Mike's Wager

Is his hometown going to break his heart?

Mike Kennedy’s college pals at Cambridge refuse to believe that his hometown, Tide’s Way, North Carolina, is the good-hearted Mayberry Mike depicts. They bet him money that no one in Tide’s Way will offer him a helping hand if he spends a week disguised as a grungy, dangerous-looking homeless guy. Mikes takes the bet.

So there he was, spending a chilly, rainy Spring break shivering and hungry under an old tarp draped over the railing of the bandstand on Tide’s Way’s small common. Three days had gone by without anyone offering him so much as a cup of coffee. He hated to lose the money he’d wagered but even worse, he hated that his hometown was apparently not what he’d thought it was. Would anyone prove that Tide’s Way lived up to its ideals?