I look around at the ripped canvas tents, and the skinny men in holey shoes and shirts. By the smell of them, I wonder if they ran out of money for soap months ago.

“Thanks for the offer, sir, but we just came for our dog.” Zoe backs away and waves me back.

One of the other guys comes up behind Doug and points to the pie pans. “Looks like you came to do some minin’.” Then he squints and looks closer. “Hey, what’s all this? Where you been dunking your pans, partner?”

He fingers the gold glitter in the pan. Pushes it around a few seconds.

Please don’t let that be real gold.

The man pulls the pan from Doug’s hand and gives it to the old guy. “Check this out, boss!”

The old guy fishes around in the pan and holds his gold-covered finger up close to Doug’s face. “Where’d you get this, kid?”

“Uh, Arcade’s living room. Just came from there. This stuff was falling from the ceiling.”

The younger man pushes Doug in the chest and he falls into the mud, dropping the other pan. Loopy runs over and sits in Doug’s lap.

“Ain’t never heard of no gold fallin’ from no ceilin’. You know what I think? I think maybe we got some claim jumpers here, boss!” The man picks the pan up out of the mud and hands it to the old miner.

He stares into the pan. “You kids been pannin’ in my part of the river?”

I shake my head, hard. “No, sir. We would never do that. We were just trying to find my dog.”

The leathery prospector stares at my face, but then his eyes drop to my neck. “What’s that chain you got there?”

Zoe steps in between us. “I’m sorry we disturbed your gold mining. We’ll be taking our dog and going now.”

The miner brushes her aside. “What are you doin’ down here, little lady? Shouldn’t you be in the city with the other women mendin’ socks or somethin’?”

Oh, boy.

Zoe crosses her arms and sticks out her chin. “I BEG YOUR PARDON? Mending socks? And who are YOU to be telling ME what I should be doing?”

“Sassy,” one of the guys says, and a bunch of them laugh.

The man reaches out and grabs my chain. And right at that moment, the token appears back on it, shining all pure-gold like.

Bad timing! Bad timing!

The guy rests my token in his hand. “Triple T, huh? What is this?” He holds it to his mouth and bites the token. I hear a sizzle on his tongue.

“Hey! That’s hot gold!” At the sound of his cry, all the miners crowd around me.