Excerpt: Kaitlin Herringtrotter, World's Richest Human

Dirt Rich

Her first business was a little worming operation. A green business with no overhead. Kaitlin Herringtrotter ran it out of the garden owned by the people she lived with, the Parents. Well, not ran it but biked it from the Parents’ garden to the little store down the road, because wormses won’t be herded you know. Anyway, Kaitlin was a child, about seven, and she had money on her mind and her mind on her money. And that dollar-a-week allowance wasn’t cutting it. (Readers: Dollars were something like knarnacks, only 500,000% smaller. This was back in the 20th Century.)

In the beginning, before the business venture, worms were intimidating to Kaitlin. Scary even. Like scary little brown scary snakes. And snakes were like little brown inner tubes that had broken and had a hissing hole and could quicken themselves, and you wouldn’t want to float on the lake on one of those, would you? The Parents explained that worms don’t hurt, that “they help the dirt and the grass and they don’t even have teeth. Look. See? No chompers.” Kaitlin stared suspiciously at the worm wriggling in the paw of the man Parent. She didn’t buy it. The Parents were often confused, giving advice like “Never take candy from strangers, they kidnap” while promoting a guy named Santa Claus, letting him break into the house every year. Santa gave candy canes but at what cost?

Then along came Rhoda. Rhoda was the girl across the street, a year younger in years but years older in terms of bravery and brains and pooping in suitcases.

“Hey you can get money from these wormsies, you can,” Rhoda said, her upper lip stained red with either cherry Kool-aid or blood.

“Worms give money?” Kaitlin examined the worm, her fear miraculously cured. She couldn’t discern the location of the payout system. Unless the dollar bill was rolled up inside, there—

“The man from the little store, he gives a penny a worm.”

“Why’s he want worms?”

“Says fish like ’em. I dunno, who cares. A penny a worm.”

Kaitlin looked down at the penny wriggling in her hand. She and Rhoda were in business.