What’s Insufficient Funds?

Our money problems were not over.

“What’s ‘insufficient funds’?” I asked Winky. I showed him the letter that came two weeks after from Red Flag Mortgage.

“Not enough money,” Winky said. He let his magnifier fall back onto his stomach.

I guess I figured that, from the place where the letter had a “penalty fee,” and an even bigger amount due than before.

We were meeting in the secret fort. I opened the fridge and pulled out a can of fruit punch. The Coleman cooler had been stocked up again, and since neither of us had dropped dead from eating the magically appearing food, we just kept eating it.

I learned from the pickle I was in with Red Flag Mortgage that just because you write a check doesn’t mean the money is actually available to spend. Maybe Grandpa had taken money out of the bank account. Maybe he had written a check without marking it in what Mrs. Gagne had called “the check register.” Maybe he put a dollar figure in the credit column when it should have gone in the debit column. For whatever mysterious and confusing reason, the money that was in the account the day I wrote the check, was not there to cover the check by the time it got to the offices of Red Flag Mortgage. That spoiled-rotten Child Millionaire kid from that book had none of these problems! Every time I turned around, somebody with a red stamp and a temper wanted money we didn’t have.

“I learned about embezzlement on The Sands of Time,” I told Winky. “Maybe Grandpa embezzled.”

“You can’t embezzle from your own bank account. That’s just called spending.”

“Well, what is Grandpa spending on, as you call it, if not to pay the bills?”

I asked Grandpa that very question that very night, and I don’t know if his answer was a real one, or just a blurt:

“Peanuts!”