Seventeen Against the Dealer by Cynthia Voigt

sleeve to see the time, had a heavy gold watch. “We were going to get a drink. I’ve been looking at the sails Jake’s making for me, and a beer was starting to sound pretty good. How about it, Ken? And you, too—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
    Dicey shook her head. She wanted to get on back.
    â€œDicey’s been slave labor for both of us,” Ken said. “She came to pick up some wood.”
    â€œYou’re selling firewood now?” Mr. Hobart asked. “I know things are slow, but I didn’t think they were that bad.”
    â€œDicey,” Ken said, in a mock confiding tone, “is going to become a boatbuilder.”
    He didn’t need to say it that way, as if she were about three years old. Mr. Hobart looked at her from under thick whiteeyebrows, and smiled as if there were seven hundred things he knew, things that she’d never figure out. Dicey just stared right back at him.
    â€œWhat kind of a boat are you going to build, Dicey?” Mr. Hobart asked.
    â€œA pink one.”
    It took him a minute, and then his smile came back. “Something in rose? Or more lavender?” Reluctantly, Dicey smiled, and he asked again, “What kind of boat? Seriously.”
    â€œJust a fourteen-foot rowboat, one you could put a motor on if you wanted.”
    He kept his eyes on her, as if they were playing poker. “Round-bottomed?”
    She shook her head. “Flat. I’ve never built one on my own before.”
    â€œWhere did you learn how? Where’d you study?”
    â€œNowhere,” she said. She knew what he was thinking.
    â€œWhat kind of wood did Ken give you?”
    â€œI bought it,” she told him. She’d had about enough of this conversation, and she was tired of the way they kept looking at one another, like it was all a joke, and as if she couldn’t see that. She turned around, to open the pickup door.
    â€œOkay, okay,” Mr. Hobart said. “What kind of wood did you buy?”
    â€œTamarack.” Well, it was. Tamarack was just an obscure name for it.
    â€œWhat’s that?” he asked Ken. As if she didn’t know.
    â€œLarch,” Ken told the man, his smile pretty much hidden by his new beard. Dicey put her foot on the running board.
    â€œHey, hold on, little lady,” Mr. Hobart said. “What I’m thinking is, if you’ll build it V-bottom, I’ll buy it.”
    That stopped Dicey. She looked at Ken, but he was as surprisedas she was. Behind Ken, Jake was smirking away, like the whole thing was some circus show that turned out even better than he’d hoped. She looked back at Mr. Hobart. He was waiting.
    â€œThat doesn’t seem any too smart to me,” she said, surprising him back. “Why would you want to do that?”
    He shrugged, smiled, shook his head. “You’ve worked for Ken, so you must know something. You’ve worked for Jake, too. That’s recommendation enough. I like your looks, I’ve got a boat they’re building for me up in Norwalk, an ocean cruiser, and she’ll need a dinghy. I believe in supporting local industry—”
    â€œI’m from Crisfield,” Dicey told him.
    â€œWhat is it, you don’t want an order?”
    Dicey didn’t know.
    â€œLook, here’s what I’ll do.” He reached into an inner pocket of his vest and took out a thick leather folder. Opening it, moving to rest it against the side of the pickup, he took out a pen he kept fitted in it. “I’ll pay you fifteen hundred, five hundred down and the rest on delivery—say, the first week in April? How do you spell your name?”
    Dicey told him. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t know why not to. He wrote the check, tore it out, and handed it to her. “Take this with you, and think it over. Let me know what you decide. You can rip the check up if you decide not to. My address is on it. Ask Ken