- Victor likes sitting outside his house in the summer to read books. As he's there, he sees Ara T, the town junkman, walking by. Ara T collects junk and does odd jobs for white people, including sharpening knives.
- When Victor asks him if he'll sharpen his knife, Ara T says he has to take it home in order to do so, but he'll have it back by tomorrow. Victor hands Ara T two quarters, and watches him leave.
- He knows that he's not supposed to talk to Ara T because Mam always tells him to keep away from him, but Victor likes watching Ara T and has never seen him do anything all that bad.
- On his first Friday of collecting, Victor wears long pants and goes door to door. Most of the houses just leave their money clipped to the letterbox—phew.
- He has to knock on the door at a house where a little kid sits super close to the TV, though. The kid doesn't even move or turn around when Victor rings the doorbell.
- A man comes to the door and asks how much they owe, and Victor struggles to say 95 cents. The man hands him a dollar and tells him to keep the change.
- He goes to the door of a man named Mr. Spiro. The man comes to the door with some books in his hand and starts chattering away.
- Mr. Spiro asks for Victor's name, which is one of the things that Victor hates saying the most. This time Victor tries so hard to say his name that he forgets to breathe and passes out. Oops…
- When he comes to, Mr. Spiro has a wet rag on his head and is cleaning up the blood. Looks like Victor fell and got hurt when he passed out.
- Mr. Spiro tells Victor he has no need to be embarrassed, and says that Rat has talked about him before, bragging about what an awesome baseball pitcher Victor is.
- Then he gives Victor a corner of a dollar bill with the word "student" written on it. He tells him to go home now.
- Victor walks all the way home, hoping that his knife will be waiting for him, but it's nowhere to be found. Mam isn't in the kitchen either, so he goes up to his room and checks out the piece of the dollar that Mr. Spiro gave him.
- When Mam asks Victor how he busted up his lip over a delicious fried chicken dinner, Victor just says that he tripped. It's kinda true…
- After dinner, Victor listens on the stairs as Mam talks to his parents. She's telling them to tell her if they see Ara T hanging around the house; she doesn't trust him at all.
- Victor lies in bed and wonders why Mam is so against Ara T. He also thinks about how he'd like to talk to Mr. Spiro and Mrs. Worthington some more. They're his favorites from the route.