Free Trouble at the Treasury by Ron Roy

1
Money, Money Everywhere
    “Hurry up, Marsh. It’s almost two-thirty!” KC said.
    “They can’t start the tour without us,” Marshall answered, racing after KC. “You’re the president’s stepdaughter!”
    “Yeah, but I didn’t tell them that,” KC said.
    It was the week before Christmas. KC Corcoran and her best friend, Marshall Li, had signed up for a tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The BEP is wherepaper money is printed in Washington, D.C.
    KC had always wanted to see how paper money was made. Marshall agreed to go on the tour with her, but she had to promise to visit the bug museum with him next week.
    KC and Marshall ran up the steps of the massive BEP building and tugged open the heavy door.
    Inside, a man in a blue uniform was talking with a small group of people. He held a clipboard and wore a name tag around his neck.
    “Here they are,” the man said to the group.
    Four people turned and looked at KC and Marshall.
    KC felt her face blush.
    The man glanced at a list on his clipboard. “Are you Katherine Corcoran and Marshall Li?” he asked.
    KC and Marshall nodded.
    “Great, all seven are here,” the man said. “I’m Vincent. Please hang your coats and bags over there on those hooks. We’ll be going through metal detectors. So if you have any metal, leave it in your coat pockets.”
    “Can I take my camera with me?” KC asked.
    “No pictures allowed, miss, sorry,” Vincent said. “You can leave your camera with your coat.”
    They all walked to a row of brass hooks and left their coats. There were cubbies over the hooks for briefcases, hats, and gloves.
    “Just like in school,” KC whispered.
    “Gee, I forgot to bring my lunch box,” Marshall cracked.
    “Don’t worry about your personal belongings,” Vincent said. “Jason will watch them.” He pointed to a guard sitting behind a TV screen at a desk. Jason waved to the group.
    “Are you ready to see millions of dollars being printed right before your eyes?” Vincent asked.
    Everyone smiled and nodded.
    “Do we get free samples?” one woman teased.
    KC and Marshall laughed.
    Vincent led the group through a metal detector. One man set off the alarm, so he had to remove his gold watch. He gave it to Jason, who put it in an envelope and slid it into his desk. “It’ll be here when you come out, sir,” he said.
    After the metal detector, the groupwent up a flight of stairs. At the top was a hallway with windows on both sides. The windows looked down on long rooms. “Those big pieces of green paper are sheets of money being printed,” Vincent told the group.
    Below one window, a huge machine was shooting sheets of green paper along a conveyor belt. Workers stood near the machine. They watched the paper carefully. “We have many machines that print the money,” Vincent said. “Today, that one is printing hundred-dollar bills.”
    Vincent pointed to the conveyor belt. “Each of those sheets has thirty-two one-hundred-dollar bills,” he said.
    Everyone gawked as the sheets of money sped through the machine.
    KC noticed that Marshall was havingfun. “Are you glad you came on the tour?” she asked.
    Marshall nodded. “This is almost better than the insect room at the Smithsonian!” he said.
    “Where do the sheets go after they’re printed?” a woman asked.
    “Look through the other set of windows,” Vincent said.
    Everyone turned around. The window looked over a room as long as a school bus. A single machine reached from end to end.
    “That blade on the left is extremely sharp and heavy. It cuts the sheets into thirty-two single bills,” Vincent told his group. “Notice that nobody touches the blade or the money. That blade would cut through a finger!”
    “Yuck!” Marshall said.

    The blade sliced easily through thick piles of money.
    Vincent showed them a part of the machine that looked like a robot’s arms and fingers. “The next section of the machine piles the bills into stacks. Each stack holds