Serial · ongoing
Silver in the Hacky Sack
Rural America, 1978. Nell Vance is fifteen, and she knows how to make herself small. Then a beating in the yard leaves her with a right hand that burns when it touches something valuable. She can't tell age or maker. She can only tell worth. What she finds: a silver coin hidden in an old toy, a family quiet enough to kill for, and a county that never stops watching. What she wants: money for the doctor, food for her sisters, and a way out that doesn't leave them behind. What she gets: a grandmother who corrects, a co-op that decides who eats, and a market where every sale is a new debt. Silver in the Hacky Sack is a period family drama with a ledger under its fingernails. It's about a girl learning the price of everything and the cost of being the one who pays. I wrote it for readers who love a hard-won dollar and a heroine who keeps count.
Chapter 1: Latched Twice
The strap hung on a nail beside the kitchen door. When her uncle Vern took it down off the nail, Nell started across the yard, slow, because…
Chapter 2: Where the Lane Runs Out
The wrap had dried onto the arm in the night and come off in pieces, and she got the shirt on with both hands and did not spare the arm. Out…
Chapter 3: The Strap
The Strap The strap came down across her arm before she had her eyes open. It split the skin open on her right arm below the elbow, and the…
Chapter 4: The Right Hand
The kitchen door had dropped on its hinges and she had to lift it to get it open. It came down behind her with a knock she felt in her teeth…
Chapter 5: The Sack and the Doorway
She was still against the kitchen wall when they came into the yard. "Grandma fell." "She's got blood on her. There's blood on her head." Fe…
Chapter 6: The County Came Down the Road
The County Came Down the Road Nell ran the whole way to the county road, and when she came up onto it the county was already coming down: fi…
Chapter 7: A Family Matter
"Stop it." The old man said it from the gate, loud, and the stick stopped where it was, up over Bobbie's head. Vern stood with it up there a…
Chapter 8: Counted On
Counted On The night was most of the way gone and Darlene had not cooled. Bobbie sat with her back to the wall, the bucket between her knees…
Chapter 9: The Left Hand
The blacktop ran straight and empty, and a mile out from the lane Nell took her hands out of her coat and did the thing she should have done…
Chapter 10: Money for the Doctor
The paper was still warm through her coat. She got the two packets out and gave one to Bobbie and one to Frankie. Frankie stopped crying wit…
Chapter 11: One Pitcher a Day
One Pitcher a Day The room went quiet. Her mother's hand came down off her shoulder and lay along the blanket. She didn't say anything else…
Chapter 12: The Woman in the Green Scarf
At noon the line at the cafeteria ran out the door and down the corridor, and by the time Nell had a bowl for her mother with a saucer over…