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eBook Category: Young Adult
eBook Description: Stan Ruffo is a seventeen-year-old white boy who loves the Blues. But everybody knows white boys ain't got no soul, and to his peers, Blues definitely is not the "in" thing. These attitudes are not lost on Stan (who believes he has no soul), but still, he is determined to become the best Blues harp player there is. He knows it can happen if only he can find his Grandfather's magic harp (the one that had belonged to Little Walter). His journey begins with a belief in the magic of a harmonica and ends with the realization that the magic is in him.

eBook Publisher: The Fiction Works, Published: http://www.fictionworks.com, 2004
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2004

1 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [538 KB], eReader (PDB) [188 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [167 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [151 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [183 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [204 KB], hiebook (KML) [418 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [219 KB], iSilo (PDB) [138 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [173 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [69 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [231 KB]
Words: 54216
Reading time: 154-216 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

I'm definitely a white boy. Not a very pretty one either. I'm tall and skinny, my hair is true carrot color, halfway between red and bright orange. My skin's washed out white, my eyes pale blue. Not sexy deep blue, or greenish blue, or baby blue, but the color of paint after you put in too much water.

I'm not completely colorless. I'm blessed with freckles. Just look at my arms. At least the zits on my face get confused with the rusty-colored freckles.

And I ain't got no soul. That's what this black kid yelled at me yesterday. Up at the harmonica competition in Eureka. I knew it was true. That's why my stomach twisted so bad. I'd known for a long, long time. I'd just never heard anyone say it before. "Hey, don't ya know white boys ain't got no soul." That's what one of them told me, all right. Three black teenagers, and the other two laughed and backed him up.

The sky groaned, and the air was so heavy that breathing was hard. I leaned against the big old oak in my front yard and squinched my eyes and clenched my teeth.

Just once I thought. Just once, I had to do something important. But what? I kicked backwards at the trunk of the tree so hard I hurt my heel. Sure, me, Stan Ruffo, the procrastinator. Do what?

A voice behind my left shoulder whispered, "Do something." A voice in my right ear answered, "You can't! Forget it, Stan."

And so began the summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I was seventeen. You 'd recognize me, every school has one or dozen just like me. The guy no one sees walking the halls, the ghost who sits next to you in biology class and the dork in PE. You forget his name because it embarrasses you to remember.

I am lousy in sports. My grades aren't that great. I'm not dumb. It's just that there's so much stuff going on at home it's hard to survive let alone do homework. I was born and raised in this little town. A big nobody. A nothing. But I can play the harmonica, except I ain't got no soul.

Ominous black cumulus clouds roiled in the sky. I leaned against the rough bark of an ancient oak in front of the old single story house I've lived in since I was nine. Since somebody murdered my grandparents on the farm.

I live with my mom. Ours is the traditional single parent family. Mom was seventeen when I was born and swears she has no idea who the lucky boy was that got her pregnant. It's no big thing, I've never missed him. I wouldn't like him even if I did know who he was.

My mom was a real good looking girl back then. When I see her pictures in the family album, I can't hardly see her as she is today. I'll never use drugs or smoke cigarettes and I sure as hell won't do booze. She's only thirty-four and a wreck. The only thing is, she thinks she's still a real beautiful teenager. My mom's the town slut.

Gramps said they made a mistake by spoiling her too much. When mom got into her teens no one could tell her what she couldn't do. So when she was warned against drugs, she had to try them. It started with marijuana when she was thirteen. After I was born it went to everything in the book.

My street is narrow, tree-lined and quiet. Our whole town is tree-lined and quiet. But what else can you expect when you live in southwest Oregon.

Shoot, I'm not complaining. I like the quiet, and I like knowing who everyone in town is. I know they know who I am, Rita Ruffo's kid. Rita the druggy, the alcoholic. Easy Rita Ruffo.

My chest tightened again, and I heard those darn words 'no soul, no soul'. The feeling squeezed tighter. It was one I'd known for years. You know, when you do something you wished you hadn't, even when it isn't wrong. I wished I hadn't gone to the competition.