Free Jack Adrift by Jack Gantos

me. “Kids are the cause of welfare!”
    â€œSorry I asked,” I said, and slinked away.
    When Dad came home, I asked him if I could borrow a few dollars to buy a book for class. “Go to the library,” he said.
    â€œI can’t,” I said, hanging my head. “I lost a book.”
    â€œThen show some ambition ,” Dad replied. “Get a job
and pay for it. How old are you?” he asked suddenly, as if I were a stranger.
    â€œNine,” I answered, knowing what he was going to say. He’d been saying it for years.
    â€œBy the time I was nine I was making my own money,” he said proudly. “I wasn’t a drain on my parents. My first job was as a delivery boy for a hardware store. I’d run the whole way from the store to the customer with a fifty-pound bag of cement on my back. And if it was a big order I’d run while pulling a wagon.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “But I thought there were laws against kids working.”
    â€œNonsense,” Dad replied. “Those laws were made by a bunch of government slackers who wanted to keep all the fun kid jobs to themselves.” He swatted me across my rear with his sailor cap and pointed toward the front door. “Now, hit-the-road-Jack-and-don’t-come-back until you have a job.”
    I walked across the street to the gas station. A guy in a blue jumpsuit with his name, Kenny, over a pocket filled with pens and tire-pressure gauges was sitting at his desk reading a muscle-car magazine. I thought I’d look sharp in a gas-station outfit. I could imagine gassing up Miss Noelle’s car and having her think I looked ruggedly handsome in a jumpsuit with Jack embroidered over the pocket.

    I coughed and Kenny glanced over at me then spit tobacco juice toward an empty grease can in the far corner. I didn’t think Miss Noelle would like that habit.
    â€œExcuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for a job.”
    He looked me up and down as if I were made of scrap metal he was thinking of selling by the pound. “How old are you?” he asked.
    â€œFourteen,” I said, lying.
    â€œYou aren’t tall enough yet to ride a roller coaster,” he said derisively. “If you’re fourteen, I’m a hundred and fifty. I’ll tell you one thing, kid, it’s not a good policy to start off with a lie when you’re trying to get a job where money changes hands.”
    â€œI’ll just change tires,” I said. “Or oil.”
    â€œThis is a man’s job,” he said. “If I were you I’d just get a job washing cars, or pet sitting or mowing lawns or something. That’s how I got started. You know, with kid jobs.”
    â€œBut kid jobs just get kid pay,” I said.
    â€œWell, people don’t want to pay a lot for piddling stuff,” he said. “Go down to Midgett’s grocery store and check out the bulletin board,” he suggested. “That’s where the locals post notices for little odds and ends of jobs. You have to start someplace.”
    He was right. “Thanks,” I said. As I turned to go he spit toward the same can.
    I went down to the grocery store and read the want ads. There was a listing for a “dog sitter.” It wasn’t far
away and I walked over to the house. A sign on the door read, DOG IN. I flipped it over. It read, DOG OUT. I wasn’t sure what that meant so I just rang the doorbell. A man with a handlebar mustache and a tattoo on his shoulder that read CAVE CANEM opened the door.
    I puffed out my chest. “I’m here for the dog-sitting job,” I explained.
    â€œCome on in,” he said.
    I went inside. I didn’t see the dog, but the floor looked like a battlefield of chewed-up dog toys. Gnawed bits and pieces were everywhere. He pointed to a chair. The legs were chewed down to matchsticks, and the seat was a thick mat of stiff fur. “Sit!” he ordered and