Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 107673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“No way,” I said and stood frozen for several long seconds before I darted forward. All I’d heard for months was how hard things were for us financially, so I never expected any of this.
Now I had a way to get places. I started past my grandmother.
“Hey there, mister. Just because you’re as tall as my house doesn’t mean the rules have changed.” I’d spent many summers right here in this house over my life. The only rule I had to adhere to was every time I passed my grandmother, I was required to hug her. It was something special we shared. Her small, short frame was becoming more difficult to give a proper side hug to, but we managed.
Paw stood close to the door with his fist sticking out. I gave him a bump as I darted outside.
“Happy birthday, Beau.” Chae, who lived next door and helped with breakfast and house cleaning services, chimed from the bottom step. Due to Chae’s proximity, we’d been friends for as long as I could remember, but times had changed the closeness. Chae was seventeen, starting her senior year at the new high school where my mom was now vice principal.
This particular age gap meant she could do things I couldn’t. It made a real friendship difficult.
“Are these your new wheels?” she asked, coming up the steps as I went down.
“Yeah, Nana and Paw just gave it to me,” I said, hiking a leg over the seat. My mind went straight to the mechanics. I needed to adjust the seat, and the pedals needed to be replaced, the chain might have some rust…
“He’s not listenin’ to us anymore, is he?” Chae asked, grinning down at me.
My mom was standing on the small porch, my grandparents behind them. No, I hadn’t been paying attention. I was thinking about where the best junkyards were in town until I made my first paycheck.
“I’m leaving for work,” Mom said, taking each step down toward me. “What’re you doing today?”
“I gotta mow for Paw—”
Nana interrupted me. “We’ll put that off until tomorrow.”
Since all my work was free labor, that sounded pretty good.
“Then meet me at The Pizza Box tonight at five thirty,” my mom said. “We’ll all have dinner.”
“Sounds good. Thank you for this mornin’,” I said again. This was already shaping into a great birthday.
“It’s not over yet. Have a good day,” she said, and bent to kiss me on the cheek.
I lifted the whistle to my lips and blew, catching every eye in the vicinity. “Stay in your inner tube,” I yelled at a set of tween-aged boys that I’d had to discipline several times today.
I was tasked with keeping a bunch of unruly children from drowning, which was much harder than it seemed.
“Last warning,” I said, flexing my power.
“Sorry.” One of the kids shouted in my direction and scurried back to his tube.
Lifeguarding at my family’s resort didn’t require any real training. I had no idea how to save a life. I barely knew how to swim properly. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and somehow managed to be roped into the job four days a week. And honestly, as much money as my dad made off this resort, he should be paying me more than minimum wage.
My frown had me lifting my employee issued visor and scratching the itch at my sweaty hairline. It enabled the whistle to fall until the chain around my neck kept it from dropping to the ground.
My father’s normal roll-with-it personality had been stretched thin. He was angry and out to destroy every local business in his firing range. The atomic bomb had nothing on my father’s intentions. I’d never seen this side of him. Ruthless all the time, he never gave a single inch.
I’d always liked my dad so this shade of him was hard to reconcile. Over the years, we’d spent time together whenever we could. We had breakfast together every morning when we were in the same place. My older brothers and sisters considered me his favorite. They also said he had mellowed with age. I didn’t know about that, but he did take an interest in me. We shared hobbies, discussed in depth the current events happening in the world, and he taught me about finance. When he learned of a sudden employment vacancy in the swimming area, he signed me up for the job without asking, but it was fine.
A positive thing I learned from the experience was that I looked pretty good in blue. I generally shied away from the color, being sandy, blond-haired and blue-eyed, I thought wearing blues washed me out. They didn’t at all.
A downside was that the media had figured that out before I did. The press was covering the relentless picket line in front of the resort and happened to capture me at work. Me and my short, tight lifeguard uniform made the local news, wondering who I was.