The Zippy Fix (11 page)

“I guess I’ll pull weeds.”

Mom put a fist on her
hip and looked at me. “Fine. You can start with the flower bed out front… but only after you eat something.”

I grabbed the Frosted Mini-Wheats out of the pantry and shook the box. Scraps. I reached in for the last few. “How much will you pay me?”

“You’re snacking, not eating. Get a bowl and add milk.”

I got a bowl. There were seven Mini-Wheats. I poured milk on them. Mom rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Write it on my grocery list.”

“So how much?”

“That depends on how much work you do and how well you do it.” Mom leaned against the sink and crossed her arms. “What’s this all about, anyway? I mean, this sudden desire to make money.”

I didn’t want to tell her, because it was supposed to be a surprise. I shrugged. “I might need it… someday.”

Mom snorted. “Isn’t
that
the truth.”

Ten minutes later I was kneeling on the hard, sun-baked dirt under our front window. Mom’s flowers looked like starving prisoners in a chain gang, guarded by an army of wiry weeds.

I pulled one.

It broke off. The bottom part stayed in the dirt, like it was cemented there. The stub looked up at me like, That’s all you got?

“Whatcha doing, Calvin?”

I sat back on my heels. “Pulling weeds.”

Darci knelt beside me. “Is it fun?”

“Sure, lots. Want to try?”

Darci nibbled her thumb. “Which one should I pull?”

“How about… um … that one.”

Darci pulled. The weed broke off, just like mine.

“Fun, huh?”

“Let’s do more.”

Together we broke weeds and piled them
on the grass. I didn’t mind this work. It was good for thinking. And what I thought of was how much I was earning and how close to eighteen dollars I was getting.

“Hey, Darce. Do you have any money you don’t want? Like in your bank, or something?”

“Maybe. Do you want it?”

“To borrow, yeah. I need to buy Stella a birthday present… but it’s a surprise, so keep it to yourself.”

“A secret! I won’t tell anyone.” Darci jumped up. “I’ll go look.”

“Yeah, look,” I said.

I broke off more weeds. The pile was growing.

I heard a car pull up and looked over my shoulder.

It was Ledward.

Mom’s boyfriend.

22

L
edward parked his World War II army jeep on the grass. He’d told me it was once an abandoned rusty old hulk covered by weeds and vines up in the jungle. “Still had a good body. The engine needed work, but with some new parts, it could run again. If it’s broke, fix it, ah? That’s all.”

I went back to weeding.

Ledward came up and stood over me. He was so big and tall he blocked out the sun and half the sky. “Whatchoo doing down there, boy?”

“Weeding.” I didn’t look up.

He squatted next to me. He smelled good, like he’d just shaved or something. “Mind if I try?”

I looked at him like, Really? “Sure, go ahead.”

Ledward grabbed a weed in his huge hand. He wiggled it a little, and slowly pulled it up at
an angle. The whole thing came out, roots and all. He shook dirt off and laid the weed across his huge palm. “See this? That’s the roots. You don’t get them out, the weed just going be poking its head up again tomorrow.”

I looked at the army of broken stems I’d left in the dirt. I was going to see a whole new regiment tomorrow.

“Best thing is if you use a weeder,” Ledward said. “Let me go see what I got in my jeep.”

I sat back and waited. Ledward did a lot of stuff around our house. He could fix anything. If he had something to make this job easier, I was all for it.

He came back and handed me a screwdriver. “Try this.”

I worked the screwdriver into the dirt, angling it under a fresh weed. I pulled, slowly, wiggling it the way Ledward had.

The weed came out… all of it. “Hey! It works.”

Ledward tapped my shoulder. “Now you got um.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Your mama home?”

“Yeah. Inside.”

Ledward stood and went into the house. He didn’t knock, just walked right in. He’d been coming around to see Mom for more than a year now.

Darci came back with her life savings tucked under her arm. It was in a gray box that looked like a bank vault with a combination lock. She plopped down cross-legged on the grass and opened it up. A few coins spilled out.

“Hmm,” I said, picking them up. “Twenty-seven cents. Can I borrow it?”

“Uh-huh, you want to borrow the bank, too?”

“Naah, you can keep that.”

I stuck the twenty-seven cents in my pocket and pulled weeds until the sun made my back
feel as if Mom was ironing my shirt with me in it.

“Enough,” I finally said. “Let’s go find Mom.”

She was on the back patio with Ledward. They were lounging in plastic chairs and sipping tall glasses of iced tea with green mint leaves in them.

Mom raised her glass as I walked up. “There’s more of this in the kitchen.”

“How long did I work?”

Mom looked over her shoulder at the clock hanging on a rusty nail next to the sliding screen door. “Forty minutes.”

She took a sip of tea.

Ledward gazed out over the weedy backyard. I was surprised the flimsy chair he was squeezed into could hold him up without collapsing.

But I was there for my money. “Um … can I get paid?”

“Well… let’s go see how much work you did.”

Darci and I followed Mom and Ledward around to the front. Mom nudged the pile of weeds with her toe. It was only about the size of someone’s crumpled-up T-shirt. “Is this all you’re going to do?”

I shrugged. “Yeah … I guess.”

Mom chewed her thumbnail, thinking. “Well, how much do you think I should pay you?”

That was a question I had an answer for—about three dollars would do it. But that was too much for the meager pile of weeds drying up in the sun by her feet.

I shrugged.

Mom thought some more. “What do you think, Led?”

“He should do it for free. He lives here. He should work. Help out.”

I stared at my dirty feet.

Mom nodded. “Of course, you’re right. But he wanted to make some money today.”

Ledward didn’t say more, and I was glad about that. But I knew what he was thinking, and he was right. I hadn’t done enough to get paid.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Mom said. “You pick up the clothes all over the floor in your room and put them in the laundry basket, then I’ll give you two dollars. How’s that?”

Ho!
That was way more than the nothing I should have gotten. “Deal,” I said, before she could change her mind.

“And do something with that pile of weeds, too. They’ll kill the grass if you just leave them there.”

In my opinion the grass was so thick and healthy, not even rat poison could kill it.

I nudged Darci. “Scoop up that pile of weeds, Darce. We got some figuring to do.”

We sat on the lower bunk in my room and spread what looked like a fortune out on the
blanket. “Eighty-seven cents, Darce. That’s all I need. Eighty-seven cents!”

“What are you getting for Stella?”

I told her about the Chris Botti CD, and how much Stella was going to love it.

“I made her a note,” Darci said.

“A note?”

“Uh-huh, and I already gave it to her. It says I’ll make her bed five times, for free.”

I laughed. “That’s good, Darce.”

We found ninety-one cents in the dusty valleys of our living room couch and fifteen more under the seats in Mom’s car.

“Yes!” I cheered. “Eighteen dollars and nineteen cents! I’m there, Darce! I’m
there!”