She was probably Kate‘s oldest friend in the Park, after Bobby Clark. And she was Global Harvest‘s new representative to the Park.

So, what were you doing at the school? Kate said.

Mandy nodded at Johnny and Van. I‘ll let them tell you about it. See you later. She slopped through the mud to a Ford Explorer with the now familiar sunrise-overthe-Quilaks logo on the side and drove off.

Kate put the Ranger in gear. What‘s she talking about?

Van was tucked beneath Johnny‘s arm. They exchanged glances. Mandy made a speech at the potluck. The mine‘s offering summer jobs to kids sixteen and older. Really, Kate said. What kind of jobs?

Roustabout.

Kate thought back to Jim‘s definition of roustabout. What would you be doing, exactly?

Picking up trash, Johnny said.

Washing dishes or making beds, Van said.

Scrubbing pots.

Janitor work.

Typing and filing.

Oh. They bumped over a section of washboard without anyone being ejected out of the pickup, a minor triumph in the days between breakup and summer. So the job‘s just for the summer?

Yeah.

Hourly?

Yeah.

Minimum wage?

Yeah, but anything over eight hours is time and a half, and holidays are double time.

Federal minimum wage was currently $6.55 an hour. Time and a half would be $9.83. They were both sixteen. Kate didn‘t know if state law required them to be eighteen to work overtime. She wasn‘t sure if the state was geared up yet to send a labor inspector out to the Suulutaq, though, and it wasn‘t like Johnny and Van didn‘t know what a long day was like. What‘s the shift?

Twelve hours a day, seven days a week, two weeks on, two weeks off. But Mandy says depending on how good we are and what needs to be done, there‘s the possibility we could work back-to-back shifts straight through the summer. Kate ran a rapid mental calculation. Twelve hours times seven days equaled eightyfour. Forty hours times $6.55 was only $262, but forty-four hours times $9.83 was $432.52. Almost seven hundred dollars a week total, she said out loud. Twentyeight hundred a month. Even if you figured a third for taxes, it was still a fortune to a teenager. Especially one who lived in the Park, and with the economy in the toilet it looked like a king‘s ransom. Kate had been squirreling away a quarter of every paycheck into Johnny‘s college fund but this would at the very least pay for textbooks.

What about crewing on the Freya? she said.

Johnny looked uncomfortable. Do you think Old Sam will mind much? He hates breaking in new help, she said. It was true. It was also true that Old Sam had hired Johnny in the first place so he could keep Kate on as a deckhand. At least at first. However, Johnny had proved himself, both as a quick learner and as remarkably reliable for one of whom Old Sam referred to as the hormonally challenged.

It‘s a lot of money, Kate.