Free Lawn Boy Returns by Gary Paulsen

1
The Origins of Economic Collapse
    I sponsor a great fighter: Joseph Powdermilk, Jr. His nickname is Joey Pow.
    My grandmother is the kind of person who always thinks the best of everyone. She’s also very big on family.
    So when this guy Zed approached Grandma and Joey at the gym and said, “Hey, Joey! It’s Zed, your second cousin once removed,” Grandma was thrilled.
    Joey couldn’t hear what the guy was saying because his ears were still ringing from his sparring partner’s accidental haymaker. Cousin Zed threwhis arm around the still-reeling Joey. “I’m one a yer dad’s stepbrother Sam’s boys from his second or maybe his third marriage. Could be the seventh one, hard ta keep track a Sam, he’s always been what ya call a bad boy, gotta real taste for the ladies.”
    Grandma beamed at Joey and Joey got all excited because Grandma looked so happy. Grandma hugged Zed and then Zed hugged Joey, and bam, faster than one of Joey’s knockouts, Zed had weaseled himself into becoming part of Joey’s family.
    Over the past few weeks, Grandma and Joey have developed a great and unusual friendship, even though they don’t appear to have much in common. She speaks really fast and he talks really slowly; he’s enormous and powerful, she’s small and gentle. But they’re both early birds, which is great because Joey likes to do his workouts at the gym in the morning and Grandma likes to drink coffee and read the newspaper there to the sound of uppercuts to the chin and body punches.
    Grandma’s learned a lot about boxing recently. I walked in on one of Joey’s training sessions the other day and saw her shadowboxing in the corner.She’s been pestering Joey to teach her to feint and jab. Joey likes to have someone look after him, fussing about whether or not he’s getting enough sleep and eating enough fiber and all those other grandmotherly things.
    That morning, before Zed appeared, my mom and dad had left town for a few days to look at lakefront property up north; Arnold had told us that investing some of my earnings in land would be a good idea. Grandma was staying at our house to keep an eye on me while they were gone, so after Joey’s workout she brought Joey and Zed back to my house.
    Zed’s broken-down pickup truck towed an ancient camper. He parked next to Joey’s old station wagon in our driveway.
    Grandma is amazing and fun, but there are times when she makes no sense. Still, if you think really hard, you can usually figure out what she means. When she said, “I have always despised the taste and texture of olives,” and gestured to this dirty, hairy Zed person as he climbed out of his truck, I couldn’t figure out what Zed and olives had in common, but I got a bad feeling.
    I think I have a good sense of whether or not aperson can be trusted. For instance, I knew right off the bat that Arnold, my stockbroker, and Pasqual, my lawn-mowing business partner, were good guys. And even though Joey Pow is large and slightly terrifying in appearance, I appreciated his good qualities immediately.
    I didn’t get the same vibe from Zed.
    “Good ta meetcha.” Zed stuck his hand out and I forced myself to shake his grubby paw. “Yer granny tol’ me how ya sponsor Joey.”
    “I did?” Grandma looked a little perplexed. “Oh well, it’s like I always say: people who are cut from the same cloth can’t see the forest for the trees.”
    “I know a little somethin’ about the boxin’ biz.” Zed threw a few fake punches and zipped his feet back and forth like he was bobbing and weaving to avoid an opponent in the ring.
    Grandma beamed at him. Joey wasn’t paying any attention; he was petting the neighbor’s cat. Next to the cat, Joey looked, as always, ginormous.
    I turned back to Zed, who had made himself comfortable in my mother’s lawn chair. He leaned back, farted once, burped twice and gave a mighty scratch in an area most parents urge toddlers not totouch in public. Charming. I moved upwind once