Tyler swore.
“We’ll make it,” Cole said. “Less than a year, I bet.”
“I used to earn that much in a month, mowing lawns. Then I’d blow it on video games and movies.”
“We’ll get there.”
Silence fell for at least five minutes. Then, without looking over, Tyler said, “We have enough to get you in.”
“No.”
“But we could?—”
“No. We go together, or we stay together. If you want to make money faster, let me work. You know McClintock offered me a job?—”
“No.”
“But if I was working, we’d have enough by?—”
“No.”
And there was the impasse. Cole wouldn’t go without Tyler, and Tyler wouldn’t let him work for McClintock. Cole’s “job” was studying. There were real careers in Garfield Park, like in the old days—doctors and businessmen and teachers. Most kids Cole’s age couldn’t even read and write. That would give him an advantage, Tyler said. Cole couldn’t see how taking a few months off would make much difference, but he knew it wasn’t reallyabout that. It was about Cole staying away from McClintock and the life he offered.
“We’ll get there,” Cole said.
Tyler tried for a smile, pushed to his feet and rumpled his brother’s hair. “I know we will. I’m just in a mood. I need to go back to work. Big job tonight. It’ll be late.”
“I’ll lock up.”
Tyler laughed. “Yeah. You do that. And see if you can’t get another couple of chapters read before the light’s gone.”
Itwas only after Tyler left that Cole remembered the paw. He was sitting there, trying to come up with other ways to make money, when he remembered it. Even then, he didn’t think “I can wish for money!” He wasn’t that stupid. Instead, he took it out, turned it over in his hands and wondered how much he could get for it.
You could just wish for the money, he imagined Tyler saying.
His brother would laugh when he said it, but there’d be a little piece that wouldn’t be laughing. A piece that would be hoping, even if he’d never admit it. Tyler would try, just in case.
Cole chuckled softly to himself as he fingered the mangy fur. “All right then. I wish?—”
No, the old man said he had to be careful. Be specific.
Cole closed his eyes. “I wish for five hundred dollars.”
He sat there, clutching the paw. It felt familiar, and it took him a moment to realize why. Because it reminded him of another paw he’d had once—a rabbit’s foot that he’d insisted on buying on their last family road trip before H3N2 hit. His lucky rabbit foot. He’d carried it everywhere for a month and then stuffed it away in a drawer. The last time he’d seen it, he’d beenmaking a wish. Clutching it and praying that the bite on his mother’s arm hadn’t infected her. Praying she’d walk out of the quarantine ward and come home and see the rabbit foot, laugh and say, “Good god, Cole. Do you still have that flea-bitten old thing?”
Of course, she hadn’t come out. She’d been infected, so they put her down.
Put down.
They had a dog once that had to be put down. It wasn’t the same thing.
When Cole opened his eyes, he could feel tears prickling. He swiped them away with a scowl and then turned that scowl on the monkey’s paw.
Yeah, you’ll make me some money all right. As soon as I figure out how to sell you.
Colescoured the commercial section of New Chicago—the market and the shops—trying to figure out where he could sell the paw. The old man had talked like people knew what it was, and Murray said he did. Was it a famous superstition, like a rabbit’s foot? If it was, it had to be rarer—there were a whole lot more rabbits around than monkeys. But if it wastoorare, could he sell it without someone realizing that he’d stolen it?
He was walking past the hope peddlers, when someone called, “You! Boy!” He glanced over his shoulder to see the old man, bearing down on him. Cole tensed to run, but he couldn’t, not without causing a scene that would mean he’d be remembered here for weeks.
