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By Root 715 0

was pretty funny. But deep down I knew that he meant most of it, too. I always tried to tell people that Vince had helped a lot. That it had been Vince’s idea to somehow use my dad in the plan. But he’d always try to hide from the attention and make sure that it came back on me. It’s been like that ever since; Vince is always building me up and staying out of the spotlight himself. He is so good at it that it can even get a little annoying sometimes. It’s like he built me up so high that a lot of people don’t even know who he is at all. But in the end, I think it’s simply enough for him to know that I know how much he did for the business. He just didn’t ever want the glory.

Anyways, pretty soon after the whole showdown Vince started telling kids that I could help them with other problems, too. And eventually the other kids did start coming to me for help, and somehow I was able to solve their problems.

I honestly don’t know what it was. I just always had a way of knowing what to do for every kid’s situation. I mean, it wasn’t rocket science; back then the problems were really easy. It was stuff like loaning out a video game or helping to organize a lemonade stand and stuff like that. I guess they just didn’t know how to do that kind of stuff on their own.

It was also Vince’s idea to start charging fees for my services. I was a little unsure.

“Isn’t that kind of mean, Vince? I mean, these kids don’t have hardly anything,” I said.

“I know, Christian, but listen. You’re helping them in a major way. They’d be lost without your help. So why not get something in exchange? They’re being helped, and we’re getting payment. Both sides gain something; everybody wins,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess . . .” I started.

“Christian, think of it this way: It’s kind of like at the fair when you order a funnel cake and it’s all warm and greasy and covered in powdered sugar, and oh man, it’s so good. And then you eat it all and lick the sugar and grease off your fingers and it’s just delicious.”

“What? How is it like that at all?” I said.

“It’s not. I just really want a funnel cake right now,” he said, rubbing his stomach.

“Okay, okay. It’s a pretty good idea,” I said, trying to hold back a laugh, “but how will they pay us? I don’t know many kids who have more than like fifty cents, and a lot of them are coming to me for money to rent a game or something like that.”

“Well, they can like let us borrow some of their video games. Or maybe they can owe us a certain amount of their Halloween or Easter candy. Or maybe sometimes they could just owe us a favor of some sort. They don’t always have to pay with money.”

“You know what, Vince? I think you’re the real genius here,” I said, and I meant it, too.

I think he knew I was going to say something like that, because as I said it, he crossed one single eye and scratched his head, and he had this blank look on his face. Then he got up and started chasing around a butterfly while giggling like a madman.

So I eventually agreed that it was okay to charge kids for my services. Besides, how many first graders do you know who make their own money without any help from their parents? Exactly.

That’s pretty much how the business got started. We made my first office in the sandbox of that trailer park playground.

We kept running the business there until eventually my family moved into a house in a different neighborhood. Vince still lived in that same trailer, and actually still does now, but the distance from my new house made it a tough place to run the business from, which is why we finally decided to take our operation inside the school. In part it was because as time went on, the neighborhood near that playground got more dangerous, so it wasn’t really safe to be hanging out there by ourselves all the time. But Vince also had the genius idea of tapping into kids’ school problems, because as we got older, we realized that school started to take up more and more of kids’ lives.

After we moved into the school, the problems got more complicated, which led to larger payments. Pretty soon, we had an