“Tables, rugs, lamps, bookcases, garden tools,
blankets, chairs—everything goes to the highest bidder!”

the auctioneer declares from his perch on the back porch.
Malcolm and Carolann help us keep everything coming

to the auction block, where it’s sold at bargain prices
to total strangers. It’s hard to watch. Even though I know

we have no use for any of it, it’s still hard to watch. At lunch,
I don’t say much. I sit in Gramps’ favorite chair on the lawn,

flip through some of his old magazines and play with my
kaleidoscope. My friends understand. Carolann squeezes

my hand and Malcolm feeds me Cracker Jacks he’s brought
from home. We’re almost through by half past two. Dad brings
the last things from the basement, including a broken rocker
and a blue-painted steel locker with a padlock on the front.

As Dad wheels them past in a wooden wagon, Malcolm starts
waving his arms like a willow in a storm. “You see the lock?

It says The Benson Company—that’s what it says
across the top of the brass key you showed me, the one your

grandfather taped to the back of that envelope!” Something
lurches in my throat. “How much money you got?” I ask.

Malcolm fishes in both his pants pockets for loose change.
He turns up eighty-five cents. We ask Carolann. “I brought

my June allowance—four dollars,” she says. I search every
pocket of my overalls: two dollars, ten cents. The bid is up

to five bucks. We bid six. Someone says six fifty. We say
six ninety-five—all we have. The next minute is three

hours long. Finally, the gavel bangs and the auctioneer
points to us: “One steel blue locker … contents unknown …

SOLD! … to the young buyers in the front row!” We run up
and wheel the thing away before he changes his mind.