The Get Rich Quick Club by Dan Gutman Page A

“Chester likes company.”
    I didn’t have anything better to do. I found a low branch that I could dig a sneaker into and climbed up on the tree, giving Chester a pat on the top of his head. The pig oinked contentedly.
    â€œAre you going to camp this summer?” I asked Rob.
    â€œMy folks don’t believe in camps,” he replied. I remembered that Rob’s parents were real back-to-nature types. “They say planned activity in an artificial environment stifles creativity.”
    â€œI wish I was going to camp,” I said. “I waited the whole school year for summer to come, and now I have nothing to do. This is going to be the most boring summer ever.”
    â€œYou know, a person’s average life expectancy is less than eighty years,” Rob informed me. “That’s eighty summers of living. We’ve already used up eleven. More than one-eighth of our lives.”
    I had never looked at it that way. Rob was always thinking of things that made you look at the world in a new way. In this case, it only made me depressed. It reminded me that I would be twelve in a year, and I wasn’t even close to making my first million.
    â€œG’day, mates!”
    The voice came from below. Rob and I immediately knew it was Quincy Biddle. Quincy is a girl who moved here from Australia in the middle of fifth grade. “G’day, mates” is the way Australians say hello.
    â€œLovely arvo,” Quincy said. “Mind if I join the chin-wag? I had an appointment at the fang carpenter to adjust my railway tracks.” 1
    Australians speak English, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. They use a lot of words that don’t exactly make sense in America. Like, when Quincy says the phrase “dead horse,” she’s not talking about a horse that is dead. She means tomato sauce. It was a little weird the first time I went through the lunch line next to her on pizza day.
    You know how Eskimos have about fifty different words to say “snow”? Well, Australians have about fifty different ways to say “stupid.” If somebody is stupid, you can call them a drongo. Isn’t that a greatword? Or you could call them a boofhead or a ning-nong.
    Here are some other words Quincy taught us to use in place of stupid: gumby, nit, alf, mug, deadhead, dipstick, wombat, dill, dag, and ratbag. You’d be surprised how often this comes in handy in everyday conversation.
    Rob invited Quincy to join us, and she climbed the tree. Rob, Chester, and I moved over to make room for her.
    â€œAny bities up here?” Quincy asked. “Cripes, I’m stroppy! I just got off the blower with my crumblies. They live out in woop woop, and they must have ear-bashed me for an hour! It seems they got into a bingle and their Toyota is jigged. Now it’s not worth a crumpet and they can’t flog it. Grandpa’s as angry as a frog in a sock!” 2
    Man, I could listen to Quincy talk all day.
    â€œBlimey!” Quincy exclaimed. “Some ankle biters have lobbed over.” 3
    I looked down to see two little kids. It was the Bogle twins, Eddie and Teddy. They’re eight, and annoying. Eddie was holding a big wooden box in his hand.
    â€œWhatcha doing in the tree?” Teddy asked.
    â€œTrying to hide from you gerbils,” I replied.
    â€œCan we climb up?” they asked simultaneously.
    â€œNo!” Rob, Quincy, and I replied. Chester oinked.
    They didn’t go away. I knew they wouldn’t. The Bogle twins never go away. They’re like those inflatable punching bags. No matter how many times you knock them down, they always come back for more punishment.
    â€œWhat’s in the box?” I asked Eddie.
    â€œI’ll tell you if you let us up.”
    â€œIt’s against the law for second graders to climb trees,” Rob informed the twins.
    â€œIt is not,” Teddy countered. “I climb trees all the time.”
    â€œThe