Free Losing Joe's Place by Gordon Korman

for ‘Brain Surgeon.’”
    â€œOh. Nah, too gucky.” But he stuck to the job search, and by ten-thirty, he was gainfully employed. True, he was a delivery boy for the local supermarket, but it was more than I’d been able to come up with. Still, when he rode up in front of 1 Pitt Street on the supermarket bicycle, I just couldn’t stop laughing. For starters, it was one of those old-style bikes, and it was huge — Don was on tiptoe when each pedal reached its lowest point. There was a giant pink basket in front of the handlebars, and another one behind the seat. And a bell, great big, shiny, and silver. Here was Mr. Big City Cool, riding around on a bike he wouldn’t be caught dead on in Owen Sound.
    â€œWhat’s the bell for?” I called from the stoop. “Just in case you get stuck behind a Maserati and you have to alert the driver to let you pass?”
    â€œGo ahead and laugh!” snarled Don. “I absolutely refuse to have Peachfuzz paying my bills!”
    It was the first
really
sweltering day of the summer, and the air was heavy and humid. I felt sorry for Don, who would probably be half dead by dinnertime in all that heat. As soon as he had pedaled out of sight, I escaped back up to the air conditioning. Just inside the door, I paused, looking distastefully at the Employment section, lying open on the beanbag chair. Even thinking about the tiny black print made my eyes bug out. My hands were filthy with ink from the newsprint.
    Looking for a job was harder than working. I scanned the first couple of ads.
Experience required, Experience required
. How are you supposed to get experience if no one’ll hire you because you don’t have experience?
    When you really hate what you’re doing, you notice stuff you normally wouldn’t pick up on. For the first time, I realized what total slobs Ferguson and Don were. Our sleeping arrangements consisted of the bed, the couch, and the beanbag chair, with Rootbeer taking the floor directly over where he happened to be standing the instant he declared himself officially tired. The Peach had left the bed unmade, and Mr. Wonderful’s couch looked like a bomb site — sheets and pillows all over the place, wadded-up sweat socks and underwear. This was the guy who thought a few wrinkles in a shirt was a disaster. Apparently his nattiness only extended to those articles of clothing that went on the
outside
, visible to the casual observer.
    A few minutes of tidying up wouldn’t kill the job search. And who wanted to live in a pigsty?
    Pigsty. That was my mother’s word. It referred, usually, to my room. I pulled up short in some alarm. In the great summer of independence, here I was doing
voluntarily
what I could usually get out of at home. Oh, no!
    Well, at least at home, when the debris piled up above my nostrils, I could always hang out in another room. Here one room was it. It was only common sense to keep it neat.
    The problem with straightening up was that I noticed other things about the apartment. Not only was it messy, but it was also pretty dirty and dusty. Joe’s vacuum cleaner was our old one from Owen Sound, and it was incredibly loud — I was eight years old before I finally figured out it wasn’t a monster come to eat the family. Plotnick was banging on the pipes and screaming for me to turn it off, but I forged on until I’d covered every square inch except the hallowed ground on which sat Rootbeer’s paper bag of underwear. I didn’t want to fool with
that
no matter how bad the dust got.
    I noticed that I’d already used up a complete hour of job-hunting time.
    Then came the mopping stage. I doubted Joe had ever mopped in his life, but, just in case, I checked in the broom closet for cleaner. I opened the door and gawked.
    There, in the dim red glow of a safe-light, squatted Rootbeer Racinette, developing photographic prints in various trays of chemicals. I