The World Next Door by Brad Ferguson

Author:Brad Ferguson [Ferguson, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780812537956
Google: p7owGwAACAAJ
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
Published: 1990-10-15T06:00:00+00:00

JAKE GARFIELD DROPPED THE LOAD OF WOOD HE

was carrying into the Gordons’ bin and sighed wearily. For someone who’d practically made a career of being painfully skinny, he was beginning to feel an embarrassing tautness in his arms and legs, almost as if he were developing muscles. The fact didn’t displease him and, in fact, he felt better than he’d been feeling for a long, long time. lake looked around to see if anyone was watching, and then crooked his right arm to make a muscle. The stringy thing there was turning into a discernible bump, all right. He felt it again and was impressed with himself. It showed what rest, exercise and good food could do for a person. Doc had been right, after all.

Jake and Prosper had been working on a for-hire basis since their arrival in McAndrew two weeks before. Prosper had been out since early that morning on a fence-repair job in the south part of town, just off Logger’s Trail. As it had turned out, Jess Harper had been absolutely right about the Cokes. Everyone had wanted to gawk at the six-pack and touch the slick, painted steel of the cans, but no one had wanted to buy the thing. When Jake would invite a prospect to make an offer, the man would laugh and shake his head and, sometimes, pat him on the shoulder. Jake had finally hidden the Cokes away and gone to work. Work, at least, had real, usable value.

Jake and Prosper had begun by singing for their supper for the first few days. Just about everyone, from the mayor on down, desired the company of the buskers. The buskers knew, however, that nothing got older faster than the act of a couple of guys who didn’t know when to stop singing long enough to do some honest work. Jake had begun cutting firewood for people, using an axe, a maul and a set of wedges he’d rented from Dick LeClerc. Prosper did odd jobs for pay and, in a gesture the town had appreciated, he’d volunteered for five hours of community service per week to pay for the schooling he was getting from Miss Neary, who’d refused direct payment.

A great deal of hard work later, Jake and Prosper held a comfortable number of the lOUs that served as currency in McAndrew. The partners still busked— but only on Saturday night and Sunday afternoons, and only when there wasn’t something else for them to do. They stood to earn a pile from folks who, with the sudden availability of skilled and dependable labor, found themselves unwilling or unable to cut their own wood or do other chores to prepare for the coming winter . . , and it didn’t hurt any that Jake and Prosper always threw in a little extra cut wood beyond the cord or two contracted for. Jake knew that, for his part, his woodchopping would soon win him real carpentry jobs—small ones at first, and then jobs requiring more skill.

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