Jefferson wanted us to pay him back, he sure
wasn’t making it easy. But all we could really do
was take our one flyer and get out of his office.
53
Then me and Rowley went around from house to
house showing everyone our flyer and telling them
about the V.I.P. Lawn Service.
After we hit a few houses, we realized it would be
a lot easier to just ask the next person we spoke
with to pass the flyer along so me and Rowley
wouldn’t have to do all that walking.
Now the only thing we have to do is sit back and
wait for the phone calls to start rolling in.
Thursday
Me and Rowley waited around all day yesterday,
but we didn’t get any calls.
54
I was starting to wonder if we should try to find
a card with more muscular guys for our next flyer.
Then, at about 11:00 this morning, we got a call
from Mrs. Canfield, who lives on Gramma’s street.
She said her lawn needed mowing but she wanted to
check our references before she hired us.
I used to do lawn work for Gramma, so I called
her up and asked if she could call Mrs. Canfield
and tell her what a good worker I am.
Well, I must’ve caught Gramma on a bad day,
because she really lit into me. She said I left piles
of leaves on her lawn last fall and now there were
patches of dead grass all over her yard.
55
Then she asked me when I was gonna come over
and finish the job.
That was not really the kind of response I was
looking for. I told Gramma we were only taking
paying jobs at the moment but maybe we could
get back to her later on in the summer.
Then I called Mrs. Canfield and did my best
imitation of Gramma. I guess I’m lucky my voice
hasn’t changed yet.
the v.i.p. lawn service
does exceptional work
and catered to my
every lawn need.
56
Believe it or not, Mrs. Canfield bought it. She
thanked “Gramma” for the reference and hung up.
Then she called back a few minutes later, and I
answered in my regular voice. Mrs. Canfield said
she’d hire us and that we should come by her house
later today to get started.
But it’s kind of far from my house to Mrs.
Canfield’s, so I asked her if she could come get us.
She didn’t seem real happy that we didn’t have our
own transportation, but she said she’d be willing to
pick us up if we could be ready at noon.
Mrs. Canfield came to my house at 12:00 in her
son’s pickup truck, and she asked us where our
lawn mower and all our equipment was.
57
I said we didn’t actually have any equipment but
that my Gramma keeps her side door unlocked and
I might be able to sneak in and borrow her mower
for a few hours. I guess Mrs. Canfield must have
been pretty desperate to get her lawn mowed,
because she went along with my plan.
Luckily, Gramma wasn’t home, so it was easy to get
the mower out of her house. We rolled it over to
Mrs. Canfield’s yard, and then we were ready to
get to work.
That’s when me and Rowley realized neither one
of us had ever actually operated a lawn mower
before. So the two of us poked around for a
while and tried to figure out how to get the
thing started.
mind if I
change the
radio station?
58
Poke
poke
Unfortunately, when we tilted the mower on its
side, all the gasoline spilled out onto the grass,
and we had to go back over to Gramma’s to get
a refill.
I picked up the owner’s manual for the mower
while we were at it. I tried to read it, but the
instructions were written in Spanish. I got the
feeling from the bits and pieces I could
understand that operating a lawn mower was a
lot more dangerous than I originally thought.
PRECAUCIÓN!
El uso incorrecto
puede tener como
resultado graves
lesiones fisicas o
muerte.
Siempre
conserve los
pies y las manos
alejadas de las
cuchillas del
cortacésped.
Nunca utilice el
cortacésped
durante
tempestades
con truenos.
59
I told Rowley he could have the first crack at
the lawn mowing and that I would go sit in the
shade and start working on our business plan.
Rowley didn’t like that idea at all. He said this
was a “partnership” and that everything had to
be 50-50. I was pretty surprised by this, because
I’m the one who came up with the idea for the
lawn service in the first place, so I was more like
the owner than a partner.
I told Rowley we needed someone to do the grunt
work and someone to handle the money so it didn’t
get all sweaty.
Believe it or not, that was enough to make Rowley
walk right off the job.
60
I just wanna say for the record that if Rowley
ever needs me for a job reference in the future,
I’m gonna have to give him a lousy review.
The truth is, I don’t really need Rowley anyway.
If this lawn service business grows the way I
think it will, I’m gonna have about a HuNDReD
Rowleys working for me.
In the meantime, I needed to get Mrs.
Canfield’s lawn mowed. I looked through the
manual for a little while longer and then figured
out that I needed to pull on this handle
attached to a cord, so I tried that.
The mower started up right away, and I was off
and running.
61
It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna
be. The lawn mower was self-propelled, so all I
needed to do was walk behind it and steer every
once in a while.
Then I started to notice that there were
piles of dog poop everywhere. And steering
around them was not an easy thing to do with
a self-propelled mower.
swerve
The V.I.P. Lawn Service has a very strict policy
when it comes to dog poop, which is that we won’t
go anywhere near it.
62
So from that point on, whenever I saw anything
that looked suspicious, I would mow a ten-foot
circle around it just to be safe.
The job actually went a lot faster after that
because I had a lot less lawn to cover. After I
was done, I went to the front door to collect
my money.The final bill was thirty dollars, which
was twenty dollars for the lawn plus ten bucks for
the time me and Rowley spent designing that flyer.
63
But Mrs. Canfield wouldn’t pay. She said our
service was “lousy” and
that we hardly mowed any
of her lawn.
I told her about the dog poop issue, but she still
wouldn’t cough up what she owed me. And to make
matters worse, she wouldn’t even give me a ride
home. You know, I figured someone might try to
stiff us this summer, but I never thought it would
be our very first customer.
I had to walk home, and by the time I got
to my house, I was really mad. I told Dad
the whole story about my lawn mowing experience
and how Mrs. Canfield wouldn’t pay me.
64
Dad drove right over to Mrs. Canfield’s house,
and I went with him. I thought he was gonna
chew her out for taking advantage of his son,
and I wanted to be there to see it firsthand.
But Dad just got Gramma’s mower and cut the
rest of Mrs. Canfield’s grass.
When he was done, he didn’t even ask her for
any money.
The trip wasn’t a total waste of time, though.
When Dad wrapped things up, I planted a sign
in Mrs. Canfield’s front yard.
65
I figured if I wasn’t gonna get paid, I might
as well get some free advertising for all my trouble.
another great
job by
v.i.p lawn
service
555-2941
thwunk
Saturday
The V.I.P. Lawn Service has not really panned
out the way I thought it would. I haven’t
had any work since that first job, and I’m
starting to think maybe Mrs. Canfield has been
bad-mouthing me to her neighbors.
I thought about just giving up and closing our
business, but then I realized that with a few
tweaks to the flyer, we could start things back
up again in the winter.
66
v.i.p.
snow removal
you’ve tried the rest,
now go with the best!
The problem is, I need money now. I called up
Rowley to start brainstorming new ideas, but his
mom said he was at the movies with his dad. I was
a little annoyed, because he never bothered to ask
me if he could take the day off.
67
Mom’s not letting me do anything fun until this
fruit smoothie bill is paid off, so that meant it was
up to me to figure out how to earn the cash.
I’ll tell you who has a lot of money, and that’s
Manny. I mean, that kid is RICH. A few weeks
ago Mom and Dad told Manny they’d give him a
quarter for every time he uses the potty without
being asked. So now he carries around a gallon of
water with him at all times.
Manny keeps all his money in a big jar on his dresser.
He’s gotta have at least $150 in that thing.
68
I’ve thought about asking Manny to lend me the
money, but I just can’t bring myself to do that.
I’m pretty sure Manny charges interest on his
loans anyway.
i can get the
rest of it to
you tomorrow.
I’m trying to figure out a way to earn money
without doing any actual work. But when I
told Mom what I was thinking, she said I’m
just “lazy.”
ok, so maybe I Am lazy, but it’s not really my
fault. I’ve been lazy ever since I was a little kid,
and if someone had caught it early on, maybe I
wouldn’t be the way I am now.
69
I remember in preschool, when playtime was over,
the teacher would tell everyone to put away their
toys, and we would all sing the “Cleanup Song” while
we did it. Well, I sang the song with everyone
else, but I didn’t do any of the actual cleaning.
clean up, clean up,
everybody everywhere!
clean up, clean up,
everybody do your share!
So if you want to find somebody to blame for
the way I am, I guess you’d have to start
with the public education system.
Sunday
Mom came into my room this morning and woke me
up for church. I was glad to go, because I knew I
was gonna have to turn to a higher power to get
this fruit smoothie bill paid off. Whenever Gramma
needs anything she just prays, and she gets it
right away.
70
I think she has a direct pipeline to God or
something.
dear lord, please let
me find my dollar
savers coupon book.
For some reason I don’t have that same kind of
pull. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna quit trying.
dear lord, please let mr. jefferson
get hit on the head so he forgets
about the money I owe him. and please
let me get past the third level of
twisted wizard without having to use
any of my bonus health packs. amen,
and thank you in advance.
71
Today’s sermon was called “Jesus in Disguise,” and
it was about how you should treat everyone you
meet with kindness because you never know which
person is really Jesus pretending to be someone else.
I guess that’s supposed to make you wanna be
a better person, but all it does is make me
paranoid because I know I’m gonna just end up
guessing wrong.
wow, thanks
my shoes!
no
problem,
“fred”!
They passed the donation basket around like they
do every week, and all I could think was how I
needed that money a lot more than whoever it was
going to.
72
But Mom must’ve seen the look in my eye, because
she passed the basket to the row behind us before
I could take what I needed.
Monday
My birthday’s coming up this weekend, and it
can’t get here quick enough for me. This year I’m
gonna have a FAmIlY party. I’m still really
burned up with Rowley for bailing out on our lawn
care business, so I don’t want him thinking he can
come over and eat my birthday cake.
Plus, I’ve learned my lesson about friend parties.
When you have a friend party, all your guests think
they have the right to play with your presents.
73
And every time I have a friend party, Mom invites
HeR friends’ kids, so I end up with a bunch of
people at my party I barely even know.
And those kids don’t buy the gifts, their moms
do. So even if you get something like a video game,
it’s not a video game you’d actually want to play.
froggie
+ ruff
learn about
sharing
74
I’m just glad I’m not on the swim team this summer.
Last year I had practice on my birthday, and Mom
dropped me off at the pool.
everybody be sure to wish
greg a happy birthday!
honk
I got so many birthday noogies that I couldn’t
even lift my arms to swim.
3…4…5…
6…7…
8…
9…10…
11…
punch
punch
punch
punch
75
So when it comes to your birthday, I’ve learned
it’s best to just keep kids out of the equation.
Mom said I could have a family party as long
as I promised not to do my “usual” with the
birthday cards. That stinks, because I have a
GReAt system for opening cards. I put them
all in a neat pile, and then I rip each one open
and shake it to get the money out. As long as
I don’t stop to read anything, I can get
through a pile of twenty cards in under a minute.
shake
shake
Mom says the way I do it is “insulting” to the people
who got me the cards. She says this time around I
have to read every card and acknowledge the person
who gave it to me. That’ll slow me down, but I
guess it’s still worth it.
76
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I
want for my birthday this year. What I ReAllY
want is a dog.
I’ve been asking for a dog for the past three
years, but Mom says we have to wait until Manny’s
completely potty trained before we get one. Well,
with the potty training racket Manny’s got going
on, that could take FoReVeR.
The thing is, I know that Dad wants a dog,
too. He used to have one when He was a kid.
77
I figured all Dad needed was a little nudge, and
on Christmas last year I saw my chance. My
Uncle Joe and his family stopped by our house,
and they brought their dog, Killer, with them.
I asked Uncle Joe if he wouldn’t mind hinting to
Dad that he should get us a dog. But the way Uncle
Joe did it probably set my dog-getting campaign back
by five years.
a boy needs a
dog, frank!
slap
The other thing I have no chance of getting for
my birthday is a cell phone, and I can thank