Ginny gave in and told the trooper who she was because she sensed he wasn’t a revenuer but had other legal matters on his mind, and quarters did add up. A lot of people these days, it was her observation, didn’t think twice about tossing away quarters, dimes, and nickels and, of course, pennies. Not that she was fond of pennies, not hardly. Everyone on the island was always trying to unload their pennies on their neighbors. The little brown coins circulated nonstop and it had gotten to the point that Ginny recognized individual pennies, and knew she’d been had when she shopped for groceries and was given an inordinate number of familiar pennies for change.
“I don’t want neither pennies,” she was constantly chiding Daisy Eskridge, the cashier at the island’s only market.
“Well, now, honey, I’m not trying to put them on you, but I have to give ’em out,” Daisy replied last time Ginny complained. “Leastways I do since Wheezy Parks was in here buying some flour and soap and give me mor’n four hundred pennies. I said I’d give her tick, but she was of a mind to chuck her pennies, and I can’t be fitting all them pennies in my drawer, Ginny.”
Ginny was still annoyed with Wheezy, who always refused to buy things on credit and was the island’s biggest offender when it came to passing unwanted pennies. There was a pervasive and shameful rumor circulating along with the pennies that Wheezy was opening the money boxes late at night and exchanging her pennies for quarters, nickels, and dimes. Then, to make matters worse, the conniving woman was always getting rid of the rest of her pennies at every opportunity. Why, Wheezy probably had most of the silver change on the island–probably stashed in socks under her bed.
“So, Ms. Crockett, ten miles over is thirty dollars plus court costs.” The trooper was explaining a very complicated legal process, and Ginny drifted away from pennies and focused on him again. “Fifteen is reckless driving and the person could go to jail.”
“Lordy! You can’t throw us in the jail!” Ginny protested.
She was right, but not entirely. No one could be locked up on the island, which had neither a courthouse nor a jail. This clearly meant that anyone caught speeding would be deported to the mainland. The suggestion of such a thing excited primitive fears throughout the island the instant Ginny hurried down Janders Road and cut over to Spanky’s Place, where Dipper Pruitt was spooning out homemade vanilla ice cream for three quiet Amish tourists in long dresses and hairnets.
“They’s gonna lock all us in the jail on the main!”
Ginny exclaimed. “They’s gonna turn the island into a racetrack!”
The Amish women smiled shyly, counting out coveted silver change from tiny black purses, placing one shiny coin at a time on the counter, making not a sound. Ginny didn’t see tourists from Pennsylvania often, and always marveled at the way they dressed and acted and how pale their skin was. They could sail for hours on the Chesapeake Breeze or the Captain Eulice ferries and walk around the island all day without getting sunburned, windblown, or cold. They never helped themselves to porch rocking chairs, sat on gravestones, looked in the crab tanks without paying, or made comments about the exotic way the Islanders talked. Ginny had never heard a single Amish person complain about Tangier’s ban of alcohol or the early curfews that discouraged nightlife and swearing and made sure the watermen were home with their families and in bed early. If all strangers were like people from Pennsylvania, Ginny and her neighbors might not resent them quite so much.
“God-a-mighty! Who say we going to the jail?” Dipper wanted to know as she rinsed off ice cream paddles in a basin of tepid water. “And what they say we did?”
“Going too fast in the golf carts,” Ginny replied as the Amish women silently walked back out into the cool, damp morning. “The police is painting stripes to warrant each and ever one of us with helichoppers. By and by they gonna make us leave for good so they can have NASCAR and make a barrel!”