Page 51 of Make My Heart Malt

Luckily, there are a few pre-made paths to meander through. It’s like a corn maze but constructed out of junk.Lach goes right, and I go left. I click on my flashlight and scan everything, praying it’ll be out in the open and easy to see.

“Holy shit! No way!” Lach’s voice echoes through the steel structure.

“What is it? Did you find it?” I’m crossing my fingers and toes he found it so we can leave.

“He has the exact bicycle I had when I was a kid!”

All my hope dies a junk-filled death. “That’s great, but not why we’re here.” I continue scanning everything my flashlight beam passes over. I lift a box and set it down on an unsteady stack of other boxes. A cloud of dust and dirt plumes into the air. Covering my nose and mouth with my sleeve, I swat the cloud away with my other hand. It’s going to be a long day. Once the dust settles, I resume moving boxes, praying I find it buried, but I come up empty-handed.

After an hour and still no penny machine, we moved on to the next building. Then the next. And the next.

Standing between two piles of junk, Lach wipes his brow with the back of his hand. “It’s getting dark, and as much as I would like to find this machine, I also don’t want to turn into a human popsicle.”

“There’s only one more building. We’ll make it quick,” I plead.

He blows out a deep breath. “Did I mention you owe me?”

A wide smile covers my face.

“Good. Just checking.”

Ten minutes into the search, and I’m ready to call it quits. All my adrenaline has worn off, and I’m tired and cold. I tug my knit beanie farther over my head. My shoulders slump, and I blow out a deep breath. A silvery cloud forms in front of me before dissipating. “Lach?”

“Yeah?” His voice carries from the other side of the steel building.

“I think we should?—”

“I think I found it!”

I perk up, rising to my full height. “For real?”

“Yes!”

I race past stacks of boxes, several old cars, and even more boxes until I find Lach. I shine my flashlight through a gap in several boxes, and I spot a brown rectangle with Souvenir Penny written in script across the top. “That’s it! That has to be it.”

Adrenaline surges through my body as we frantically move boxes, buckets, and other scraps of metal out of the way, piling everything on the sides until we have a clear path.

When it’s finally exposed, a wave of elation washes over me. It looks like the exact machine from years ago, including the mallard stamp. I can’t believe we found it. This entire trip was a crapshoot, but we actually found it.

I wrap my arms around Lach’s shoulders. “Thank you so much for coming with me and helping me find it.”

“Of course, but remember, you still owe me.” He smirks.

“Yeah. Yeah. Let’s get this thing out of here.”

Lach borrows a dolly from Jack to move the penny machine out of the storage garage. I use the shovel to widen the path through the snow. Once we’re next to his truck, Lach sets the dolly down. We exchange hopeful glances before turning our attention to the machine.

“I wonder if it works,” Lach says.

“Earl said it was broken, but maybe this is a different machine. Do you have two quarters on you? And a penny?”

Lach exhales a deep laugh. “After all my hard work, you’re now asking for money?”

I cross my arms over my chest and pop my hip.

He laughs again and digs into his pocket and pulls out a couple quarters and a penny. Taking them from his palm, I place them in the designated spots on the machine. I push in the quarter tray, the quarters clanking inside as they fall into the coin hopper. I grip the hand crank, but it doesn’t budge. “Shit. It’s not working.”

“Let me try.”

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