The Pennies That Fed A Grade

A week of rolling

It took us seven days.

Fifty pennies to a roll. That is fifty cents a roll, which means to roll out nine hundred fifteen dollars you are rolling one thousand eight hundred and thirty rolls. I did the math one night when I could not sleep and it did not help me sleep.

We rolled at breakfast and we rolled after supper. Jeff rolled before his next route and he took two sleeves of empties in the truck with him and I do not know when he found the time but he came home with them filled.

Dylan got fast at it. He is eight and his hands are small and it turned out that was an advantage, because he could keep fifty pennies lined up in the crease of a wrapper better than I could. He started counting them out in his head, fifty at a go, and I would hear him under his breath, “forty eight, forty nine, fifty,” and then the little tap on the table.

Maddie’s rolls were a disaster and I loaded every one of them over again after she went to bed, and I never told her, and I never will.

On the fourth night Dylan said the thing I had been waiting for without knowing I was waiting for it.

“Mom,” he said, “when we take these to school, is it just for my lunch account?”

“No,” I said. “It’s for everybody in your grade who’s behind.”

He thought about that. He is a thinker, that boy.

“So Tyler’s lunch too,” he said. “Even though Tyler told everybody about my sandwich.”

“If Tyler’s behind,” I said, “then Tyler’s lunch too.”

He rolled a few more. The tap, the tap, the tap.

“That’s weird,” he said finally. “But I like it.”

I had to go stand at the sink for a minute after that so he would not see my face.