The Lost Boy by Dave Pelzer

claimed to be a “master strategist” – I had no idea what his statement meant – went on to boast that when Mom and Dad saw me coming, they would willingly throw money at me.
    “Wow!” I gasped. “This is just too cool!”
    Before quitting for the day, Big Larry and I dubbed our plan “Operation: Bug the Parent.”
    The following morning I stayed glued to Lilian’s side, begging her for extra work. An hour later she threw her arms in the air. “All right! I give up! Here, take these rags and clean the bathroom. You do know how to clean a bathroom, don’t you?”
    I smiled and said to myself,
Like you wouldn’t believe!
As I gazed up at her, I cocked my neck to one side. “How much?”
    Lilian blinked her eyes. “What?”
    “How much to clean the bathroom?” I stated in my most serious voice.
    Mrs Catanze nodded her head. “Oh, I understand. Okay, little big man, I’ll tell you what: I’ll pay you a quarter …”
    Before Lilian could complete her sentence, I replied, “No! Not enough.”
    “Aren’t you the greedy one. Okay, how much?”
    I could feel myself retreat inside. Big Larry hadn’t taught me what to do in this case. “I dunno, ” I said, as I felt all my confidence shrinking away.
    “I’ll tell you what, ” she said, hovering over me. “I’ll give you 30 cents. Take it or leave it.”
    I knew from what Big Larry had instructed me to do that whenever someone said “take it or leave it, ” it meant I should take the deal and run. I nodded my head triumphantly. “It’s a deal. Let’s shake on it.”
    Looking at Lilian, I could tell she wasn’t ready for all my high-powered art of deal making. I felt I had tricked her into not only paying me, but giving me more money than she had originally offered.
    It took me nearly two hours to clean the bathroom – as Mrs Catanze put it, “by the employer’s standards.” I felt that she had somehow taken advantage of me. As I scrubbed the tile floor for the third time, I knew that evening I would need to talk to Big Larry and complain about our fool-proof plan.
    My mixed feelings suddenly disappeared when Lilian dropped a nickel and a quarter into my eager palm. Forgetting to thank her, I raced into my room, found a jar I had saved and dropped the change into the jar. I stared into the jar every day. In less than a month I had earned over four dollars – more than enough, I figured, to fix my bike. Finally, after the right amount of pestering again, Tony, Lilian’s son, drove me in the back of his beat-up orange Chevy pickup truck to the bicycle shop. Tony knew, without my bugging him, all the parts I needed. I didn’t seem to notice how when the bill arrived, Tony came up with more cash than I had.
    That day, without permission, I borrowed some tools I had found and began to piece my bike together. After dozens of attempts at forcing the inner tubes into both tyres I wiped off my bloody knuckles, jumped on my bike and, for the first time in my life, let out a howl of victory as I breezed down the street without a care in the world.
    I remember August 21, 1973, as
my
day on
my
bike. That day was the first time I felt that I was a
normal
kid, caught up in the splendor of a never-ending day. For years I had heard the sounds of kids zooming down the street, screaming with joy as they flew by on their bikes. That day I must have ridden up and down the street a thousand times. Mrs Catanze had to drag me inside. “David Pelzer, it’s been dark for over an hour now! Get your little butt in here, now!” she barked, as I sailed past her in defiance.
    Even though my legs ached from the strain of pumping my bike up the street, I didn’t want my special day to end. As Lilian stood with her hands on her hips, I jumped off my bike and puffed all the way as I walked my bike up to her home. I could tell by the look on her face that she was about to yell at me. But I beat her to the punch by giving her my best smile.
    “All right, ” she said as she