Free Flat Broke by Gary Paulsen

looked bad. But I knew I would have to find a way to make this my finest hour. Somehow, I’d have to dig down deep to rally in an admirable manner that spoke to the quality of my character and the unquenchable strength of my dream. Or however businesspeople put it.
    And then they’d all be sorry they’d turned on me.
    Great men are never appreciated in their time. I’d read that, but now I was living it. It sounded kind of cool, but it felt kind of crummy.

13
    The Successful Person Is Steadfast in the Face of Disaster, Can Cope with Multiple Crises at One Time and Learns from His Mistakes
    I went back to my room and looked at my piles of military history and business books on the floor for new ideas about what to do next.
    Nah. I needed something stronger than a book.
    I needed my parents.
    I found them reading in the family room.
    “Hey, Kev, how are you?” Mom asked.
    “Abysmal.”
    “When last I checked, ‘fine’ was still the standard answer,” Dad joked.
    “Not in my world.”
    I told them what had happened: how all my dreams had crashed, how I never wanted to talk to JonPaul and Sam and Sarah and Katie again and how the feeling was probably mutual.
    “I’ll give you this much: when you mess up, it’s always in a big way,” Dad said.
    “Everything sounded like such a good idea.”
    “Everything always does, hon.” Mom smiled.
    “Why do things like this happen to me?”
    My mother and father looked at each other. Each clearly hoping the other had a good answer.
    “Forget I asked. I know why things like this always happen to me: I make them happen.”
    “Well, son, you’re never boring. No one could ever say you were a dull person. And that counts for a lot.”
    “How do I turn things around?”
    My mother and father looked at each other. Each clearly hoping I’d come up with the answer myself.
    I sighed.
    “I’m going to have to apologize again, aren’t I? Go around undoing the bad things and making things right again, aren’t I?”
    “Well, yes,” Dad said. “But look at the bright side: you’ve done it before and it’s bound to be easier the second time around.”
    “There’s no other way?”
    “Not that I know of,” Mom said.
    “I was afraid you’d say that.”
    “Getting out of trouble is a whole lot more of a hassle than staying out of trouble,” Dad said.
    “I’m starting to figure that out.”
    I wasn’t ready to make the amends tour again just yet, and I was half-hoping there was an easier way out of this predicament. So I did what had seemed to make sense the last time I’d been in a jam: I went to see Markie.
    He’d take my mind off things. He always does. There’s no way Markie has any idea what’s going on, and he won’t remind me what a lousy, greedy person I’ve been lately.
    “Hey, Dutchdeefuddy,” Markie called from his swing set as I walked to his backyard. “S-O-R-R-Y. Sorry.”
    I stopped dead in my tracks.
    “What did you just say?”
    “Wanna play Sorry?”
    “You’re kidding me, right?”
    “No, Sorry is a great game. And it’s easy, too.”
    We’ll see about that, Markie, we’ll just see about that.

14
    The Successful Person Is Capable of Moving On from Multifaceted Calamities with Humor and Grace
    I apologized to Sam and JonPaul for taking advantage of them with the munchies situation. They were really happy when I busted out the money we’d earned and split it into three even shares rather than paying them hourly wages. It was only fair: we were a team.
    I took freshly baked cookies and brownies to the manager of the motorcycle repair garage to apologize for having loaded his Dumpsters.
    On the way home, I noticed a little bakery downtown that had just opened and didn’t seem to be doing very well. I made an appointment to see the manager and told her about my former campus munchies business. I watched her eyes light up. Then I introduced her to Goober, and she hired him to do the food runs. He needed a job after all that money