Chapter 1 - Flint Says Goodbye
Rats! Dirty stinking rats! Another summer of work for me. That means no swimming in the river or fishing with Blew and the other guys. No stealing a kiss from Candy or going to the drive-in movies. Summer means only one thing—work in the fields from dawn ’til dark. I don’t know why Ma farms me out to the Rudyard relatives. There’s plenty of chores around here now that Pops is gone. I could do lots of things to make our place look better. I could put in a vegetable garden for Ma and cut the grass with the scythe. If she’d let me, I’d find some paint and slap it on our kitchen walls. When I finished my work, I’d help Blew with haying and Johnny with his pigs, but no dice. Ma farms me out to her brother, my Uncle Leo. He works me like a dog. Nothing exciting ever happens in Rudyard. It’s just another small town like Brimley. And the worst part about leaving for three months is my buddy, Squeaky, has a chance of winning Candy’s heart. If she forgets about me and falls for him, I’ll jump in the river and drown, and it’ll be all her fault.
Geez, I wish Pops would come home. I know Ma misses him. Maybe that’s why she drinks so much. I hide her wine everywhere, even in the outhouse, but she always finds it. She’s not like other mothers. She doesn’t care about me or my sisters, about where we go or what we do. Jill and Jazz left early this morning. I watched them walk down the lane. I know they’re heading for the river where they’ll stay all day doing nothing.
Packing my stuff didn’t take long. I put a few things in a Piggly Wiggly grocery bag. The last thing I packed was my work gloves. Uncle Leo’s too cheap to give me a good pair so I have to bring my own. You can’t do farm work without
