No Coins, Please

No Coins, Please is a 1984 young adult book by Gordon Korman.

Plot

Juniortours is an outfit that tours children around America during the summer months. When Group Ambulance's Artie Geller, a precocious 11-year-old con artist from Montreal signs on, Rob and Dennis find they have more than the usual summer job on their hands. From the streets of New York City to the casinos of Las Vegas, Artie proves as slippery as ever.

First Scheme - New York City, NY. Artie sells grape jelly for $10 a jar under the title "Attack Jelly". Makes his first fortune.

Second Scheme - Washington, DC. Artie buys a toy race track and convinces senators, congressman and other government officials to place bets on the toy cars. One Senator ends up losing all his money in the process.

Third Scheme - Ogallala, NE. Artie convinces the other boys to help him run a "no-frills" milk store where he charges $1 a minute to milk a cow, usually resulting in less than a teaspoon of milk. Makes thousands of dollars.

Fourth Scheme - Denver, CO. Artie disappears for several days. During this time he transforms an abandoned pretzel factory into a world-class discothèque visited by many prominent celebrities, then shuts it all down and flees with over $60,000.

Fifth Scheme - Las Vegas, NV. Artie disguises himself as an old man and takes tens of thousands of dollars apiece from nine different casinos. The FBI catches him as he attempts to flee to Toronto with his winnings. They eventually agree to drop all criminal charges in exchange for payment of fines totaling $149,922.04

Final Scheme - Los Angeles, CA. Since Artie is now under FBI surveillance, he convinces the other boys to carry out his five previous schemes simultaneously.

Cast of Characters

Ambulance Group

• Rob Nevin - Juniortours counselor - Montreal - 18. Talked into job by Dennis, Rob wanted a nice quiet painting job. Grows to genuinely care for the boys, but has a short fuse for Artie who's disappearing acts mystify and annoy him.
• Dennis Leaver - Juniortours counselor - Montreal - 18. Overly enthusiastic, and utterly unrealistic describe Dennis to a tee. He is delighted with the kids but dismayed with the group name Ambulance, and can't seem to understand why he can't spend all his time hitting on girls and buying souvenirs.
• Arthur "Artie" Geller, 11 - Calm and placid on the surface, Artie is secretly a hustler who transforms $200 into $150,000. Gets caught, makes restitution, ends up with $200.15.
• Sheldon, 11 - Homesick, has an obsession with his "best friend"/surrogate brother, a 21-year-old man named Pete Ogrodnick who recently moved to Finland. Pete has, according to Sheldon, done everything and done it best.
• Howie, 11 - A goofy, likeable blond kid obsessed with outer space. Always wanting to go to a planetarium or observatory, and willing to nag for it.
• Nick, 11 - Nick sleeps with a rabbit foot. An extremely superstitious boy, he insists that they avoid anything unlucky like the number 13 (or if 13 is omitted, the number 14.) Although it does pay off when the group is in Chicago.
• Kevin, 11 - a shutterbug. Always takes hundreds of pictures of everything, and can't figure out why he can't lug his camera into museums and shows.
• Sam, 11 - obsessed with fairness and civil liberties, does not hesitate to come to the defense of friends who are wronged. Willing to engage in fisticuffs to address those wrongs.

Others

• Charlie Butcher - executive tour director of Juniortours. Hates children and the counsellors, but loves going to Las Vegas. Drunkenly spilled his guts to the disguised Artie about who he hates.
• Agent Frank Newman - FBI
• Agent Timmy O'Reilly - FBI

References to other works

• Hotel Gunhold^[1] refers to Gavin Gunhold, of Beware the Fish!

Notes