We were pulling out all the stops. I mean, we had to. We had no chance of reaching our goal if we didn’t do anything and everything we could think of to make money. My first customer that night during our after-school office hours in the trailer park playground was proof of that. He was an old friend and former employee who didn’t even go to our school anymore.

“Hey, Joe,” I said.

“Hey, Mac,” he said with a huge smile. “I heard you wanted to see me?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m glad word got to you.”

“What’s going on? How’s the old school? High school is awesome, by the way. You and Vince are going to love it.”

We chatted a little while about how his year was going, and then I filled Joe in on the situation. I left nothing out. Besides Vince, Joe had been my oldest and most trusted employee for the past four years.

“Man, that’s a pickle,” he said.

I nodded.

“But how can I help?”

“Spread the word. I mean, I know high school kids might scoff at coming to a seventh grader for help, but I have to think they have just as many problems, if not more, than we do, right?”

Joe thought this over and then nodded. “Yeah, well, I don’t know if they do have more problems, but they definitely complain about everything more.”

“Right. So spread the word. You can act as the business front there. We’ll even split profits with you. You take customers, bring their problems to me, we’ll fix them, and then get back to you. Or tell you how to fix them. Anything they need, we can help them.”

Joe took a long time to mull it over. Which was fine. If he was in, I wanted him to be sure. Eventually he did what I knew he would. You can always count on guys like Joe to do the right thing.

“Okay, I’m in,” he said. “I’ll see if I can drum up any business at the high school.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Just meet me here every night at six and we’ll go over your business dealings. I never thought I’d end up having someone open a franchise.”

Joe laughed and then stood to leave. “Before I go, though, could I hear one grandma quote, you know, just for old time’s?”

I looked at Vince, who was grinning from ear to ear. Nothing made him happier than getting requests for grandma quotes. Well, okay, maybe Cubs victories made him happier, but grandma-quote requests were definitely a close second.

“Joe, my grandma always says, ‘Let no sapphires of the Bombay variety go to waste, lest you want to end up inside a closet crying and wearing a Richard Nixon mask while your grandpa tries to feed applesauce to the lamp in the living room.’”

Joe burst out laughing and then clapped Vince on the shoulder in a friendly way. He waved good-bye to me while still chuckling and then hopped on his bike and rode off. I signaled to Nubby to let the next customer through.

It was Staples. And he had brought a guest.

Kinko.

“Hey, Mac,” Staples said. “I came to check in on things.”

At first I thought Kinko had told him something. But clearly she didn’t, since Staples hadn’t pounded me into eel food. Staples had been filled in on all of our operations and had even been helping when he could. Delivering supplies to lemonade stands in his car, buying us various movies and video games that we wouldn’t have been allowed to due to our age, stuff like that.

“Good,” I said, eyeing Kinko warily. She just sat there next to Staples and grinned at me.

“Isn’t this great? Her jerk foster parents let her come with for once; we’re going to a movie,” Staples said.

He was beaming. His sister had finally agreed to let him treat her to something fun. But I knew it was an act. She had probably agreed to go with him solely to spy on me.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Abby.”

“Yeah, we, uh, met at your school several weeks ago near the playground . . . remember?” I said.

She shook her head, still grinning at me. The most evil smile imaginable.

This was awkward.

“So there are kids at our school talking all about your school,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” I played along.

“Yeah! I guess there’s this kid, Mac, who goes here who owes a ton of money to this guy at our school named Kinko. And kids are saying that Mac’s really gonna get it if he doesn’t come through. I mean, Kinko is pretty psycho. Nobody crosses Kinko.”

I swallowed. Or tried to.

“See?” Staples said. “Listen to that! Her school is messed-up. We have to fix this.”

“Yeah, fix this!” Kinko said, and then giggled, pretending that she had no idea what Staples meant.

I nodded.

“Boy, I sure do feel bad for this Mac kid, though,” she said. “They said he’s running out of time. The kids at my school are crazeeeeeee. Just for a kid sneezing too loud they’ll, like, steal his shoes and start them on fire and melt them down into a puddle of rubbery goo and then make the kid’s dog eat it all! Crazy, huh?”

Staples nodded. “I told you Thief Valley was rough. Anyway, let’s go. The show starts soon.”

He reached out for Kinko’s hand, but she ignored it. Instead she got up, wiped her face with her sleeve, and winked at me.

Staples gave up and put his hands in his pockets and started walking back toward his car with Kinko walking next to him. She turned back toward me and drew her index finger across her throat while smiling, then started skipping out ahead of Staples toward his car.

I looked at Vince, and he was almost white like a ghost. I then realized that had been his first in-person glimpse of how truly diabolical that little third-grade girl could be. I cleared my throat and motioned for Nubby to usher over the next customer.

It was a young girl, maybe first grade. She was bawling and had snot running down her dirty face. I sighed and glanced at Vince, who managed a smirk. Sometimes working could actually be kind of fun, and other times it was, well, work. I put on a fake smile and greeted the wailing first grader, deciding that she likely wouldn’t be able to even pay me enough to be worth the time. But if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right, which still meant not turning away customers, no matter how small or poor or snot-faced they were.