The Seventeenth Swap (17 page)

Eric, who was still looking, with great enjoyment, reflected that if he ever decided to collect anything, it was going to be expressions like the one on Jimmy's face. But they'd be hard to come by. Rarer than even the rarest of old English ginger beer bottles.

“Hey, Eric!” Jimmy had hauled one stick-thin little leg across the other knee and was peering delightedly at a boot. “Those designs are
stitched
in there! Not just drawn, they're stitched! See that star? Wow, isn't that something? These'll last
forever!”

“They won't fit you forever,” Eric couldn't help reminding him. “You going to cut the toes out when they get too short?”

“Aah, no!” Jimmy gave an ebullient giggle. “I'll paste 'em in my memory book! Or frame 'em and hang 'em on the wall!”

Eric laughed with him. Everything seemed worth a laugh today. He wasn't even sure it was Jimmy's expression that was making him feel so extra good—so free and light and midsummery, like floating on his back in the lake. That was part of it, but not all. He'd
liked the whole boot operation—the swapping, and thinking it up himself, and getting to know people like Maggie and Robert Sparrow, and making complicated deals. He might do more of that; Maggie had told him when he phoned last night that she'd give him five percent commission on whatever he brought in that she could sell for more than five dollars. And he had his new job posing for Robert Sparrow, plus the old job too. He was going to make pretty good money—too bad there weren't any boots to use it for now.

There was Christmas, still ages away. Naturally he always got Dad a present, and Willy. But it was beginning to seem a shame to use real money for anything, when you could accomplish so much with swaps. Idly, he thought again of what Dad had said that day. Maybe Robert Sparrow would swap an hour's posing for one of the drawings he didn't want—the ones he said he threw away . . . Eric was sure Dad would rather have a drawing of him hanging by his knees or flying over the treetops than any dumb school picture. And that wouldn't take money either.

Well, he'd save his money. He'd
save up to buy a bike.

Of course! thought Eric, electrified. Why didn't I think of that first thing? I don't need a
new
bike. I could make a deal with Willy—that whenever he gets that twelve-speed I get his old ten—for a down payment and something or other per month. Maybe even swap him stuff for the something per month. I'll have to find out things he wants.

“Or else,” Jimmy was saying hopefully, “I might get a bigger pair when I outgrow these. I might go on
getting bigger and bigger pairs till I'm all grown up, and by then I'll be a regular cowboy and I'll need a horse! I might be able to ride a horse someday—don't you think so, Eric?”

“I don't really know,” Eric told him, wishing he hadn't heard the slight wistful note in Jimmy's voice. A tiny cloud of worry appeared in his mind's clear sky. He said uneasily, “Are you
really
set on being a cowboy when you grow up?”

Jimmy gave one of his teasing giggles, and Eric knew it was a joke on him. “No! I'm set on being a nuclear physicist, silly. How could I be a cowboy with these dumb legs? What're you gonna be? Oh, I know. A librarian.”

Eric hesitated. “Yeah, well, maybe.”

“That's what you always said.”

“I know,” Eric admitted. “But lately . . . well, I've been doing some thinking.”

A
lot
of thinking, he reflected, along with all the swapping and sprinting around. And a lot of discovering things about Eric Greene, most of them new and surprising. Even the thinking was new and surprising—because it wasn't a bit like Dad's. He seemed to have swapped that, too, for a set of ideas all his own.

Which made it swap number seventeen.

“So you
aren't
going to be a librarian?” persisted Jimmy.

“Oh, sure, I might,” Eric told him. He smiled and slid further into his chair. “But I dunno,” he added comfortably. “I just might go into business for myself.”

By the same author

The Money Room

Hideaway

A Really Weird Summer

Copyright © 1986 by Eloise McGraw

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Margaret K. McElderry Books is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Designed by Christine Kettner

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McGraw, Eloise Jarvis.

The seventeenth swap.

“A Margaret K. McElderry book.”

Summary: Having no money, an eleven-year-old begins a series of swaps to get the child he babysits for a pair of cowboy boots.

I. Title. II. Title: 17th swap.

PZ7.M47853Se  1986   [Fic]   86-8791

ISBN 978-1-4814-8807-5

ISBN 978-1-4814-8883-9 (ebook)