to find a scoop for less than seven cents anywhere on the island, and five is the cheapest I’ve seen in winter.”
Joel blinked. Were things really that expensive?
“How much do you have?” she asked.
Joel reached in his pocket and pulled out a single silver penny. It was as wide as his thumb, and thin, stamped with the seal of New Britannia. His mother made him carry it with him, should he need to pay cab fare or buy a ticket on the springrail.
“One penny,” Melody said flatly.
Joel nodded.
“That’s all the allowance you get a week?”
“A week?” he asked. “Melody, my mother gave me this for my birthday last year.”
She stared at it for a moment. “Oh, wow. You really are poor.”
He flushed, stuffing the penny in his pocket. “You just get what you want. I’ll wait out—”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the warm parlor room. She stepped into line behind Richardson and a long-lashed girl that Joel didn’t know. “I’ll pay for both of us.”
“I can’t let a girl pay for me!”
“Vain masculine pride,” she said, reaching into her pocketbook. She pulled out a shiny gold half-dollar. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “Now you can pay for us.”
“That’s ridiculous!” he protested.
“You’d better order, because it’s our turn.”
Joel hesitated, glancing at the soda jerker behind the counter. The man raised an eyebrow at him.
“Uh…” Joel said. “Hi.”
“Oh, you’re hopeless,” Melody said, elbowing Joel aside. “I’ll take a triple-scoop chocolate sundae with fudge sauce and chocolate sprinkles.” She eyed Joel. “He’ll have vanilla. Two scoops. Cherries. And a cherry soda for each of us. Got that?”
The soda jerker nodded.
“He’ll pay,” Melody said, gesturing to Joel.
Joel handed over the half-dollar. He got a couple of pennies in change.
Melody gestured to a table, and Joel followed her. They sat down, and he tried to hand her the change.
Melody waved indifferently. “Keep it. I absolutely hate carrying small coins. They rattle about.”
“How much money do you have?” Joel asked, looking down at the coins.
“I get a dollar a week from my family,” Melody said, pulling out a full golden dollar, about two inches in diameter.
Joel gaped. He’d never held a full dollar before. It was complete with a glass face on either side to show the gears inside, marking its authenticity.
Melody turned it over in her fingers, then took out a small key and wound the tiny gears. They began to click softly, spinning around and around inside the glass face.
A dollar a week, Joel thought with amazement.
“Here,” she said, rolling it across the table to him. “It’s yours.”
“I can’t take this!” he protested, stopping the dollar before it rolled off the table.
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be right. I…” He’d never held so much money before. He tried to give it back, but Melody snapped her pocketbook closed.
“Nope,” she said. “I’ve got like fifty of those back in my rooms. I never can figure out what to do with it all.”
“That’s … that’s amazing!”
She snorted. “Compared to most of the students at this school, that’s nothing. There’s a kid in one of my classes who gets ten dollars a week from his family.”
“Dusts!” Joel said. “I really am poor.” He hesitated. “I still can’t take this, Melody. I don’t want handouts.”
“It’s not a handout,” she said. “I’m just tired of carrying it. Why don’t you use it to buy your mother something nice?”
That made him pause. Reluctantly, he put it in his pocket.
“Your mother looks like she could use a break,” Melody said. “She works a lot, doesn’t she?”
Joel nodded. “A lot.”
“So where does her money go? To pay for your education?”
Joel shook his head. “The principal gave me free tuition when my father died.”
“Your mother has to get more compensation than just room and board,” Melody said, nodding to the server as he brought their order. Joel felt daunted by the mound of frozen cream topped with sliced cherries and whipped cream. And his was only two-thirds the size of Melody’s chocolate behemoth.
She dug right in. “So, where does your mom’s money go?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I never thought about it before, I guess.” He fingered the dollar coin in his pocket again. So much. Did Rithmatists really get that much money from their stipend?
They had to fight for a decade at Nebrask. They could stay longer if they wanted, but so long as they put in their ten years, they could retire from the battlefront, only to be called up if needed. That