"You're in the wrong place," the man said, finally speaking.
"The wrong place?" Max said.
"Johnny's Garage is down the street," the man said. "I can't help you with your van.”
Max shook his head and held out the gold. "We'd like to sell these, to pay the garage for the repairs," he said, putting the two bars down on the counter.
The gold got the man's attention. He was looking at them with interest. "Where did you get these?" he asked.
"My father got them overseas," Max said, determined to keep his story short.
The man nodded and seemed satisfied. He picked up the bars, testing their weight. "I can't give you market value, you know. This is a pawnshop. You'll have to go to Pueblo if you want anywhere near market price," he said.
"What can you give us?" Max said.
The man sized the three boys up and said, "Let see what you've got here. He reached under the counter and came up with a bottle and a small glass jar. "Do you know the karat count?" he asked.
"I don't know," Max said honestly. He knew that gold's purity was measured in karats, but he wasn't sure how his homemade gold would measure. "It's pure, as far as I know," he said.
The man dipped the brush into the bottle and ran it across the surface of one of the bars. "Well, it's pure all right. Pure garbage," he said as he sneered and passed the bars back to Max.
"What do you mean?" Max asked.
"I mean, whatever they are, they are not gold," the man said.
"There must be a mistake," Max said.
"Yeah, and you made it, coming in here and trying to pass off your phony crap on me," the man replied.
The man stood up and gave the three boys a menacing look. "Now, we can do this two ways: You can either get the hell out of my store, or we can let the police handle this.”
"No need to get nasty," Michael said from behind Max.
Looking into the man's eyes, Max realized that the older man was scared. It made sense. Three teenagers in a town that didn't normally get visitors. Backing away, he said, "No need for that. I'm sorry. This was a mistake.”
"If I see you again, I'll call the police," the man said.
Turning to Michael and Kyle, he saw the look on Michael's face and thought the man might be right to be scared. Michael didn't respond well to threats. On the other hand, Max knew that his best friend was too smart to do something that would get them into trouble. Shak- ing his head, he said to his friends, "Come on, let's go.”
A moment later, they were on the sidewalk outside. Max felt like he had just had the wind knocked out of him. They had narrowly avoided a run-in with the police, but they were far from okay Michael started pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, while Kyle wore the same stunned expression that Max knew was on his own face.
What was he going to tell Liz and the others? And how were they going to get out of Stonewall with just a few dol- lars to their name? We're in trouble, he thought. It took him a moment to realize that he had spoken out loud.
6
“Cutie's looking over here again," Maria said, pointing to the bus boy. Liz nodded; he had been looking at them since shortly after the girls sat down. In between clearing the tables of dishes he had stolen glances at the girls for more than an hour and a half now.
"He looks… impaired," Maria said.
"He has Down's syndrome," Isabel said.
The other two girls looked at Isabel questioningly.
"1 used to volunteer at school," Isabel said.
Maria looked at Isabel with surprise. Liz knew how she felt. Isabel didn't seem on the surface to be the type to vol- unteer to work with handicapped kids. Then again, she didn't seem like the kind of person to embrace Christmas like Mrs. Claus on a triple latte but she did that, too.
"Down what?" Maria asked.
"He has an extra chromosome," Liz said. She knew that much.
Isabel nodded. "And that causes some impairment," she said. "But people with the condition can function very well.”
Liz watched the boy work.
"He's probably lonely," Liz said.
Isabel and Maria nodded.
Liz smiled absently at him and turned back to her friends. Isabel was checking her watch. "The boys should have been here already," she said.
"Let's give them a few more minutes before we go look- ing for them," Maria said.
"Okay," Liz agreed. They couldn't stay in the diner for- ever. And though it wasn't exactly full, they couldn't take up the table all day. The dinner rush… whatever passed for a dinner rush in Stonewall… would be starting soon.
"Excuse me," a voice said from next to Liz. She turned to see the boy who had been looking at them.
"Excuse me," he repeated in a slow, deliberate tone. Then the boy thrust a piece of paper toward the girls. "Have you seen my sister?" he asked.
Looking down, Liz could see that the paper was similar to the flyer that was posted on the door. It had the same picture of a teenage girl and read, have you seen my sister? with a phone number on the bottom.
"Have you seen her?" he asked again. His voice was friendly, but there was a worried edge to it.
"No, I'm sorry, we haven't," Isabel said.
"Jimmy stop bothering the customers," the woman who had served them shouted from behind the counter.
"It's okay," Liz said. "He's not bothering us.”
The woman shrugged and said, "Come on, Jimmy, I need you to take out the garbage.”
Before he turned away, Liz reached out her hand, touched him gently on the arm, and said, "Has she been gone long?”
"She's miss… missing," he said.
Then he looked a Liz with surprise and said very clearly, "You saw her.”
Liz shook her head gently. "No, I saw her picture on the door, but I haven't seen her.”
Shaking his head, Jimmy looked confused, the clarity that was on his face a moment ago now gone. "I remem- bered you," he said uncertainly.
"I'm sorry," Liz said.
"Okay," Jimmy said as he walked away.
"We'll call you if we see her," Isabel said as Jimmy headed into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, Liz saw Max, Michael, and Kyle approach on the sidewalk. She caught just a glimpse of them before they reached the door. "There's something wrong," she said.
"Another flash, Parker?" Maria asked.
"No, I just saw Max," she said.
Then the boys were inside, and Liz saw three long faces. She could also see that the boys were tired after spending an hour and a half walking from the car.
Max reached the table first. "We have a problem," he said.
"Sit down, Max. We'll get you something to eat and fig- ure it out," Liz said.
"We can't eat," Max said. Michael and Kyle frowned when he said that. "Let's just talk about this outside.”
After the boys had told their story, Maria asked, "So how much money do we have?”
Liz didn't have to check to answer that. They had spent almost twenty dollars at the diner. "Forty-two forty," she said.
Then she watched Maria give Michael a smack on the shoulder. "Why didn't your stupid alien-powers work?”
"Who knows," Michael replied.
"Something must be wrong," Max said with a grave expression on his face.
"No," Liz said. "Nothing's wrong.”
All eyes turned to her, and she said. "I should have thought of this.”
"What?" Max asked.
"There's no way you can use your powers to make gold," she said. The others continued to look at her with confused expressions.
"Look," she continued. "You can use your powers to change the molecular structure of things. You actually move molecules around, right?" she said.
"Yes," Max said, realization dawning on his face. "Mole- cules…”
Liz nodded, and Michael jumped in. "What? What about them? Would Mr. and Mrs. Wizard mind explaining this to the audience at home?" he said.
"Gold is not gold because of its molecular structure," she said. "Gold is gold because of its atomic weight.”
"And we can make something look like gold, but it won't actually be gold," Max said.