Chapter 9 - New Shop Car

Chapter 9 - New Shop Car

The rest of the week was alright, although I wasn’t finding high school as enjoyable as I had hoped.

Although there were more subjects, I wasn’t finding them as interesting or mentally stimulating as I thought they would be.

I had contacted Bill about my plan, I wanted him to proceed with the booster club contributions idea I had given him at our meeting. But now I had the specifics in mind, I wanted a good portion to go to the mechanical engineering class budget, that would enable Mr. Carter to have more money to buy better cars for the students to work on.

The other area was the music department, I had overheard students several times moaning about the quality of some of the instruments available.

For Shop class a couple of cars would be better than just one, he would then be able to get different problems on each, rather than an almost wreck which had a bit of everything to sort out.

I also had an idea on how to help him out in that department as well, but it would take a bit of organizing.

It would have to wait till the next week when I had a lesson with Mr. Carter to approach him about my idea, till then I had the normal school problems to get through.

Namely homework, there was much more in high school than middle school. Although I found it pretty easy to do, it still took time to complete, as well as my private Ninjutsu training this took up more of my time than I had expected. The lucky thing was my chores were now taking less time, it had only been that first time having to go over the grass multiple times which had made it take so long, now I could do it over the weekend in just one run.

That Friday was the first football game of the season, it wasn’t an actual game, just a scrimmage against one of the other local high schools. I wasn’t actually too sure what that meant, but if Rory was playing, I would be there to support him.

I was surprised when I told my parents my intentions, that they decided that they also would go to the game with me.

It was only later that they told me it was a perfect time for them to meet some of the other local people in a relaxed environment.

It would allow them while meeting other parents and locals to have a common conversation starter, that would be a lot easier than striking up a conversation in the street or a business setting.

So that Friday we all went to the school to watch the game, it was decided to eat at the game also, it would only be junk food, but it gave Mom a night off from cooking as well.

I was hoping that it might also be a time that I could make some friends, being out of school hours, I was hoping the other students might be more relaxed as well and more amenable to having a normal conversation. Unfortunately that didn’t seem to be the case, the normal groups of popular kids stuck together and brushed off anyone else wanting to talk to them. So I decided that it was probably best just to stick with Mom and Dad and hopefully enjoy the game.

The game was pretty weird compared to what I had seen on TV. For one thing the coaches were on the field some of the time rather than on the sidelines.

There were also a lot more substitutions than what I expected, Rory only played the first half, he didn’t appear at all the second half.

The team played alright, although they lost the match on points. But from what some of the other spectators were saying, it was a good performance by the JV squad, they were just hoping for better when the Varsity team played tomorrow.

The only person on that team I knew was Andy Jenks, and I didn’t think we could be counted as friends, So I wasn’t interested in going to tomorrow’s game.

My parents seemed satisfied with the people they had met and struck up conversations with, telling me that it had been a good contact session.

The work on the garage was progressing, the work crew had dug out the foundations now, the concrete was to be poured on Monday, once that was set the main construction work could start.

Our back yard was now in a mess, I could now understand why Mom had insisted about the slippers, since moving around at all left your trainers or shoes covered in mud.

Bill had called me on Sunday, he had organised a meeting with the principles of the booster club and given them my proposal, they hadn’t agreed to it entirely, wanting to be able to use money for the football team, but had agreed in principle if a small portion was used as they wanted.

Bill had agreed on my behalf, as it was more of a concession than he had expected from them. From the $50,000 I had agreed to contribute, $10,000 would be given over to the shop class, $10,000 for the music department, $20,000 into other academic needs and the rest would be used as the school saw fit. In actuality that would be given to the coaches to put into the football team.

I could live with that, I had got what I really wanted out of the donation, as it could be classed as a charitable contribution, it didn’t actually cost me anything and gave Mr. Carter a nice boost to his years budget.

Now that was settled I could progress with the rest of my plan. I had no real reason to believe it wouldn’t be accepted since it was going to be a free vehicle to work on in class, but I still needed to work it out anyway.

The start of the week went as normal, it was in shop that I would start to put my plan in progress.

Shop class was continuing from the last lesson, we were given the materials to prepare the panel for the work needed. Jose and I had a dent that needed pulling out, Mr. Carter helped us to do that, then we used a sander to get the areas back to metal. That took the whole lesson and we still hadn’t finished, Mr. Carter told us he would apply some anti-corrosive under paint to stop the panel rusting before next week lesson when we would continue.

This week my talk with Mr. Carter would eat more into my lunch hour since the lesson had taken the entire period to complete.

“Mr. Carter, would you have an hour or two tonight to look at something I think you might be interested in?”

“What would that be Jack, I am a busy man and can’t just go off on every gaunt a student asks me to.”

“I would like to show you a project I have at my house that I think you might benefit from.” I explained.

Mr. Carter considered me for a couple of seconds, “Well I can’t today, but tomorrow after school ends I suppose I could spare a few hours, but it better be worth my time Jack, or this will be the last time I allow you any latitude with me.”

“Thank you Sir, what car do you drive?”

“Me, I drive a Blue Ford Contour Jack, why?”

“Thanks Sir I will see you tomorrow. “ I had already grabbed my backpack, so I swung it up on my shoulder as I dashed off to get to the cafeteria in time to grab a sub before they were all gone.

When I got home I told Mom about my plan for the next day, she smiled when she heard about it and agreed with helping me to make it work.

So the next day after school I found Mr. Carter’s car, I was standing by it waiting for him to come out.

“Jack what are you doing?”

“Taking you to see something I think you would like to see Sir.” I told Mr. Carter who had come up behind me without me noticing.

That actually concerned me, I must have been miles away for someone to sneak up on me like that, I would have to be more careful in future.

“I wasn’t aware we had agreed on anything Jack.” Mr. Carter announced.

“Sir, I promise you will like what I have to show you.”

“I better Jack, or things in class might not be so good for you anymore.”

So I jumped in the passenger seat and directed Mr. Carter to our house. He didn’t seem to be impressed with the place to begin with, I could understand that, there was a lot of material at the front of the house, which was to be used that week on the garage construction work.