Chapter 2

The first thing I had to prove to myself and everybody else was that there really was a market for Kid Power’s new winter service.

“Don’t overbook,” my mother warned me as I set out the next morning to convince my neighbors to hire me. “You can only do so much.”

“I won’t,” I promised. My fantasy of course had been that every house on the block would hire me, but even I knew that was crazy. I only had two arms, after all, and one back. So I figured if I could get just three other households I should be satisfied. That would be six dollars for sidewalks (including my family’s), and eight dollars if they took me on for driveways, too. Fourteen dollars a snowstorm could be a big help in my savings for a computer.

It was funny. I hadn’t even known I wanted a computer until I said I did. But now I wanted one a lot. No successful business could be run without one, I pointed out to my mother, who didn’t have one for Something Extra yet.

I decided to start my sales pitch with Mrs. Edwards, since I was pretty sure she’d agree. So I knocked on her door, and I was happy when she opened it herself. That meant she was feeling better. She was still using a walker, though.

“Kid Power is back in business,” I told her. “We’ve decided to go into snow removal.”

“What a good idea,” Mrs. Edwards said. “Have you found many customers?”

“I came to you first,” I admitted. “We’ll be charging a dollar fifty for sidewalks and two dollars for driveways. The important thing is that if you agree to our terms now, you’ll never have to worry again about who’s going to shovel for you.”

“I don’t use my driveway anymore,” Mrs. Edwards said. “My nurse’s aide parks on the street, and I don’t drive anymore. But it would be a great convenience if you shoveled my walk. Can I hire you for sidewalks only?”

Of course I would have preferred it if she’d agreed to the package deal, but I could see her point. Why pay for something you don’t need? “You’re on,” I said. “I’ll shovel every single snowfall of four inches or more.”

“How about if you just shovel automatically, even if there’s less than four inches?” Mrs. Edwards suggested. “I’ll pay you the same rate, of course.”

“All right,” I said. “If there isn’t enough snow to shovel, I’ll sweep it off the sidewalk for you.”

“Thank you very much,” Mrs. Edwards said. “And I’ll be sure to recommend Kid Power to my friends. You did save my life, after all.”

I blushed. Rescuing people wasn’t one of Kid Power’s regular services. “I’d better get going,” I said. “I want to talk to other people on the block, too.”

“Good luck, Janie,” Mrs. Edwards said, but I was sure I wouldn’t need it. I was offering a needed service. According to my mother, that was what made a business a success.

I started walking from door to door. A lot of people weren’t home. I tried to remember who wasn’t in, so I could go back and try them again. Finally I got an answer to my ring.

“My name is Janie Golden, and I represent Kid Power,” I said, trying to sound grown up. “I’d like to offer you our special snow-removal services.”

“I gave at the office,” the man said, and slammed the door in my face.

I considered quitting on the spot. But that wasn’t how fortunes were made. So I walked over to the next house and rang the bell. A woman opened the door. She had two little kids grabbing at her legs.

“My name is Janie Golden,” I said. “I represent Kid Power. I’d like to offer you our special snow-removal services.”

“It isn’t snowing yet, is it?” the woman asked, trying to shake the kids off her. “Tell me it isn’t snowing.”

“Oh, it isn’t, ma’am. Don’t worry,” I said. “But it will be before you know it. If you hire Kid Power now, you won’t ever have to worry about who’s going to shovel your walk.”

“My husband always did that,” the woman said. “I guess now I’ll have to.”

“Not if you hire Kid Power,” I said. “We’ll guarantee to shovel your sidewalk for a dollar fifty and your driveway for two dollars. That’s for any snowfall of four inches or more. Are you interested?”

“Stop biting my leg, Seth,” the woman said to one of the kids. “David, stop biting Seth’s leg. Sure. Why not? I guess it will be one less thing to worry about.”

“Great,” I said. “You’ll see me at the first snowfall.”

“Which I hope won’t be for at least eight months,” the woman said. “I haven’t put the snow tires on my car yet.”

I wished I could put snow tires on for people; there was obviously a lot of money to be made doing that. But one thing I’d learned the summer before was never to take on jobs I couldn’t handle. So I just smiled at the lady and at Seth and David and went to the next house, to see if they’d be interested.

They weren’t, and neither were people in the next seven houses I asked at. It wasn’t very encouraging, and I considered stopping at two and a half jobs. But then I thought about the computer, and how if I got one before Mom did, I could rent her time on it for Something Extra. So I kept knocking on doors.

After a half-hour, I found another person willing to listen. I told her my terms, and she stared at me thoughtfully.

“Here’s my problem,” the woman said. “My husband had a heart attack a couple of years ago. Not a big one, just one of those little warning shots. So Herm gave up smoking, and he lost twenty pounds, and now he exercises, and he’s really in fine health.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“But he still thinks he can do all those things he used to do,” the woman continued. “Like shoveling snow. That’s the quickest way to a heart attack, you know.”

I didn’t know. I began worrying about my own heart as soon as she told me.

“If the walk gets shoveled before Herm has a chance to do it, then he won’t be able to complain,” the woman continued. “But if you were just the least bit late, then Herm would probably go out and start shoveling by himself, and you know what would happen then.”

I nodded. Herm would have a heart attack, and it would be all my fault.

Of course, if I decided not to take on Herm and his sidewalk, he would have the heart attack anyway, and it would still be all my fault. The only solution was for me to take the job and keep Herm from ever looking at a shovel again.

“I’ll do you first,” I promised. “That way Herm won’t have a chance.”

The woman smiled at me, which made me feel better. I probably shouldn’t have called her husband Herm, but I felt as if I knew him. His life was in my hands, after all. “Sidewalks and driveways,” she said. “First thing after the snow stops.”

“You’re on,” I said, and we shook hands on it. I wondered if Herm would ever know how I was keeping him alive. Maybe he would think elves shoveled the walk for him. But I figured that was between him and his wife. My job was to shovel.

So I walked home, adding the numbers up in my head. Three driveways at two dollars each, and four sidewalks at a dollar fifty. That came to twelve dollars per snowfall. Assuming there were four snowfalls that winter, that was forty-eight dollars right there, and all it would cost me was a sore back. We already owned a shovel, after all.

The next thing I had to do was get jobs for all my friends, so they’d have to pay me ten percent. Of course, first I’d have to get them to agree to the whole idea.

I made my first phone call to my best friend Lisa. Lisa and I had had a big fight over Kid Power last summer, but then I’d hired her, and we got to be friends again. Lisa’s specialty was gardening, but she wasn’t afraid of hard work. Or so I told myself while I dialed her number.

“I liked earning money last summer,” Lisa admitted, when I finished telling her the plan. “But I don’t know about shoveling snow.”

“It’s easy money,” I said. “All you have to do is work in the morning, and then you have the rest of the day to do whatever you want in.”

“Sometimes it snows all day,” Lisa said. “And then you’d have to shovel in the evening, when it’s dark and cold.”

“Maybe in the afternoon,” I said. “But never at night. And the money is really good.”

Lisa sighed. “Are you going to go crazy over this?” she asked. “Like you did last summer?”

“Never,” I said. “Really. This isn’t like last summer. It’s just whenever it snows. It doesn’t snow that much here. Maybe twice a winter.”

“Maybe six times,” Lisa said. My heart leaped when I thought about how much more money I could earn if it snowed six times.

“Besides, it’s a public service,” I told her. Lisa has a very soft heart. “We’ll be keeping people from having heart attacks. Shoveling snow is the first step to a heart attack, you know.”

“I don’t know,” Lisa said, but I could tell she was weakening.

“I’m going to be working for four people,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to do that many. You could just take on two walks, for example. And then, if you liked it, maybe we could get you more work later in the winter.”

“You are going crazy,” Lisa said with a sigh. “I can tell, Janie.”

“Then go crazy with me,” I said. “Come on, Lisa. It’ll be fun.”

Lisa sighed even harder. “Maybe you won’t be able to get anybody to hire me,” she said.

“Then I can try?” I asked.

“All right,” she said. “But I only want two other people, plus my parents.”

“You won’t regret it,” I said.

“I already regret it,” Lisa replied. “How many other kids are you going to exploit?”

“As many as I can,” I told her. “I figured I’d call Ted next.”

“Good choice,” she said. “Ted actually likes to do stuff like this. Let me know how it goes.”

“I sure will,” I said. “Thanks, Lisa.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, with the biggest sigh of all. Lisa had very impressive sighs. I hung up, called Ted, and told him my plan.

“You’ll get the people to hire me?” he asked.

“That’s the idea,” I said.

“Including my parents?” he continued.

“Don’t you think you could convince them better than I could?” I asked.

“They expect me to do that stuff for free,” he said.

“Well, if they see that other people are willing to pay you for your work, maybe they’ll agree to pay you, too,” I said. “That is the American way, after all.”

“Get me four jobs,” Ted said. “And then we’ll tackle my parents.”

I didn’t really look forward to tackling Ted’s parents, but nobody ever said making a fortune would be easy. So I agreed, hung up, and tried my friend Margie.

“I love snow,” Margie said. “I love shoveling.”

“You do?” I asked. Margie always surprised me.

“It’s practically my favorite thing to do,” Margie replied. “After taking care of kids, that is. I don’t suppose I could take care of kids while I shovel the walks?”

I thought about Seth and David, but I couldn’t figure out a way for Margie to shovel and baby-sit simultaneously. Still, it was worth thinking about, once I had Kid Power’s winter program in full swing.

“So you’ll let me get you some snow-shoveling jobs?” I asked.

“Four of them,” Margie replied. “Thank you, Janie.”

Margie was definitely the sort of person Kid Power needed more of. I told her so, and she thanked me again.

That left only Sheila from the kids Kid Power had used last summer. Sheila was a problem, though. Her mother changed her phone number a lot, so it wasn’t always possible to get through to her. Besides, Sheila didn’t strike me as the snow-shoveling type. Not that Margie had, either, but Margie I knew I could trust. I decided against asking Sheila to join us. Maybe later in the winter, when Kid Power had expanded, but not until then.

The next step was to get everybody the customers I’d just promised them. I ran downstairs and made myself a sandwich. Then I grabbed my bike and rode over to Lisa’s neighborhood first, to knock on doors.

Lisa lived in a fancy section of town, and all the houses had long stretches of sidewalk and driveway. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to shovel everybody’s, but on the other hand, it seemed like a good selling point.

I heard the background sounds of football games on in most of the houses, and I mostly spoke to women. It wasn’t easy selling the service, but I’d gotten used to rejection that morning. Besides, one sale made me feel so good that it took care of ten rejections. And since I was only trying for two sales, the pressure wasn’t too bad.

I got the first one fairly easily, but the second one was taking forever. I checked out the other houses in the neighborhood, trying to find an especially friendly looking one.

What I saw instead was the biggest house in town. Lisa lived two blocks away from Mrs. Dell, the richest person in our county. Years ago, there had been a Mr. Dell, and he had been rich, too, so when he married Mrs. Dell, they got even richer together. Now Mrs. Dell was a widow living all alone, except for her housekeeper, in a genuine mansion.

But her mansion didn’t interest me nearly as much as her sidewalk and driveway did. They were both endless. The driveway was the circular kind that winds around and around. And the sidewalk was at least twice the length of anybody else’s.

It wouldn’t be fair to ask Lisa to shovel Mrs. Dell’s walk all by herself. Then again, we’d have to charge more than the three-fifty combined price. Five dollars at least, and seven if we could get it. I decided to ask for seven and bargain down if I had to.

It took all my nerve to walk up to the door and ring the bell. I reminded myself that Mrs. Dell was about the same age as Mrs. Edwards, and I had no trouble talking with her. She’d been my easiest sale, and she had a lot less sidewalk to clear than Mrs. Dell did.

Mrs. Dell opened the door herself, so I figured the housekeeper must have the day off. It was Sunday, after all.

I smiled my biggest smile at Mrs. Dell and told her my name. “I represent Kid Power,” I said. “We’re offering a special prewinter snow-shoveling plan.”

“That’s lovely,” Mrs. Dell said. “My brother used to do that when he was a boy. And now girls are doing it, too. How very sensible.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Does that mean you’re interested in our plan?”

“Absolutely,” Mrs. Dell said. “Industry should always be rewarded in the young. Twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five dollars?” I gasped. It was a big walk, but I hadn’t realized it was that big. Of course, Mrs. Dell was rich, and she did want to reward industry.

“Oh, no, of course not,” Mrs. Dell said, and she laughed. “Twenty-five cents. My brother only charged a dime, but times have changed.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, although it nearly broke my heart. “We can’t do it at that price.”

“Oh, well,” Mrs. Dell said. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will,” I said, knowing I never would. There were plenty of houses left for me to try that afternoon, and after school for a while if I had to. I was determined to get good-paying jobs for everyone in Kid Power before the first flake of snow fell.