Novel--The Norphlet Mafia---post 1

Note: post one---subsequent posts with continue at three a week to the end of the book. Chapter one I’ve just gotten back from working like some sorry yard dog—for free! And get this: I was so glad to do it, I couldn’t wait to get started. Well, I’m sitting here on my back porch just shaking, and it’s not from doing all that work. Yeah, I’ve just come through the worst summer anybody could ever have, and I’m not even sure I’m through with all the mess I got into. Anyway, it didn’t have nothing to do with the big War between us and the sorry Germans and Japs. Naw, it was just me, my best friend, John Clayton Reed, and Leroy, who everybody calls Ears, against a snoopy Marshal and—get this—a private investigator who came all the way down to Norphlet from Little Rock. I’m just a 13-year-old skinny, black-haired paperboy, and I started the summer figuring it would be real slow around Norphlet. Heck, everything is slow around Norphlet, even when we had those war maneuvers and the Army troops marched through town. And things in the summer are always slow as molasses in January. I live on a little farm in South Arkansas about a mile down the road from the little town of Norphlet, and ’bout all I know is who gets what paper. Yeah, I’m the durn paperboy. I deliver the El Dorado News-Times, the Arkansas Gazette, and the Shreveport Times. So, while it doesn’t take a genius to throw a paper, you durn sure don’t want to throw someone an El Dorado paper, when they’re supposed to be getting a Little Rock one, ’cause messing up on one throw can make all the next throws wrong. And if you don’t think that’s big trouble, you don’t know Doc, the newsstand owner, who rides around in a wheelchair like the Lone Ranger, or sometimes when he has that cigarette holder clamped between his teeth, and has his old felt hat on, he looks like President Roosevelt. Hey, I just said how slow Norphlet is, and it sounds boring doesn’t it? But let me tell you something right now. Life in Norphlet may be slow, but it sure ain’t boring. I think you’ll believe me when I tell you a few things that happened over the last weeks, and then you’ll get just a hint how exciting living in Norphlet can be. Uh, well, maybe it wasn’t all that exciting for everybody, but it was durn sure exciting for me and my friends. It all started one morning in mid-June as I was running my paper route—Uh, well, I usually don’t run unless I have to... you know, dogs and such—anyway, I passed Rosalie’s house (she’s the school beauty), and she walked out to pick up the paper, and said “Hello, Richard.” And get this: She smiled at me! ’Course, she’s just the prettiest girl in the whole danged school. And, well, after that, the next 22 papers went to the wrong houses, and, oh my gosh, by the time I got back to the newsstand Doc was all wound up. He had the phone off the hook and he almost threw at me when I walked in the door. “Richard!” he yelled, before I was even in the newsstand, “have you lost your ever-loving mind! You threw the wrong paper to every house on Front Street! This damn phone has been ringing off the wall! You know what that means?” Yeah, I knew: a 5-cent deduction for every wrong throw. I’m no math genius, but I figured, I was gonna come out in the hole that day, and I sure did. Doc handed me a slip of paper that had some numbers on it, and, sure enough, I owed Doc a danged dollar and 10 cents. Heck, I only make a few dollars a week, and I have to work 365 days a year. I’ll just bet I’m the only danged person in town who has to work on Christmas Day. Yeah, getting mixed up and chunking the wrong papers was a stupid thing to do, but you know something? I really didn’t think the route was a bust, not after Rosalie said hello and smiled at me. But I wasn’t finished with that mess. Heck, old Doc yelled again, “Take these papers and get your skinny butt back down Front Street, and don’t miss another house or you’re fired!” “Yes, sir.” I grabbed the extra papers and was out the door before Doc could yell at me again. Heck, I knew old Doc wasn’t gonna fire me, but, dang, when he gets riled up the best thing to do is hightail it out of the newsstand. Doc has been known to throw a rolled-up newspaper at me when I have a bad day, and a rolled-up paper whacking the side of your head ain’t the best way to start your morning. I know Doc sounds like a mean old man—and he is, sometimes—but really, me and Doc are good friends, and I’ll tell Doc stuff I won’t even tell Momma and Daddy. Anyway, I headed back down Front Street to toss the right papers at the right houses, and wouldn’t you know... it started raining. Yeah, another really bad day for the Norphlet paperboy—me! You know, it’s a fact that paperboys have just about the worst job in the whole world. Yeah, you’re durn tootin’ they do, and let me tell you why. Heck, it’s okay when it’s kinda nice out, and they aren’t any dogs around. But it’s the dang dogs and the weather that gives us paperboys fits. Let me tell you just the rest of this really true story about when I was jumped by a pack of wild, flesh-eating Chihuahuas. Naw, I’m not kidding. I was attacked by a whole bunch of’em, and it was just horrible, and it kicked off a real wing-ding for yours truly. Yep, it sure did and before it was over two of my friends were all mixed up in the whole mess, and it looked like we were on a one-way trip to the Arkansas Reform School over in Texarkana. Now the whole thing about mean Chihuahuas might sound a little strange ’cause, as you know, Chihuahuas are really little. Heck, when they attacked I just started laughing, but I didn’t laugh very long. This is just how it went. I’d just drawed back to chunk an El Dorado Daily News, when I heard this high-sounding, squeaky barking and, shoot, here comes about 10 of them little dogs—a whole litter, and their momma—and you wouldn’t believe it, they ran right under the gate. Well, I started laughing again. You know it really did seem funny to see a whole pack coming at me snarling and barking like they was gonna eat me alive, when they’re about the size of a big rat. But, shoot, they just kept running straight for me, and before I knew it, I was surrounded.