“I ain’t gotta answer no questions from the likes of you. Order or move along, you’re scaring off business.” He waved a thick hand.
“She bought one, didn’t she?” Berron said. “Let me see the money she gave you.”
“What is this, some kinda scam? I said beat it!”
“Zelda, give the man some money for his atrocious dirty water dogs.”
“Me? Why not give himyourmoney?”
“Because I don’t have any.”
I glared at Berron and pulled out my wallet. “Two, please,” I said.
“Oh, and a couple of bottled waters,” Berron added.
I shoved him.
“What?” he said. “I’m thirsty.”
“Be thirsty on your own budget.”
The hot dog man dutifully prepared two dogs and pulled two bottled waters out of a cooler.
Berron collected the food and cold drinks. “Listen, man. My sister? She’s… kind of a troublemaker. We try to keep a close eye on her but”—he shrugged—“you know how it is with family.”
Against all odds, the hot dog man was actually nodding.
“Anyway, sometimes she gets some fake cash and tries to spend it with unsuspecting innocent businesspersons like yourself.”
“Fake? You mean like counterfeit?”
Berron nodded.
The man rooted around in a cash box. “She gave me a twenty. I marked it with the counterfeit pen and everything.” He held up what appeared to be a completely normal twenty-dollar bill and squinted at it.
While the hot dog seller was performing this careful inspection, Berron quietly took my hand.
“What are you—”
“Ssh.” His magic climbed my arm like the ivy climbed the walls in my bedroom: persistent, green, and smelling of spring. As it sank in, the completely normal twenty-dollar bill faded from green to a very abnormal rust color.
Then it became, simply, a big leaf.
I gasped.
“Sir, I can tell that bill’s a fake,” Berron said. “If you’ll return it to me, I’ll give you a real one.”
Suspicion soured his face like pickled onions. “You think I’m going to give this to you just because you say it’s a fake.”
Berron sighed. “Nevermind. Keep it.” He turned to me. “Give him a twenty.”
“This date is getting wildly expensive,” I said, pulling another bill out of my wallet and passing it over the counter.
“See?” Berron said. “We paid you back for what my sister did. No harm done. Now, did she say anything to you? Anything at all?”
The hot dog man tucked the bill away safely. “She said she wanted to go shopping. That’s pretty much what you would expect from a teenager, eh?” He laughed. “How does a teenage girl not know where to go shopping?”
“Did you make any suggestions?”
