The 25¢ Miracle Read online

  The 25¢

  Miracle

  by

  Theresa Nelson

  The 25¢ Miracle

  All Rights Reserved © 1986, 2014 by Theresa Nelson

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the author.

  First Edition published 1986 by Bradbury Press. This digital edition published by Theresa Nelson c/o Authors Guild Digital Services.

  Cover photograph by Annie Kansas.

  For more information, address:

  Authors Guild Digital Services

  31 East 32nd Street

  7th Floor

  New York, NY 10016

  ISBN: 9781625361097

  For KEVIN

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  1

  Long before the sun rose on the morning of Elvira Trumbull’s eleventh birthday, the smell of rain was in the air. It drifted down the streets of Calder, Texas, hinting at cool, wet breezes blowing somewhere out in the rice fields west of town. It drifted past the Dairy Queen and the Phillips 66 and the Calder High School Stadium, home of the Wildcats, the pride of Chambers County. It drifted on out Interstate 10 and into the Happy Trails Trailer Park, making promises as green and lush as long-ago April. It had been a hard, hot summer for everybody in Calder. It had been even harder and hotter for anybody living in the Happy Trails Trailer Park, where air-conditioning was not necessarily one of the blessings that people counted instead of sheep as they lay sweltering in their beds at night.

  The trailer park was tolerated, but not smiled upon, by most of the local citizens. If there had been any tracks in Calder, which there weren’t, the Happy Trails would have been located on their wrong side. Not that there was really anything very wrong about the place—or very right, either. It had no personality one way or the other, except for one small detail: a strangulated-looking little rosebush that was fighting for its life in the dirt just outside the door of one of the trailer houses.

  This particular trailer was the home of one Henry S. “Hank” Trumbull and his daughter, Elvira, planter of the rosebush and—just now—dreamer of dreams.

  “What would you go and do a fool thing like that for?” Hank had shouted, the day Elvira went out for a few groceries and came home with the rosebush instead.

  “I don’t know, I just d-did,” the girl had answered helplessly. She couldn’t explain the peculiar feeling that had come over her when she’d passed the corner where a small, dark, slick-haired man had parked his van and was selling tropical plants in plastic pots and an assortment of rosebushes with their roots bound up in burlap. Her attention had been caught by one bush, somewhat smaller than the others, with yellow blossoms. The red and pink flowers on the other bushes were showier, but there was something about those pale yellow roses that went straight to Elvira’s heart and stuck there. Buy me, the yellow rosebush seemed to plead, and Elvira had done it, much to her own surprise. And to the slick-haired man’s, too. He had been about to chase her away when she held out the ten-dollar bill that had been wadded up in her fist.

  “You want to buy something?” the man had asked. Elvira had nodded and gestured shyly toward the little plant.

  “Ah, you like the Davidica roses, do you? Good choice—excellent choice!” the man had cried, relieving Elvira of her money before she had a chance to change her mind.

  Hank had hollered about that rosebush for a whole week, but he hadn’t made Elvira take it back. He threatened to at least half a dozen times, but something in his daughter’s tremulous silence kept stopping him.

  That rosebush had set him to thinking about things, and thinking was something that Hank generally avoided. It hurt too much, ever since Margaret died, anyway.… In self-defense, he had built fences around those thoughts that troubled him—fences made of Lone Star beer, wrestling matches, and old John Wayne movies playing endlessly on the television.

  But something about that rosebush had knocked down those fences and hit him right in his aching, unguarded center. Think, Hank Trumbull, the something had ordered. Think about your daughter.

  And so he was thinking of her in the small, dark hours of that morning when the smell of rain was slipping into Calder. He was thinking of her, even though he was trying not to, as he sat drinking beer after beer at the counter of the Alamo Lounge, an establishment that was located even farther to the wrong side of town than the trailer park.

  Elvira? What was there to think about?

  Everything about Elvira made Hank feel uncomfortable and vaguely guilty—the way she had of folding her skinny arms protectively across her flat little chest and disappearing somewhere deep inside herself, of staring at the floor when he asked her a question and stammering when she finally answered, of breathing too loudly through her nose, which was usually clogged up, and wrinkling her forehead so hard when she didn’t understand something that, young as she was, there were already the beginnings of two deep furrows between her eyes. Her eyes. Margaret’s eyes. That was what bothered Hank most of all—those eyes that hungered and thirsted for something that he didn’t know how to give. Something he had never known how to give, or had forgotten, if he had ever known. Something to do with yellow roses.

  “If she’da been a boy, I’da known how to handle her,” he said to Shirley, the bartender at the lounge. “Shoot, we coulda done things together—gone huntin’, maybe, or fishin’, or played a little ball or somethin’.… But what am I s’posed to do with a girl who never opens her mouth to say boo? Not that there’s anything wrong with her brain, acourse,” he hastened to add. “She could talk if she wanted to. She’s just stubborn, is all—hardheaded as they come. Just like my sister Darla.”

  “And I don’t suppose you’re hardheaded at all?” Shirley teased him. He laughed grudgingly and ordered another Lone Star.

  Darla had been on the edge of Hank’s mind all night. She had been after him for the last five years to send Elvira to live with her in Sulphur Springs. A part of Hank told him that she was right. Darla and her husband had money; they’d be able to give Elvira all the things a girl ought to have—pretty clothes and a nice house to live in and whole truckloads of rosebushes, if that was what she wanted. But somehow Hank had never been able to bring himself to give her up. She was all he had.

  But you got to think of the kid, he told himself. You got to think.… You got to think.…

  He buried his face in his hands.

  Margaret had liked yellow roses. The memory stabbed unexpectedly, and Hank pushed it away. No, you don’t—you ain’t gonna get started again—stay outta my head, Margaret—stay away—leave me alone, will you? Will you just leave me alone?

  “You okay, Hank? I think maybe you had eight or nine too many tonight.” Shirley laid a hand on the big man’s shoulder.

  “I’m just fine. Don’t start preachin’, Shirl—you sound like Darla,” he mumbled, getting heavily to his feet and pulling some crumpled bills out of his jeans pocket. The jeans were too tight, but he insisted on wearing them, anyway, as if in punishment for allowing himself to get out of shape. “Time I was gettin’
home. You take it easy, now.”

  “You know it. ’Night, Hank.”

  Hank laid his money on the counter and walked out into the night. Feels like it wants to rain, he reflected. He was limping a little. He had injured his hip in a high school football game years ago, and it never had healed properly. Any change in the weather was sure to aggravate it.

  Thunder rumbled out in the dark, like an old bear growling, and Elvira opened her eyes. The smell of rain drifted in through the window screen. Outside, the yellow roses stirred in the rising wind as the first fat drops began to fall.

  Rain was falling steadily by the time Elvira climbed out of her bed in the pale morning light. Happy birthday to me, she sang silently to herself, as she stretched and pulled on a pair of shorts and a reasonably clean T-shirt. There was no hint of a celebration in the air—only the stale scent of the cigar that Hank had smoked when he had finally gotten in, a scent that lingered in spite of the rain-washed freshness of the morning.

  Elvira was glad it was raining. Maybe the rainwater would perk up her rosebush a little. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and stared at herself in the mirror that hung over the bathroom sink. Turning eleven hadn’t made much of a difference in her appearance. She was small for her age, with a kind of blonde fragility about her that might have passed for prettiness if there had been anybody around who knew how to nudge it in that direction. As there wasn’t, Elvira was a child to whom few paid the compliment of a second glance.

  The sound of Hank’s snoring mingled with the retreating thunder. Elvira walked exactly ten steps down the “hall” of the trailer house to the kitchen area. She opened the door of the miniscule pantry and surveyed the territory. Nothing but Wheat Crackles, she noted with disgust. Hank had done all the grocery shopping since the rosebush incident, and Wheat Crackles were a particular favorite of his. Elvira turned on the heat under the teakettle and then poured the cereal into a bowl. Absently, she read on the back of the Wheat Crackles box that Captain Magnificent wanted her to become a member of the “Body-Building-Breakfast-Buddies.” (Elvira was a compulsive label-reader. Funny thing about reading, she had reflected more than once—once you learn how to turn it on, seems like there ain’t no way to turn it off.) She shifted the box sideways and saw that the Percentage of U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances was still exactly the same as it had been yesterday, and the day before that, and probably even the day before that, although she couldn’t swear to Tuesday, since she had eaten cold pizza for breakfast that day. Her eyes traveled on to the fine print at the very bottom:

  Guarantee: If you are not satisfied with the quality and/or performance of the Wheat Crackles in this box, send name, address, and reason for dissatisfaction—along with entire box top and price paid—to: General Grains, Inc. Box 1095 Minneapolis, MN 55440. Your purchase price will be returned.

  Elvira had read that guarantee about a thousand times before, and she had always meant to check it out. Well, today I’ll do it, she told herself suddenly. What the heck. It’s my birthday.

  She finished as much of her cereal as she could stand, poured the rest into the sink, and then sat down again at the tiny kitchen table with a pen and a piece of paper from an old spiral notebook.

  Dear General Grains,

  I am dissatisfied with the Wheat Crackles in this box. They aren’t no good.

  Yours truly,

  Elvira Trumbull

  Happy Trails Trailer Park

  P.O. Box 498

  Calder, Texas 77597

  P.S. They cost me $1.49.

  Elvira tore off the boxtop and put it, along with the letter, into an envelope. Just then her father came in, filling the pint-sized kitchen with his bulky form. He sat down at the table. The chair creaked.

  “Mornin’,” he murmured. His voice sounded hoarser than usual.

  “Mornin’,” Elvira answered. She noticed that his eyes were redder than usual, too, but she didn’t mention it. She knew better than that. “You want some coffee?” she asked instead. “I got the water boilin’.”

  “That’d be real good,” Hank said absently.

  Elvira measured the instant coffee into the mug he always used, added the hot water from the teakettle, and set the coffee down before him.

  “Thanks,” he croaked.

  “Welcome,” she answered. Then she took the chair opposite him, and the two of them sat there, with only Hank’s occasional slurping noises and Elvira’s clogged-up breathing breaking the silence. Even the rain was falling silently, it seemed.

  Hank had slept little and rested not at all. He knew now, with a cold, hard certainty, what he ought to say to his daughter. But he found himself unable to begin—the words would not form themselves—and the moment passed.

  “I got to mail a letter,” Elvira said finally. She picked up her envelope.

  “Who you got to write?” asked her father.

  “The cereal company,” explained Elvira. “They got this guarantee on the box, says if you don’t like it, you write ’em and they give you your money back. So I’m writin’.”

  Hank started to laugh, but the laugh turned into a coughing fit.

  “You want some water?” Elvira asked, standing up.

  “Naw,” Hank choked out. “I’m all right. Listen, don’t you bother sendin’ that letter. It’d be a miracle if you ever heard back from that cereal company. They ain’t no guarantees worth piddly squat, and the sooner you figure that out, the better off you’ll be.”

  “Well, I just thought I’d send this, anyway.” Elvira knew better than to disagree with Hank; she looked down at her toes and wondered what had come over her. First the rosebush, now this.

  “You sassin’ me?” Hank half rose from the table. Elvira shrank back.

  “N-no, sir—it don’t matter none—if you don’t want me to send it, I w-won’t.”

  “Well, all right.” Her father settled back down into his chair. “Don’t look so scared. It ain’t any big deal.” He hated the way Elvira cringed every time he raised his voice—as if she thought he might strike her. Why was that, he wondered, when he had never laid a finger on her? He’d sooner have bashed in his own head than hurt a single hair on hers.

  “I guess I’ll go on outside for a while,” Elvira said to her toes. “Looks like the rain’s let up.”

  “Yeah,” mumbled Hank. “I guess so.”

  Elvira started for the door.

  “Listen…” Hank began, groping for the right words.

  “Yessir?” Elvira turned around, expecting another lecture.

  “Well, I just wanted to… you see, there’s…” The words stuck in Hank’s throat. “Aw, shoot, just go on outside. Go on—maybe you could find somebody to play with.”

  Elvira turned and ran outside. The rain had become a fine, wet mist that felt good against her skin. Her bare toes wriggled in the warm, squishy mud underfoot. She stopped to check on her rosebush. The blossoms were drooping and dripping from too much of a good thing; yellow petals were scattered like colorful snow on the wet ground.

  “It’s okay—this rain is gonna make you feel a lot better, you’ll see,” Elvira whispered to the rosebush. She had heard somewhere once that talking to plants was good for them—was it on Johnny Carson?—but she felt half-ashamed and hoped that no one would notice. “Look here what I got,” she continued furtively. “This here’s a letter to the cereal company. Hank don’t want me to send it, but I’m goin’ to, anyway. I don’t know why, I just am. Wouldn’t it be somethin’ if one day the mail came and there was a dollar and forty-nine cents in it for me? Yeah, that’d be somethin’, all right. Kind of a late birthday present.” As she spoke, Elvira laid caressing fingers on the remaining roses. “See, Hank don’t know it’s my birthday. I guess he forgot. I ain’t gonna tell him, though—he’s in a bad mood—it’d just make him feel worse. He’d think he’d have to get me somethin’, and he’s pretty short on cash right now.… Well, listen, I got to go. I sure hope you get to feelin’ better.”

&nb
sp; Some kids were messing around in a vacant lot just back of the Happy Trails, but she passed them without a word. The Trumbulls had lived here only a couple of months, and Elvira had never been in any one spot long enough to acquire the knack of making friends. She preferred keeping to herself, anyway. Hank thought that she played with other children—or at least Elvira thought that he thought so—because she always said yes when he asked her if she did. It was simpler that way. Otherwise, Hank would have thought there was something wrong with her, like the time he had yelled at her when that old Mrs. Eloise Willis back in Magnolia had sent home a note on her report card. Elvira is a little too retiring in class. She seems to be slightly behind in her social development. Please see me, the note had said.

  Hank hadn’t seen her; he had said he wouldn’t stand for any prissy schoolteacher tellin’ him how to raise his kid. But he had said plenty about it to Elvira.

  “You got to be more outgoin’,” he told her. “You got to just walk right up to those kids and look ’em in the eye and be proud. You’re a Trumbull; you can do that. And then they’ll like you just fine. Believe me, I know.”

  But he didn’t know; he didn’t know at all. He didn’t know what it felt like to stand up in front of a whole classroom full of strange faces and have to “tell a little about yourself,” the way Elvira had had to do on her first day in Mrs. Willis’s fourth grade. She had promptly thrown up on Mrs. Willis’s new shoes. Somehow, their relationship had never been altogether ideal after that.… Elvira hadn’t minded a bit when she and Hank had left Magnolia and moved down to Angleton, then up to Nacogdoches, then down again to Silsbee, and then over here to Calder, and no teacher had ever had enough time with her to find out whether or not she even had a social development. That was just fine with her.

  In ten minutes she had reached the U-Totem on the corner of Broadway and West Doty. She went inside and said hello to Mr. Han, the Asian gentleman behind the counter. Mr. Han smiled and nodded. He didn’t speak much English, but Elvira liked him, because he was always so polite, and because he had never once fussed when she came and read magazines without buying anything. Her favorites were the decorating magazines—the ones with all the pretty houses and gardens. She liked to look at the pictures and imagine herself living inside them. Sometimes she would turn to the food sections and read the recipes and think about surprising Hank one day with potted chicken and artichoke hearts or something fancy like that. Of course, she knew she’d never actually do it, because Hank wasn’t overly fond of surprises.