Mudville Read Online Free PDF Page A

you want to take a break? Dad said we get one short break in the morning.”
    “You go ahead.” He tosses a scoop of mud into the barrow.
    If I can't talk to someone, a break is just standing around in the rain. So I keep working, counting shovelfuls.
    I try again after another hundred scoops of mud. “We should really take our break now. Otherwise, we'll miss it. It'll be lunch soon.”
    “You go ahead.” Sturgis plants his shovel into the mud before setting off to dump the barrow on the pile.
    I can't understand how he is so far ahead of me. It's not that he's stronger, I think. He's just faster. I wonder if maybe the ground is softer where Sturgis is or if he has a better shovel. I grab his shovel and dig up some mud. It's the same kind of mud and the same kind of shovel.
    Frank comes up behind me. He whistles and slaps me on the back. “Good work. Come on, junior, we're taking an early lunch.” It doesn't surprise me he's already hungry. I'm hungry myself now that he mentions it.
    Frank sees Sturgis returning with his wheelbarrow. “Leave the barrow, kid. It's lunchtime.”
    “You guys go ahead.” Sturgis picks up his shovel.
    “You got to take a break,” says Frank. “It's the law.”
    Sturgis reluctantly plants his shovel.
    Frank elbows me in the ribs and whispers, “He just feels bad because you're so far ahead.”
    I try to tell Frank the truth, but he's gone, hollering toeveryone that it's lunchtime. He finally sends some guy off to get burgers, and I have a chance to talk to him.
    “Sturgis dug the big hole,” I tell him. “He's been working really hard.”
    “You're a good kid, Roy.” He claps me on the back. “You can work for me anytime.” He goes back to joking around with his buddies. I feel a little bit better.
    “Hey, you're the McGuire kid, right?” a fellow wants to know when I sit down. I don't really know the guy. I think his name is Ted or Tom or something. He's one of the youngest guys on the crew, like maybe he just got out of high school. Or dropped out, even.
    “That's me.”
    “And who's the funny-looking kid? The one you were working with?”
    “He's my new foster brother.”
    “Your dad takes in strays?”
    “I guess so.”
    I realize Sturgis has come to join us, but he veers away and leaves the tent.
    “He's a good guy,” I tell Tom or Ted, feeling a little guilty.
    The burgers come, but the bags go all the way through the line before they come to me. I get the last two burgers and one box of fries. Sturgis and I will have to share, I suppose.
    I don't see him anywhere, though. I poke my head out of the tent but don't see him. I walk around the building and glance up at a ladder just in time to see one duct-taped shoe disappearing over the top.
    I climb one-handed up the ladder, holding the bag of food. It's not easy. When I finally reach the top, Sturgis is sitting in a small cave of plastic where the workers have begun building the Rain Redirection System.
    “Are you going to have lunch?” I push the bag at him.
    “Sure.” He reaches into the bag for a (slightly wet, mostly cold) hamburger.
    “That guy I was talking to is just some idiot.”
    “Oh, heck, I've heard a lot worse.” He unwraps his burger.
    “I told Frank you did all the work, too. He just made a mistake. So if you're mad about that…”
    “It's no big deal. Frank doesn't really care if we do any-thing anyway.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “We're just some kids his boss foisted on him. He doesn't care how much work we do. He just wants us to stay out of the way.”
    “I don't know. Dad says they're shorthanded.”
    “Maybe they are, but we're just kids. We're not that much help.” He's already done with his burger. I get my own while I can. I must be pretty hungry, because even cold, it's not bad.
    “So why do you work so hard?”
    “I don't know. To show you up?”
    I laugh. “You're doing a good job.”
    “Wow, check that out.”
    I turn around. Through a flap in the plastic, we can