Carol knew from the start. I suppose I’m more trusting…well, naïve.

There was pounding on the front door. Ollie raced downstairs and I followed. At first I didn’t see anyone, and then realized it was a kid.

He was smiling. His bicycle lay on the driveway behind him.

“Can you help?”

He had my attention, although from the smile and demeanor, I could tell this wasn’t a desperate situation. He launched into his story. It was his sister’s birthday and he needed some money to get her a gift.

“You have a lot of leaves; I can rake leaves,” he volunteered.

I held onto Ollie’s collar. He kept wagging his tail. The boy reached over and petted him.

“Who is it?” Carol asked from upstairs. I gave her the short version, saying it was someone who wanted to rake leaves.

The boy kept petting Ollie, looking up to me for an answer.

“I could get that,” he said, pointing to a pile collected in the drive.

Now that I looked, there were plenty of leaves, even though most of them were still on the trees.

I left Ollie inside and walked out into the driveway.

“I could use your rake,” he volunteered. We had bags, but I wasn’t planning to start the yard cleanup so early. Yet, there was an appeal to helping this kid out and at least cleaning up the driveway.

“What’s your name?”

The boy gave a name, which on reflection I don’t know was his real name, but I’ll call him Jake. I asked where he lived, and he said Hoxsie.

“How much should I pay you?”

“There’s a lot here,” Jake said sweeping his arm to encompass the entire yard. “You tell me.”

I waited for his answer. He asked me again. I waited for him.

“One hundred dollars,” he said.

The number caught me by surprise. “One hundred dollars?” I repeated in disbelief.

“That’s the whole yard…it’s going to take a long time.”

“What about the driveway and that pile over there?” I asked pointing.

Jake looked and asked, “You tell me.”

“Okay,” I answered, “$15 to do the driveway and the pile.”

Jake was agreeable. I found the rake and was getting the bags when Carol came out.

“I don’t want you going in the garden,” she said, flashing me an angry look. Jake said he wouldn’t rake any leaves from the garden.

I went over what he was going to do and handed Jake the rake.

When we went back in the house, Carol told me this was the same kid who pounded on the front door accompanied by another kid several months ago suggesting they could do odd jobs and looking for money. She didn’t trust him.

“Let’s give him a chance and see,” I said.

Five minutes later she looked out the window to find him raking the leaves into the shrubbery on one side of the drive. She was fuming. She went out, returning with the story that Jake claimed to have been stung by a bee. She said she was then concerned and asked to see where. Jake pulled up his sleeve to reveal an old scratch.

With one bag filled and another started, I want out to get a progress report. Jake was waiting, not raking.

“Well,” I said, “it looks like you have a good start.”

“This is what you said.”

I looked again. There were a couple of piles in the drive and he hadn’t reached the halfway point.

“What about those piles and the rest of the drive?”

“That wasn’t part of it. That’s $20.”

“We had a deal for $15,” I said.

Grudgingly, he went back to filling bags. I gave him a hand. We got to the halfway point on the drive and he stopped.

“Are you going to finish?”

“I figure it’s this far,” he said. We had two bags filled.

“Okay,” I said, “but you realize, you haven’t completed the job. I’ll pay you, but don’t come back.”

I hoped he’d want to finish. He was enterprising and obviously skilled with a story, albeit not truthful. There’s potential, but he needs direction. A couple of days later, I talked with school officials. They knew immediately who I was talking about. They would be paying close attention.

But what can they do?

I thought of Peter Koch. Peter was the mentor for a couple of boys through the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership. He was matched with kids who were identified as being “at risk” in elementary school and would stick with them through high school. His visits were during the school day and were for one hour a week. He gained permission to take his mentees on cool trips like a Patriots game. When one of his mentees confided he was going to drop out of school, Peter listened and apparently agreed that the situation was tough, but he also described the benefits of completing high school. The boy ended up graduating.

I wonder how Peter might have handled Jake. Would he have challenged him to live up to his side of the bargain? Might he have upped the ante and offered him something better?

I felt uncomfortable as I went inside to get my wallet. Not paying him or paying only half would have made me the villain. Paying him more would have rewarded his conniving.

I came out to find Jake on his bike waiting. I handed him the money that he quickly pocketed without counting.

He started pedaling and just as he reached the road he said, “Sorry.”

Maybe the experience changed his outlook, maybe he was truly regretful. I want to believe that.