“Now concentrate on the wand and think of the power of the sun.” Coralis’s voice pulsed like a heartbeat in Henry’s mind. He gripped the wand tightly and thought of the superheated gas that gave the sun its brilliance.

Without warning, blinding light erupted from the wand. Coralis stomped on the brake as the car swerved violently, tossing Brianna to the floor. In a panic, Henry yelled, “Dark!”

The wand immediately dimmed. Coralis regained control of the car and eased to the shoulder, waiting for his eyes to adjust from the momentary blindness.

Spots swam in front of Henry as if someone had taken a flash photo in a dark room. “What happened?” His voice cracked, betraying his fear of Coralis’s wrath.

Coralis’s shoulders began to shake as he suddenly erupted in laughter, shocking Henry. “My boy, you just taught me two valuable lessons. Never underestimate your student … and give better instructions.” He continued to laugh until a few teardrops squeezed out and ran down his cheeks. “That was a good one,” he finally managed to say. “We’re going to make a heck of a team, Henry.”

A muffled, irritated voice piped up from the rear. “You’ve never seen him swing a bat.”

By the time they arrived in Pittsburgh, the sky was in full graydom. Coralis had spent the rest of the drive teaching Henry how to apply a measure of control over his powers. The only other hitch occurred when Coralis paid cash for the train tickets.

“Well, I’ll be,” said the cashier, holding up several odd-looking five-dollar bills. “I haven’t seen a Lincoln porthole in years!”

“Is it still good?” asked Henry, hoping Coralis wasn’t trying to use counterfeit money.

The old man behind the counter winked at Henry through his bifocals. “More than good, young man. This is what we used to call a silver certificate, which meant it was backed by silver instead of gold.”

He saw the blank look on Henry’s face. “Kids these days,” he said, and winked at Coralis this time. “Gotta teach ’em everything.” Enjoying the moment, he removed his glasses and began polishing the lenses in true professorial style. “Used to be that paper money was backed by gold—which meant that if you had a mind to, you could take your paper to the US Treasury and exchange it for gold. I don’t know anyone who ever did that, but that was the theory. But at some point, the government saw they were running out of gold reserves and occasionally printed silver certificates—which were backed by silver. Are you still with me?”

Henry nodded, secretly enjoying the impromptu history lesson.

“Sometimes, when they printed silver certificates, they got fancy and put interesting designs on them. And sometimes they simply gave the design a bit of a twist … which is what you have here.”