Lawn Boy Returns Read online

  “So how much am I worth?”

  He licked his finger and paged through the small notebook he held.

  “Well, remember we started out with a forty-dollar investment? And that morphed into eight thousand dollars?”

  “And change, yes. But that was gross and not net.”

  He smiled because I’d been paying attention and remembered what he’d taught me. “And then the eight became sixteen and we reinvested it in a high-risk stock that went crazy?”

  “And that’s when the investments grew to about fifty thousand dollars plus the eight I’d made from the lawns.”

  “And change,” we both said.

  “Then, of course, that sell order didn’t go through and there was a merger and so you were, at that point, worth something in the neighborhood of four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”

  “And change,” we said together.

  “Right.”

  “Well, since I continued investing half of that amount, a conservative estimate, including partial ownership of the expanded lawn service, your investments, the property and your grandmother’s earnings from stocks and Joey, which she funnelled back into your trust rather than keeping it herself, you’ve cracked the million-dollar ceiling.”

  “And change.”

  “Sure. There’s always change.”

  And change, I thought, looking out across a lake I owned, is always good.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gary Paulsen is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including three Newbery Honor books: The Winter Room, Hatchet, and Dogsong. His novel The Haymeadow received the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award. Among his Random House books are Woods Runner; Notes from the Dog; Mudshark; Lawn Boy; The Legend of Bass Reeves; The Amazing Life of Birds; The Time Hackers; Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day; The Quilt (a companion to Alida’s Song and The Cook-camp); The Glass Café; How Angel Peterson Got His Name; Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books; The Beet Fields; Soldier’s Heart; Brian’s Return, Brian’s Winter, and Brian’s Hunt (companions to Hatchet); Father Water, Mother Woods; and five books about Francis Tucket’s adventures in the Old West. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nonfiction for adults, as well as picture books illustrated by his wife, the painter Ruth Wright Paulsen. Their most recent book is Canoe Days. The Paulsens live in Alaska, in New Mexico, and on the Pacific Ocean.

  You can visit Gary Paulsen on the Web at www.garypaulsen.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Gary Paulsen

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89654-5

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Chapter 1 - The Origins of Economic Collapse

  Chapter 2 - The Status Quo in Economic Endeavors—at Best, an Unreliable Concept

  Chapter 3 - The Methodology of Team Development

  Chapter 4 - The Prudence of Adding Personnel to Manage Material and Financial Well-being

  Chapter 5 - The Code of Conduct for Dispute Resolution

  Chapter 6 - Brains Good, Brawn Sometimes Better

  Chapter 7 - The Detrimental Influence of Fame and the Loss of Privacy as a Result of Prosperity

  Chapter 8 - The Model of Capricious Development

  Chapter 9 - Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Management

  Chapter 10 - The Juxtaposition of Financial Status and Jurisprudence

  Chapter 11 - The Recognition of a Diminishing Rate of Return

  Chapter 12 - The Entire Organization Imperiled by a Threat, Perceived or Real, to One Part

  Chapter 13 - Crisis Management as a Form of Team Building

  Chapter 14 - The Abrupt Termination of Proven Liabilities, with Some Pain

  Chapter 15 - The Perils of Free Enterprise

  Chapter 16 - Accumulation of Wealth Through Inheritance

  Chapter 17 - Leadership for Social Change and Renewal

  Chapter 18 - The Theorem of What Comes Next

  Chapter 19 - The Axiom of Shifting Paradigms

  About the Author

  Copyright