Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Making Money Read online

  “I can’t remember,” I answered.

  As if on cue, Misty came over and shook herself off, flinging a disgusting mixture of mud, drool, and lake water all over my clothes.

  “Gross!” Timmy seemed to say, although I couldn’t quite tell, since he was laughing so hard.

  I looked at Buster and Atom, who were still in the water, pretending to swim but really just scoping out the girl dogs. I realized I hadn’t brought any towels, and thought about how thrilled my mom was going to be when she picked us up and discovered her car was about to be ruined forever.

  Hannah’s dog, meanwhile, seemed perfectly content to remain on the shore, obviously too considerate to ruin Hannah’s typically perfect outfit.

  “This dog thing seems like it’s the perfect job for you,” Jake said.

  “Thanks,” I responded, even though I was pretty sure he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

  “You get to sit under a tree and talk about my girlfriend, and get paid for it,” Jake continued, confirming my suspicions.

  “Well, it’s a lot of responsibility,” Timmy jumped in, “and talking about Hannah just makes the time go faster.” He had a habit of trying to come to my rescue and instead making things worse.

  “I’m glad I could help,” Hannah said, trying to make everyone happy, but actually just making everyone uncomfortable. Then, realizing she should probably change the subject, Hannah looked around and added, “I thought you guys said you were babysitting four dogs.”

  “We are,” I said.

  “Then where’s the fourth dog?”

  I felt a weird burning sensation in the pit of my stomach. I jumped up and started walking toward the picnic table. After a second, my walking turned into jogging, and then into sprinting.

  I reached the table, said a tiny little prayer to myself, then got down on my knees and looked underneath.

  No Schleppy.

  Oh, no.

  I immediately started to panic.

  “Where’s Schleppy?” Timmy yelled, which only succeeded in making every other dog owner turn and look at me. Somehow they managed to look worried and accusatory at the same time.

  “I don’t know,” I said, seeing my life flash before my eyes.

  I had lost an eighteen-pound dog in a thousand-acre forest.

  Of all the horrible thoughts that raced through my mind at that very moment, one kept fighting its way to the front:

  I was pretty sure the whole Botman thing was never going to happen.

  12

  The first thing I had to do was wade into the muddy lake and gather up Buster and Atom. They weren’t too happy about leaving their new friends, but the freaked-out quality in my voice got their attention, and they hustled out of the water. Misty was on the shore, alert, ready to roll. Moose and Coco were sniffing around the nearby bushes. It was almost as if all the dogs knew exactly what was going on and were already looking for Schleppy.

  I felt like I had my own little canine police force, which made me feel a little better. Not a lot. A little.

  Jake and Hannah were ahead of us, calling to Schleppy. Timmy and I spread out, each with a couple of dogs, examining every inch of that place. Holy moly, it never felt so big.

  After a while I glanced at my watch. My mom was due to pick us up in fifteen minutes. Not a lot of time to find a tiny dog with an appetite for adventure.

  “Find Schleppy! Find Schleppy!” I urged the dogs as we ran through the park, hoping their sixth sense would help them understand exactly what I was saying. It seemed like they did, except for the times where they would suddenly decide to chase a squirrel or a duck and my arms would come out of my sockets.

  I’d been sprinting at top speed—well, my top speed—for about five minutes when I suddenly noticed a different feeling in my stomach. I’d gone from panic to nausea. I’m not going to lie, I’m not in the best shape in the world, and this was way more exercise than my body was used to.

  Timmy texted me:

  Any luck?

  I texted back:

  Not yet.

  He texted back:

  Me neither.

  Schleppy was lost. And I was losing hope.

  Then, a gift from heaven. Hannah texted me:

  Jake has an idea.

  When the smartest kid in the grade has an idea, you listen. I texted back:

  Yeah?

  I waited eight long seconds. Then I got the text:

  We’re heading to the mill.

  The Mill was a part of Lake Monahan that I almost never went to, because it didn’t have any water for Moose and Coco to play in. Plus you had to go up one huge hill, then down another, then up another—just to get to an open field, where there were tons of small holes in the ground that you could easily break an ankle in, if you weren’t careful. Supposedly there had been a big mill there once, although I didn’t even really know what a mill was and certainly didn’t care. But apparently all the holes were from giant machines that had been uprooted from the ground.

  It shocked me to think that a tiny dog could make it all the way to the Mill, considering I barely could. But it was worth a try, so off we went.

  It was far. If the dogs weren’t there to pull me along then I’m not sure I would have made it.

  But I had a job to do, and I was determined to do it. Plus, I definitely was going to be grounded for life if this didn’t end well.

  I met up with Timmy, and we headed up the first hill, which now that I was actually on it, definitely felt more like a mountain. Timmy was an excellent skateboarder and lacrosse player, and he wasn’t huffing and puffing at all. I was an excellent Xbox player, and I was about to collapse.

  Then we went down the next hill. The dogs picked up speed, and I almost fell five times. It felt like one of those movies where all the huskies are running through the snow carrying a huge sled, only instead of yelling, “MUSH!” I was yelling, “SLOW DOWN OR I’M GONNA BREAK MY FREAKIN’ NECK!”

  In case you were wondering, people were watching us with shocked looks on their faces.

  We finally made it up the last hill and got to the Mill. There they were, those weird little holes, and sure enough, I almost broke my ankle in the very first one. I suddenly wondered why anyone would come here willingly, unless they had a thing for crutches.

  I saw Hannah and Jake waving frantically, and we sprinted over to them, side-stepping the holes as best as we could.

  Jake pointed, and I stopped in my tracks. So did all the dogs. I looked down, and I saw what looked like the back half of Schleppy’s body sticking out of a hole.

  Half-Schleppy’s tail was wagging happily. In a minute, so was mine.

  “SCHLEPPY!” I yelled, and the dog emerged from his hole, face covered in dirt and grass. He looked at me casually, as if he hadn’t caused me a heart attack.

  Then he plunged his face right back in the hole.

  All the other dogs wanted in on Schleppy’s action. As they fought over snout space—they needed to know what was down that one hole, and didn’t seem to care that there were a thousand other holes just like it—I turned to Jake and Hannah.

  “You guys saved my life,” I said, without exaggeration. “What happened? Why did you look here? How did you know?”

  Jake looked at the ground, which is what he always does when he’s about to say something that makes people remember he’s smarter than everyone else. “Dachshunds were bred to hunt and chase burrow-dwelling animals,” he informed us. “When Hannah told me about this part of the park that had a lot of burrowlike holes, I figured that might be where he would go.”

  Then Hannah gave Jake a “my boyfriend’s a genius” kiss, and even though Jake was still looking at the ground I could tell he was smiling.

  I felt a pang of jealousy, but then realized that only a selfish jerk would be jealous of someone who had just completely saved his life. So I fist-bumped him and said, “Thank you so much, dude. You are the MAN.”

  Even though I was still jealous, that at least makes
me a little less of a jerk, right?

  13

  We were still celebrating our successful search-and-rescue mission when Misty saw something move out of the corner of her eye and decided to plunge full-speed ahead into the nearby bushes.

  Have you ever held the leash of a full-speed-ahead lunging Great Dane?

  Neither had I.

  Misty dragged me for about ten feet before I decided to preserve whatever muscles I still had in my left arm and let go of the leash. She launched herself into the bushes and you could feel the earth move, kind of like that scene in Jurassic Park when the Tyrannosaurus Rex first makes his entrance.

  That was followed by an enormous amount of thrashing, crashing, and howling. All the humans and dogs turned their heads toward the ruckus. Moose and Coco started barking wildly. Buster the bulldog paced back and forth, trying to breathe through his nose. Atom was jumping up and down, which isn’t easy to do when you’re on a leash.

  Even Schleppy emerged from her precious hole to see what was going on.

  Suddenly the noise and the thrashing stopped. There was a brief moment when I thought everything was going to be fine, Misty would come out of the bushes and we could just go home, and I could return all the dogs to their rightful owners and tell them what a great time I had with their dogs, but had decided I had too much studying to do and was therefore resigning from the dog-sitting business.

  Misty finally re-emerged, wagging her tail proudly. All would have been well, except for one small problem.

  She had a gopher in her mouth.

  That’s right. A gopher.

  The poor little guy was very much alive, and seemed totally calm, like he had already decided he was going to a better place and was ready to accept his fate.

  Moose and Coco looked on, awestruck. They’d never caught anything in their lives.

  “Drop it!” I ordered Misty.

  She laughed at me with her eyes.

  After a few more lame attempts at getting Misty to release the animal, I did the only thing I could think of. I begged Jake to save me, again.

  “Help me, Jake. What should I do?”

  “I have no idea,” Jake answered.

  So the good news was, at last I knew what it took to stump Jake—a gopher thinking about heaven while stuck in a Great Dane’s jaws. I was able to take some comfort in the fact that Jake was as clueless as me, but it was a tiny blip that was quickly overwhelmed by a huge blob of panic.

  “Misty, drop it,” I ordered again. She didn’t.

  “Misty, drop it NOW,” I insisted.

  Oh, please, she might as well have answered.

  Timmy was standing there, doing something that looked suspiciously like giggling. I stared at him, and he kicked a pebble.

  Hannah was texting someone. Probably the whole grade. And it probably said:

  Omg Charlie Joe is so getting detention.

  Finally Jake said, “Charlie Joe, what are you going to do?”

  Everyone waited for me to make the next move. I guess this is what it was like being the boss. I guess this is why I make the big bucks.

  Suddenly I wanted to be the guy who made the little bucks.

  14

  Misty decided she wanted to carry the poor gopher all the way home.

  The interesting thing was, she didn’t really seem to have any desire to kill it, or eat it, or even harm it in any way.

  I think she wanted to keep it as a pet.

  Once we let Hannah and Jake get back to their previously scheduled romantic walk in the park, Timmy and I started the long trek back to the parking lot. But by the time we managed to coax Schleppy from his hole, gather up the other overstimulated dogs, fight with them when they wanted to swim in every watering hole on the way out of the park, and stop for the one guy who thought he could pry the gopher from Misty’s jaws, only to find out the hard way that Misty really didn’t like people trying to take things from her, we were twenty minutes late.

  My mom was standing outside her car with an unthrilled look on her face. Timmy’s mom was standing outside her car, too, because we needed two cars to take us all home.

  Which meant twice as much explaining.

  When she saw Misty and her new friend, the first thing my mom did was get back in the car, shut the door, and take out her phone. Five seconds later I got a text.

  I don’t want to yell and scare the animals, but let me be perfectly clear: that thing’s not getting in my car.

  Mrs. McGibney, who was the nicest woman in the world besides my mom, came over to see what was going on. When she saw the gopher she put her hands to her chest and exclaimed, “Oh, my word!”

  I opened the back door to my mom’s car to throw in the leashes and let Moose and Coco jump in through the hatchback. Meanwhile, Buster, Atom, Schleppy, and Timmy got in Mrs. McGibney’s car.

  That left me, Misty, and Mr. Gopher on the outside looking in.

  Then—for some reason known only to her—Misty picked that very moment to finally set the gopher free.

  The gopher made a beeline for the quickest shelter it could find, which happened to be in the backseat of our car. It jumped in before I could react.

  My mom screamed. Moose and Coco, who were behind the fence in the back of the car, could not believe they were so close to a very catchable animal, and yet so far. They decided to show their frustration by barking as loud as they’d ever barked in their lives.

  Mr. Gopher quickly realized he’d picked a bad spot, so he darted out of the car and started sprinting through the parking lot.

  Misty quickly realized she missed having Mr. Gopher as a pet and started sprinting after him.

  I quickly realized that I didn’t want to be a dog-sitter anymore.

  Cars started weaving to avoid the dog, and one actually veered into the picnic area. People were yelling and screaming, “Catch your freakin’ dog!” as if I were intentionally staying twenty-five feet behind it.

  Finally Mr. Gopher ducked under a fence to freedom!

  I’m pretty sure I saw him high-fiving two other gophers on the other side.

  Misty peered under the same fence, quickly realized the fun was over, and came trotting back to me, wagging her tail, as if she were greeting an old friend.

  I grabbed her leash, sat down, and we both panted harder than we had in our entire lives.

  As Timmy’s mom drove away, I saw Timmy waving and laughing in the passenger seat, and Buster, Atom, and Schleppy fighting over the windows in the back.

  Then my mom drove over to me and Misty. She rolled down the window, leaned out, and smiled.

  “How was work today, dear?”

  15

  By the time we pulled up to Ms. Ferrell’s house, Misty was sleeping like a baby.

  How adorable.

  Ms. Ferrell had a big smile on her face when she answered the door. I was almost flattered until I realized it was because her beloved dog was home at last.

  “How was it?” she asked. “Did she give you any trouble?”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “No trouble at all.”

  “Terrific!” Ms. Ferrell said, rubbing a little spot behind Misty’s left ear that made the dog howl like a coyote getting a massage. “She’s a little wet. Did you let her wade in the water?”

  “Just for a minute.”

  Ms. Ferrell reached for her purse. Then, because she had already collected my pay from the other teachers, she handed me twenty-four dollars.

  “Same time Wednesday?” she asked.

  I looked at the money. It felt so good in my hands. It felt like happiness. It felt like freedom.

  Then I remembered the sight of the picnic table with Schleppy not underneath it, and the sight of Misty chasing Mr. Gopher through the parking lot, and the half an hour of craziness in between.

  “Actually, Ms. Ferrell, I’ve kind of decided that it’s not a great time to be dog-sitting right now,” I said, trying to look her in the eye but failing. “I should probably concentrate on my schoolwork and stuf
f, so I don’t fall behind.”

  Ms. Ferrell looked at me. I don’t think she’d ever heard the words concentrate and schoolwork come out of my mouth in the same sentence before.

  “It was a lot harder than you thought, huh,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “A little too hard?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  She smiled.

  “Well, at some point, Charlie Joe, you’re going to realize that a good day’s work feels just as good as a good night’s rest,” Ms. Ferrell said, and she stepped outside and waved at my mother, who was waiting in the car.

  “Is that from a fortune cookie?” I asked.

  “Nope, it’s from life,” she answered.

  Then she patted my cheek, went back inside, and shut the door.

  16

  When I got back to the car, my mom gave me a look.

  “What?” I said.

  “Did you tell her about the gopher?”

  I hemmed for a second, hawed for another, and then said, “No.”

  “I don’t blame you,” she said.

  I waited for her to ask me if I told Ms. Ferrell about losing Schleppy, but then I realized I hadn’t even told my mom that part, so no worries there.

  But she did have one other question. “How much money did you make?”

  “Twenty-four dollars,” I said proudly.

  “Give me half.”

  Are you kidding me?

  “I’m not kidding,” she said, as if I had said, Are you kidding me? out loud.

  I said the obvious thing. “Why?”

  My mom sighed. “Because this car isn’t going to clean itself, and whenever a nervous gopher urinates in my car, I generally try to get the smell out as quickly as possible. I’d like the trained professionals to do it.” She held out her hand. “Hurry up, before I ask for all of it.”

  I glumly handed over twelve bucks. Then we drove away, and I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling completely exhausted.

  “Working’s not for me,” I said, stating the obvious, just before I passed out.