Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Making Money Read online

  Then somebody said, “What’s the problem with the laptop? Maybe I can help.”

  The room went even silent-er. Then, for some reason, everyone looked at me.

  Which was when I realized that the “somebody” who had said that was me.

  Mr. Felcher clapped his hands together. “So, Rip Van Winkle knows his way around a computer, does he?”

  It seemed like he was waiting for an answer, so I said, “I guess.”

  “Well, come take a look,” he said, waving me over. I walked up to Mr. Felcher and kind of stood there, until he looked at the guy in the suit sitting next to him and said, “Do you mind?” Whether the guy minded or not, he got up very quickly. I sat down in the chair and checked out his laptop. It was a sweet MacBook Pro. Jake Katz has one. He also has Hannah Spivero. I’m not sure which I want more. But that’s beside the point.

  Mr. Felcher pushed the computer in front of me. “I can’t figure out why every time I try to read this document, it goes away and this godforsaken picture of my grandchildren pops up. I mean, I love those kids, but I don’t want to look at them all day long.” All the partners laughed, probably because they thought that if they didn’t, they would soon be ex-partners.

  For a second, I couldn’t believe that he was asking me such a ridiculously simple question, and I almost laughed. But then by some miracle, I realized that laughing would have been very stupid. So I looked at his screen and acted as if he were dealing with a very difficult problem. “See, the problem is you think you’re clicking on the document, but you’re actually clicking right next to the document,” I said, moving his mouse around the screen to show him. “When you click right next to the document, you’re clicking on whatever file is underneath your document, which in this case happens to be a picture of your grandchildren, which you must have opened when somebody sent it to you in an e-mail. If you click in the middle of the file you want, you’ll always stay on that file.”

  I handed the mouse back to Mr. Felcher, and he clicked on the picture, then clicked back on the file he wanted. When the correct file popped up, he let out a huge guffaw. “Well, take a look at that. Kid, you’re a genius!”

  Everybody murmured in amazement that such a complicated procedure could be accomplished on such an advanced machine in such a short period of time. What they were really thinking was, If only I’d helped Mr. Felcher with that ridiculously easy problem, I’d be getting a sweet corner office right about now.

  The big boss took my hand and shook it so hard I thought he was going to dislocate my shoulder. “These kids today,” he said to the room, “just when you think they can’t do anything right, they go ahead and amaze you.” He looked at my dad. “Fine boy you’ve got here, Jackson—fine boy.”

  My dad hadn’t moved a muscle since I entered the room, but somehow he managed to smile and nod. Then he immediately got up, and I knew he was thinking what I was thinking—we should probably end this day on a high note.

  “Nice to meet everybody,” I said to everyone in the room as we were leaving.

  My dad shut the door, and as we walked down the hall he said to me, “That was the craziest thing I ever saw. Let’s hit the road while I still have a job.”

  It seemed like a good time to cash in. “That was one sweet laptop,” I said. “Can I get one of those?”

  “In your dreams,” said my dad. But he softened the blow by handing me the twenty bucks. “Here ya go. You earned it.”

  I stared down at the money. It felt good in my hands.

  “For forty bucks, I’ll come back tomorrow,” I offered.

  He laughed. “Wow, you’re starting to sound like a real lawyer.”

  I slept the whole train ride home.

  Charlie Joe’s Financial Tip #5

  JUST BECAUSE ADULTS WORK DOESN’T MEAN KIDS HAVE TO.

  I support the idea of adults working, I really do, especially if it means they use some of the money they earn to occasionally buy you things. But why should that mean that kids have to work, too?

  Here are just a few of the reasons why I think adults actually don’t mind working:

  1. It gets them out of the house and away from their screaming kids.

  2. It gets them out of the house and away from their annoying husband or wife.

  3. It lets them buy nice things that they can use to show off in front of other adults.

  4. It makes the weekends that much sweeter.

  Part Three

  THE BAR AND THE MITZVAH

  23

  So it turned out that making money wasn’t as easy as I thought. So far I’d had to deal with missing dogs, unlucky gophers, two-hundred-page documents, and mean bosses, and all I had to show for it was thirty-two lousy dollars. There had to be another way.

  It took me a while, but eventually, I found one.

  See, the thing is, you can come up with a way to make some real money when you absolutely, positively have to. And I was about to have to.

  Why?

  The same reason middle school boys have to do anything.

  Middle school girls.

  24

  Katie here.

  I took Charlie Joe’s book back because we’re getting to the part that’s more about me, and I want to make sure it’s accurate.

  It’s not that I don’t trust Charlie Joe.

  It’s just that I trust myself more.

  25

  My band, CHICKMATE, is probably the most important thing in my life—which is why our gig at Jake’s bar mitzvah was shaping up to be the most important night of my life.

  I’ve wanted to be in a band ever since I first discovered classic rock. I wish I could say that my heroes growing up were Joan Jett, or Nancy Wilson from Heart, or Lady Gaga, or some other cool girl musician; but the truth is I was totally in love with, and wanted to be, Axl Rose. I can’t help it, I just LOVE Guns N’ Roses—even if they do have a somewhat checkered history with the opposite sex.

  I don’t judge them. I just listen to them.

  But I’m not a moron, and I know a girl in middle school would maybe get committed to a mental hospital if she tried to form a band that sounded like GNR, so CHICKMATE is a lot softer—we turn up the volume on the guitars sometimes, but generally we prefer to leave people with their eardrums intact. We play all famous songs, because that’s what the people want to hear—but hopefully one day soon we’ll start doing our own songs. Come on—people singing along to something I wrote? How amazing would THAT be?

  Anyway, that’s just a little background—I could go on for hours about our band, that’s how obsessed I am—so you know how important Friday night’s gig was.

  Anyway, it was three days before the show, and the band was rehearsing—me, on guitar and vocals; Becca Clausen, on guitar and background vocals; Jackie Bender on keyboards; and Sammie Corcoran on drums. (We’re still looking for a bass player, if you know anyone.) We were kind of stressed out, because we only knew like four songs and we were supposed to know eight.

  Also, it was going to be only our second time performing in front of actual human beings.

  We were about twenty minutes in, just starting to rock, when the door opened and Charlie Joe walked in.

  “Why aren’t you returning my calls?”

  I looked at my phone—three missed calls—and waved it at him.

  “It’s kind of hard to hear a phone that’s on vibrate when you’re playing rock and roll.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  The other girls didn’t like that.

  “What do you want?” asked Sammie.

  “Why are you here, Charlie Joe?” asked Becca.

  Charlie Joe glanced around, as if he were just realizing other people were actually there. “This isn’t about you guys.”

  Now the thing is, Becca is a very sweet person, and a very polite person. She’s also a very tall person—about five feet nine inches tall—and a star defender on the travel soccer team.

  So when she got up and said to Charlie J
oe, “We have an important gig coming up, and it’s probably best if you leave so we can rehearse,” he suddenly realized that it was very much about her, indeed.

  He also realized that Sammie had two drumsticks in her hands.

  “Okay, sorry, give me one quick second,” Charlie Joe said, yanking me into the next room.

  “You need to leave,” I announced, having finally run out of patience with Charlie Joe Jackson and his shenanigans.

  He ignored me. “I just wanted to let you know I discovered that money is overrated.”

  I had to laugh. “Wow. I’m so relieved.”

  “No, I’m serious,” Charlie Joe said. “Sure, I’d love to have cool things like a Botman, but I’d rather just have fun and enjoy life. And besides, why do people need to have something just because someone else has it? That kind of thinking might be exactly what’s wrong with America.”

  Wow. Was this really Charlie Joe talking?

  Then something occurred to me.

  “How was going to work with your dad?”

  Charlie Joe shook his head. “A real eye-opener. His office was full of books. His boss was the scariest person I’ve ever met in my life. And get this”—he shuddered like he just saw a ghost—“I almost had to wear a tie.”

  Ah, so that was it.

  My bandmates started practicing again without me. “I HAVE TO GO REHEARSE,” I shouted.

  Then Charlie Joe did this weird thing. He kissed me on the cheek and gave me a big hug.

  “I can’t wait for the bar mitzvah,” he said. “You guys are going to rock it OUT.”

  As Charlie Joe left, I realized I had a grin on my face that no self-respecting rock chick would ever have. It seemed like Charlie Joe had really turned the corner about trying to cut corners—if not in school, then at least in terms of making money.

  I should have known better.

  26

  Hey, I got the book back.

  Katie was getting a little too involved, so I finally had to put my foot down.

  And when that didn’t work, I begged and pleaded until she gave it back.

  27

  As the week went on, Jake’s bar mitzvah became the main topic of conversation.

  “I wish you weren’t having a sports theme,” Hannah told him at lunch on Wednesday. “I hate sports themes.”

  “Next bar mitzvah I’ll have a princess theme,” Jake responded.

  Pete Milano scratched his head. “You’re going to have another bar mitzvah?”

  Poor Pete.

  “I’ll have to change in the car, since I’ll be coming straight from lacrosse practice,” Timmy chimed in, simply because he never missed an opportunity to remind everyone that he was on the travel team.

  At the next table, Eliza’s Botman made an announcement. “Yo, Spanish class in ten minutes. Andale!” Eliza laughed, scooped up her little toy, and stood up, which meant that the Elizettes—the three girls who did everything she did—got up, too.

  They came over to our table.

  “Charlie Joe, are you excited to hear Katie’s band?” Eliza asked. All the guys looked at me bitterly, annoyed at the fact that for some reason, the prettiest girl in the grade still had a crush on me.

  “I’m totally excited,” I told Eliza. “Aren’t you?”

  Eliza stretched like a bored cat. “I’m not even sure I’ll get there in time to see them,” she purred. “I might be late, since I have a zillion things to do.”

  “Yeah, we might get there a little late,” agreed the Elizettes.

  Everyone stopped talking and looked at Eliza. This was big. This was a clear-cut statement, an example of an A-list girl not willing to share the spotlight with someone a little lower down on the food chain.

  People seemed to be waiting for me to respond, so I said, “Why wouldn’t you go? This is a big night for Katie and the other girls in the band, and we’re all going to be there. Do your zillion things some other time.”

  Eliza looked around. She was brave, but only up to a point, and she realized that this probably wasn’t the best time to make whatever statement she was trying to make.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, and walked away.

  We all took a second to recover from that tense moment. Then the conversation turned to the most crucial element of any successful bar mitzvah: the boy to girl ratio. Jake was extremely worried that another event across town—I think it was a confirmation—was going to steal away some of the girls.

  Apparently he didn’t want to become a man in front of a bunch of boys.

  “Perhaps you should widen your pool of attendees to include those who might not otherwise meet your criteria, such as younger girls and older girls,” said Nareem.

  Jake shook his head. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? The bar mitzvah is in two days.”

  “Besides,” I added, “you can’t invite younger girls, that would be embarrassing. And older girls would laugh at Jake if he invited them. Nice try, Nareem.”

  Nareem sighed. He was a total genius, but he still had a few things to learn about the social rules of middle school.

  “I don’t see why you care about having more girls,” said Hannah, with good reason. Jake was her boyfriend, and she probably wasn’t thrilled about the idea of a bunch of girls swarming around him and treating him like the king of the world, which is what happens to the guest of honor at bar mitzvahs. “The girls you really know and care about will be there, and that should be enough, right?”

  Timmy rolled his eyes. “It’s not about Jake, it’s about the rest of us. We need girls!”

  “If there aren’t enough girls there, I’m totally not giving you any money,” Pete announced in his usual obnoxious way.

  The bell rang, but we kept talking about it for another minute until Ms. Ferrell walked up. Ms. Ferrell was definitely my favorite adult at school—she was nice, she was funny, and she was always encouraging, even after the somewhat awkward dog-walking episode. The only annoying habit she had was when she interrupted a very important conversation just because we were in school. That happened all the time, and I have to tell you, it gets old after a while.

  “Hi, guys. Not to butt in or anything, but since you are actually at school, I thought maybe you could try going to class and doing some actual learning.”

  Katie looked embarrassed. She wasn’t used to being disciplined by any teacher, much less Ms. Ferrell, who totally loved her.

  But her reaction was nothing compared to Nareem’s, who looked like he thought he was going to get thrown in jail. “I’m so very sorry, Ms. Ferrell,” he said. “This was inexcusable behavior. I am not sure what came over me.”

  Ms. Ferrell smiled. “You’re a boy, Nareem. That’s what came over you.”

  28

  “Explain to me again what a dance wrangler is?” my dad said.

  It was the night before Jake’s bar mitzvah, and we were sitting at dinner. My dad was shocked that people were actually paid to get kids to dance.

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Daddy, when’s the last time you were at a bar mitzvah or a confirmation party or a school dance? Or any social event with a bunch of middle school kids? At the beginning of the night all the boys stand on one side and all the girls on the other, just staring at each other like there’s some huge ocean between them. You need the dance wranglers to break the ice. Then once everyone is out there, it’s all good. Let the grinding begin.”

  My dad dropped his fork. “Grinding?”

  “You don’t want to know,” my mother said.

  “Can we talk about something else?” I said.

  My mom looked at me. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  I was pushing my food around the plate, which drove Moose and Coco crazy. They were thinking, If you’re just going to play with your food, give it to US! We know what to do with it.

  I finally gave up and put my fork down. “I should probably get to bed. Big day tomorrow.” My dad dropped his knife this time. The last time I’d voluntarily
gone to bed this early was … let’s see … never.

  “’Night,” I said, and headed up to my room. I’d been there approximately one second when there was a knock at the door and Megan came in.

  “Dude,” she said, “what’s up with you?”

  I sat down on the bed. “What do you mean?”

  But I knew exactly what she meant. Because Megan knew my dirty little secret. The night before bar mitzvahs, I got a little freaked out—for one, big reason.

  I was a lousy dancer.

  She sat down next to me. “Charlie Joe, listen to me. You gotta dial down the whole nervous thing.” Megan was not only an excellent older sister, she was also a girl—like most sisters—and so she was able to give me some inside information on what being a girl was all about. “Girls don’t care if you’re a good dancer or not. They just care if you’re funny and sweet while you try not to step on their toes.”

  I tried to smile. “Seriously?”

  Megan giggled. “Seriously. But that doesn’t mean they won’t make fun of you a little. Girls are girls, after all. That’s what makes us fun.”

  I flopped back on the bed. “That’s one word for it, I suppose.”

  Megan bopped me on the head with a pillow. “Get your beauty sleep, Fred Astaire.”

  I had no idea who Fred Astaire was, but I fell asleep anyway.

  29

  A bar mitzvah usually comes in two parts. In the morning, way before you would ordinarily get up on a weekend, you have to sit in a temple for two hours trying to avoid being yelled at by adults for talking, while watching your friend say a bunch of stuff in a foreign language that’s impossible to understand.

  The reward for surviving that part is the party at night, where the girls are in pretty dresses, the music is deafening, and the desserts are life-changing.

  During the morning service, I was still kind of quiet, nervously thinking about dancing. The parents all complimented me for being uncharacteristically well-behaved.