could we bring Hannie with us?” I told them what my friends and I had been talking about that afternoon.

  Mommy and Seth did not say no and they did not say yes. They did say, “Do you know what the admission charge for Funland is?”

  “No,” said Andrew and I.

  “It is forty dollars for adults and twenty-five dollars for kids under twelve.”

  “Forty dollars?” I repeated. “Oh, no. We will never get to go!”

  “Well, let us think about it,” said Mommy.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  When Andrew and I went outside again after dinner, our friends were there. Guess what. Their parents had said they would think about the trip, too. This was a good sign. I rubbed my penny for luck.

  Andrew’s Jobs

  “Mommy?” said Andrew. “I need a job.”

  It was after-school snacktime. Mommy and Andrew and I were sitting at the kitchen table. We were eating grapes.

  “What do you need a job for?” I asked. “Do you want to get your own apartment?”

  Andrew giggled. “No. I just need money.”

  That was probably true. Andrew gets a teeny, tiny allowance since he is still just four. Mostly, he is broke all the time.

  “But what do you need money for?” I asked him.

  “Oh … things.”

  “Okay,” said Mommy. “Let me think.”

  I took my brother into the rec room. “Andrew,” I said, “you have to go about this in the right way.” (Andrew is too little for most jobs. He does some chores at the big house and the little house. But no one would hire him to walk a dog or mow a lawn. Still, he could earn some money.) “You have to be grown-up and sensible about this,” I told him.

  “Okay.”

  “What you should do is tell Mommy you will do lots of chores around the house. Like, you could dust the living room for twenty-five cents. Or empty the wastebaskets for ten cents. Or sweep the front walk, or carry the laundry downstairs. You can do lots of things. You are already good at dusting and at making your bed. I will help you figure out how much to charge.”

  Andrew told Mommy he was ready to work around the house.

  His first job was dusting the living room. Mommy paid him fifty cents. (I decided Andrew did not need my help anymore.) Next he swept off the walk. Then he took the garbage out. And he kept on going. Each time Andrew finished a job, I heard clink, clink as he dropped coins into his china bank. His bank was starting to fill up.

  I decided I better count the money in my own bank. I opened it up and dumped out the coins. I had exactly three dollars and sixty-two cents. Then I remembered my lucky penny. That made three sixty-three. (Even though I would never spend that penny.) Three sixty-three. That was not a lot of money. But I could not think of anything I needed to buy.

  At dinner that night, I said to Mommy and Seth, “Have you decided about the trip to Funland yet?” That was a silly question. They would have said something if they had. Sure enough, they had not made up their minds yet. I decided not to bug them anymore.

  Funland

  Two days later, Mommy and Seth and Andrew and I were having corn-on-the-cob for dinner. Since the weather was so warm, we were eating at the picnic table in the yard. Andrew was making such a mess that Seth had tucked Andrew’s napkin into the collar of his shirt. “You are a butterball,” Seth said.

  When Andrew was all taken care of, Mommy said, “Well, Seth and I have talked to the other parents, and we have made a decision about Funland.”

  “You have?” I glanced across the table at Andrew.

  “Yes,” replied Mommy. She began to smile. “Sometime after school has let out, and before circus camp begins, we will take a group trip to Funland.”

  “And your mom and I will be happy to bring Hannie along,” added Seth.

  “Yes!” Andrew and I cried. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “There is just one thing,” Mommy went on. “The grown-ups will pay the admission fees and buy lunch. But you kids must bring along your own money for snacks and souvenirs and playing midway games.”

  That sounded fair to me. “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Andrew.

  After dinner that night, Andrew and I met up with our friends. We all knew the news by then, and we were very excited. We stood around on the lawn in front of the little house.

  “I cannot wait to ride T. Rex!” exclaimed Bobby.

  “I am going to win a big pink teddy bear,” announced Kathryn.

  “I want to ride the Ferris wheel,” said Andrew. “But I hope I do not get stuck at the top. That is too scary.”

  “Hannie loves getting stuck at the top of — ” I started to say. And then I cried, “Oh, my gosh! Hannie! I forgot to tell her that she can come to Funland with us.”

  N
ancy and I ran inside. We called Hannie. “Guess what!” I said to her. “We are going to Funland! All of us. My family and Nancy’s and everyone. And you can come with us. You are invited!”

  Hannie shrieked so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear. Then I shrieked. Then Nancy shrieked. Then Seth called from the living room, “Indoor voices, girls!”

  Nancy and I said good-bye to Hannie and ran outside again.

  “You know what?” I said to my friends. “I think this happened because of my lucky penny.” I kissed the penny, then stuck it in my pocket.

  “Speaking of money,” said Bobby, “we are going to need a lot. Souvenirs and games can be expensive. I bet I only have two or three dollars.”

  “Same here,” said Kathryn and Nancy.

  “Me too,” I said. “Three sixty-two, not counting my penny.”

  “I only have one dollar,” said Willie.

  Alicia did not have any money.

  I looked at Andrew. “How much did you earn?” I asked him.

  “I have eight quarters and nine dimes. I just counted them.”

  Eight quarters and nine dimes? That was —

  “Two dollars and ninety cents!” said Nancy. “Wow. That is pretty much.”

  And it was. For a little kid.

  “Thanks,” replied Andrew. Then he added, “I will be earning even more. I can do lots of chores for Mommy and Seth.”

  I smiled sadly at my brother. Poor kid. He had no idea. How much money could he really earn dusting something for fifty cents, sweeping something for a quarter? I decided I would be a nice big sister and lend him money at Funland if he needed it. Which he probably would.

  “Boy,” said Bobby a few minutes later. “We better figure out how to earn money for the trip. I will need more than two dollars.”

  “And we don’t have much time,” added Nancy. “Just a few weeks.”

  We sat down on the curb to think.

  The Lost Wallet

  The next day, Nancy came over after school. We were roller skating up and down the sidewalk when Bobby came by. “Hi” he called.