Even though Mr. Charton was not really interested in anything but drugs, we sold everything that drugstores sell, from bicycle tires to home permanent kits.
Including soap, of course.
We were selling darned little Skyway Soap; Centerville is conservative about new brands-I’ll bet some of them made their own soap. But when I showed up for work that day I had to tell Mr. Charton about it. He dug out two dustcovered boxes and put them on the counter. Then he phoned his jobber in Springfield.
He really did right by me. He marked Skyway Soap down almost to cost and pushed it-and he almost always got the wrappers before he let the customer go. Me, I stacked a pyramid of Skyway Soap on each end of the fountain and every coke was accompanied by a spiel for good old Skyway, the soap that washes cleaner, is packed with vitamins, and improves your chances of Heaven, not to mention its rich creamy lather, finer ingredients, and refusal to take the Fifth Amendment. Oh, I was shameless! Anybody who got away without buying was deaf or fast on his feet.
If he bought soap without leaving the wrappers with me he was a magician. Adults I talked out of it; kids, if I had to, I paid a penny for each wrapper. If they brought in wrappers from around town, I paid a dime a dozen and threw in a cone. The rules permitted a contestant to submit any number of entries as long as each was written on a Skyway Soap wrapper or reasonable facsimile.
I considered photographing one and turning out facsimiles by the gross, but Dad advised me not to. “It is within the rules, Kip, but I’ve never yet known a skunk to be welcome at a picnic.”
So I used soap. And I sent in wrappers with slogans:
“I use Skyway Soap because-
-it makes me feel so clean.”
-highway or byway, there’s no soap like Skyway!”
-its quality is sky-high.”
-it is pure as the Milky Way.”
-it is pure as Interstellar Space.”
-it leaves me fresh as a rain-swept sky.”
And so on endlessly, until I tasted soap in my dreams. Not just my own slogans either; Dad thought them up, and so did Mother and Mr. Charton. I kept a notebook and wrote them down in school or at work or in the middle of the night. I came home one evening and found that Dad had set up a card file for me and after that I kept them alphabetically to avoid repeating. A good thing, too, for toward the last I sent in as many as a hundred a day. Postage mounted, not to mention having to buy some wrappers.
Other kids in town were in the contest and probably some adults, but they didn’t have the production line I had. I’d leave work at ten o’clock, hurry home with the day’s slogans and wrappers, pick up more slogans from Dad and Mother, then use a rubber stamp on the inside of each wrapper: “I use Skyway Soap because-” with my name and address. As I typed, Dad filled out file cards. Each morning I mailed the bunch on my way to school.
I got laughed at but the adults most inclined to kid me were quickest to let me have their wrappers.
All but one, an oaf called “Ace” Quiggle. I shouldn’t class Ace as an adult; he was an over-age juvenile delinquent. I guess every town has at least one Ace. He hadn’t finished Centerville High, a distinction since Mr. Hanley believed in promoting everybody “to keep age groups together.” As far back as I remember Ace hung around Main Street, sometimes working, mostly not.
He specialized in “wit.” He was at our fountain one day, using up two dollars’ worth of space and time for one thirty-five-cent malt. I had just persuaded old Mrs. Jenkins to buy a dozen cakes and had relieved her of the wrappers. As she left, Ace picked one off my counter display and said, “You’re selling these. Space Cadet?”
“That’s right, Ace. You’ll never find such a bargain again.”
“You expect to go to the Moon, just selling soap, Captain? Or should I say ‘Commodore’? Yuk yuk yukkity yuk!” That’s how Ace laughed, like a comic strip.