Chapter 1

Rigby sat on the curb across from the police station reading the new Blackhawk comic book he had borrowed from the rack in the drugstore. For about the millionth time he wondered why the U. S. Navy or even the Army Air Corps didn’t fly the twin-engined Grummans that the comic book’s heroes flew. And nobody made a model of the F5F either or he would have built one. The boy added that to the long list of things he didn’t understand, a list headed by girls, and looked down the road wondering why his papers were late and hoping that pretty red-head would be on the truck today.

The boy was again lost in the adventures of the heroic squadron when the old panel truck swung to the curb, the door slid open and his bundle of papers plopped out. He looked up and the girl glanced his way as she closed the door. He saw her long, bare legs. She didn’t smile. The truck merged into traffic, heading north.

Under the heavy wire that held his forty-tree copies of the Evening Star was a folded pink sheet, another complaint. “Wet paper” it said. He looked at the address and knew who it was, another one from the same house, the people that never paid on time.

Rigby bent the soft wire around his fist and put it in the big trashcan at the corner, dumped the papers into his old, wooden wagon and then started on his daily route, down Elm and up Ash and across Beall Street to the big highway. It was a good paper route, easy to do, and he usually finished it in about an hour unless the weather was bad, and he had to put the papers inside the customer’s screen door or at least out of the rain.

When he had started this job, about a year ago, he had used a big, canvas bag, but as new customers were added, he had to go to the wagon, especially on Sunday when the papers were twice as heavy.

It had been Jack Daly’s paper route, that family of many brothers, for at least a decade, and Rigby had paid him five dollars for it since there were twelve bucks shown owing in the battered receipt book. That was more than a year ago, and he had never collected any of those because the people moved away or quit taking the Star. Down the hill he went, folding papers and tossing them onto front porches or cement stoops ... A floppy-eared dog appeared from behind a house, followed him to the corner and then went back home, silently. That happened almost every day.

Rigby thought about money. He had figured out that he was making just about fifty cents a day which came to almost fifteen dollars a month, that is if all his customers paid what they owed which they seldom did. That meant that in a year, if he saved it all, at least almost all, he would have more than $150. With that much money, he could buy a car, an old car. Of course, he couldn’t drive for another three or four years, but he could get a car. If his parents let him since he would have to park in in the driveway. He could learn to drive, he decided, going up and down the driveway. He thought about fast cars, especially roadsters, red ones with rumble seats; he thought about them almost every day. Lincoln Zephyrs and Cords were high on his list but he knew he couldn’t afford either of them. An old Chevy, Willys or Ford was more in his price range.

When he got to the house that had called in the complaint he stopped thinking about cars and went to the door and knocked. A tall lady answered and blinked at him.

“You called in a complaint?” Rigby asked, holding up the pink sheet of paper.

“My husband did. The paper was all wet. He was pretty mad.”

“Wasn’t when I delivered, ma’am. Didn’t rain yesterday, y’know. Maybe your kids did it with the hose.” Rigby smiled up at her

She closed the door, firmly.

He finished his route, put his wagon in the garage, dropped his family’s paper on the dining room table and went up to his room and turned on the radio. Rigby kicked off his sneakers, unrolled his comic book and flopped on his bed. That girl

sure had long legs, he thought. She’s probably taller than me. Wonder how old she is: fifteen, sixteen maybe older. He changed the station and got just the end of the Jack Armstrong show and smiled, here it comes, the trumpets, the hoof beats and the announcer’s cry about a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi Ho Silver. It was time for the Lone Ranger.