council. Now she started doing commissioned posters for a dollar-fifty
apiece. She was too shy to solicit orders, so I did it for her. Lots of kids
at Welch High wanted customized posters to hang on their bedroom
walls—of their boyfriend's or girlfriend's name, of their car or their
astrological sign or their favorite band. Lori designed the names in big
fat overlapping three-dimensional letters like the kind on rock albums,
then painted them in Day-Glo colors, outlined in india ink so the letters
popped, and surrounded them with stars and dots and squiggly lines that
made the letters seem like they were moving. The posters were so good
that word of mouth spread, and soon Lori had such a backlog of orders
that she was up working until one or two every morning.
I made money babysitting and doing other kids' homework. I did book
reports, science essays, and math. I charged a dollar per assignment and
guaranteed at least an A– or the customer was entitled to a full refund.
After school, I babysat for a dollar an hour and could usually do the
homework then. I also tutored kids for two dollars an hour.
We told Brian about the escape fund, and he pitched in, even though we
hadn't included him in our plans because he was only in the seventh
grade. He mowed lawns or chopped wood or cut hillside weeds with a
scythe. He worked after school until the sun went down and all day
Saturday and Sunday and came home with his arms and face scratched
from the brush he'd cleared. Without looking for thanks or praise, he
quietly added his earnings to the pig, which we named Oz.
We kept Oz on the old sewing machine in the bedroom. Oz had no
plugged hole on the bottom, and the slot on the top was too narrow to
work bills out, even if you used a knife, so once you'd put money into
Oz, it stayed there. We tested it to make sure. We couldn't count the
money, but because Oz was translucent, we could see our cash
accumulating inside when we held him up to the light. One day that
winter, when I came home from school, a gold Cadillac Coupe DeVille
was parked in front of the house. I wondered if the welfare agency had