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Back A Penny for Your Thoughts Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. A PENNY
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Thirty-Four
  39. Thirty-Five
  40. Thirty-Six
  41. Thirty-Seven
  42. Thirty-Eight
  43. Thirty-Nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-One
  46. Forty-Two
  47. Forty-Three
  48. Forty-Four
  49. Forty-Five
  50. Forty-Six
  51. Forty-Seven
  52. Forty-Eight
  53. Forty-Nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-One
  56. Fifty-Two
  57. Fifty-Three
  58. Fifty-Four
  59. A Sample Chapter of Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels
  60. About the Author
  61. Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark
  62. About the Publisher

I had to walk past the freshly dug gravesite to get there, and as I went past, I couldn’t help but glance inside. Graves are always so much deeper than we expect them to be, I thought absurdly. Then, before I could even take another step, I heard sounds and saw movement, and suddenly I felt a body thrust against me and fling me forward. Then I was flying down, through the air, into the empty grave. I screamed as I fell, hitting the dirt at the bottom with a heavy thud, pain searing into my right side.

I opened my eyes, looking up to see dirt walls—dirt walls a mile high, with blue sky beyond. Then I closed my eyes, waiting for more dirt to fall in on me, for me to be buried alive. But nothing came. I stilled my breathing and listened, but I couldn’t hear a sound.

“Help!” I yelled. “Help!”

I felt terror rising up in my throat as I realized that no one could hear me. The dirt walls simply sucked in all the sound I could make.

I was in a grave. A freshly dug grave. Pushed in here by the same man who had been following me the day before.

“Stupid!” I yelled at myself, then I grimaced at the pain that my outburst caused. I had let myself be ambushed, I realized, by a man who had been hiding behind a tombstone. A lot of good my weapons had done me; I’d never even had a chance to use them. Carefully, I sat up, reaching around to feel my right side with my left hand, running my fingers down my arm, pressing gingerly against my ribs.

I didn’t think anything was broken. I tried leaning forward, leaning to the left, and though it hurt like heck, I could still do it. I pulled myself up to my knees and tried to catch my breath, forcing away the panic that sat at the back of my throat.

I don’t know how long I sat there before I saw the paper on the ground. It was a plain sheet of white paper, pressed into the mud as if I had landed on it when I fell. Hands trembling, I lifted it by one corner and turned it over. It was a note, typed, to me.

Welcome to the grave, it said. Drop this case and go home, or next time you’ll visit one of these in a casket.

I let go of the note, watching as it softly fell to the ground. Whoever had done this had made a big mistake. Little did they know it, but they had crossed the wrong person now.