Chapter 15 - Party Time

Chapter 15: Party Time

It was heading toward November, classes were just the same, though having to restrict my reading to only what was covered in the lesson, kept me from being totally comatose in class.

The football teams kept on with the same type of performances, the varsity team kept on trying, but also kept on losing.

The freshman team was getting better at working together, getting the plays better organized and executed as they were planned. They won some and lost some, but they were all close games and fun to watch.

The JV team hadn’t lost a game yet, they were not winning convincingly, but they did keep on winning.

As such, Rory was becoming a big personality on campus. It had been his leadership and good quarterback skills, which had been a key reason that they kept winning.

His upcoming birthday party had initially been planned for just a few of his close friends, due to his increase in social standing, the event had escalated into a major function. The party was going to be held at a local pizza parlor, originally it had been planned as just a back room occasion, but now was going to be taking over the whole place for the evening.

I hadn’t let any of the Burns family know, but I had gotten Dad to go in and do a deal with the pizza place management. He gave them a cheque to cover the cost of hosting the party for the entire evening, it was just the amount they needed to cover the running costs.

That meant that the Burns’s would just have to pay for some of the pizzas for the party. Any extras due to larger party people could pay for themselves.

I knew that all the JV cheerleaders and several of Chloe’s freshman squad were going to be attending, so that would please the team and other guy’s going, but there was a certain girl I had an inkling that Rory would like to be there. I didn’t think that me inviting her would go down that well, I was still being avoided somewhat by the other students, whether they thought I was a loose cannon or something I wasn’t sure, but just going up to a girl to invite her to a party, that wasn’t even my own wasn’t the best plan, I could see me getting slapped or verbally abused for my audacity.

So I was going to have to be sneaky, it took some time to work out who the girls best friends were, and where all their lockers were situated, but once I had it all worked out, I slipped a party invite into each girl’s locker. I just hoped that if they all got them, then they would all be confident enough as a group to turn up.

Now I just needed to work on Rory to man up and actually ask the girl out.

As for other things that have been going on. Our new multi car garage was nearing completion, the only thing that had been holding up getting it finished was the special maintenance stall. I had wanted an inspection pit, but the builder was trying to dissuade us, due to the safety issues with them.

He was urging us to get ramps installed instead. But to get ramps installed would entail redoing the whole end stall due to the height requirements with ramps. It took some time and a few arguments, but I finally got my way.

We had ordered a full set of tools and the toolbox to hold them all, that would make working on the cars a lot easier.

I had also started working on the Range Rover, I had undone everything that held the seats in. I had needed Dad’s help to fight them out of the doors, but once the seats were out, they had been sent off to an upholsterer to have the leather replaced. I had decided against going for the cream color as before, seeing how much dirt was ingrained in the present seats already. A brown leather seemed a much more sensible color to me.

Pulling the headliner out took ages, getting it out without damaging the rest of the interior was difficult, but I managed it in the end with Dad’s help. That followed the seats to the upholsterer to get it mended and covered in the same color as the seats would be.

I had left the bodywork and wheel damage, I could work on that while the seats were being done. That was going to be my next project, the lessons in shop class at school, would help me on repairing the damage to the front panels around the wheel which had bent under the car. Fixing the actual wheel mounting, brake lines, disks and calipers etcetera, would require me to study up on before attempting.

I was keeping up with my martial arts, attending one lesson of Kung Fu each week, once a month I was travelling up to Mr. Yahmahta’s class to practice my Ninjutsu. But I also practiced several times a week by myself, just in the backyard, and I went through each form of every grade. As I had done at the grading exam, this was a really hard workout, working every muscle in my body and pushing me to the limit if I gave everything 100% effort.

It was possible at the moment due to the weather to train outside, but soon it would be too cold, but I was hoping to be able to use the barn then. The cars should have been transferred to the new garage soon, leaving me enough space to train in comfort.

The new business was progressing nicely, Phil had been using my advice on certain areas to invest in, and we had made some good profits so far and would hopefully continue to do so. I had already informed Becky that he could use the entire fund to invest. That had made her happy, since the more money being made, the more she could set aside for the charities she wanted to help out.

I had used Mr. Nash a few times for a couple of little things, so I felt I was getting my money’s worth from him.

Bill was making sure that all my legal affairs for the company were in order as well, though I hadn’t really needed much of his time at present.

During school, cross country running had been progressing alright. I was still only the eighth best runner in class, I considered myself lucky none of the other runners had suffered any injuries, so I hadn’t been asked to join the school team.

We had now progressed to running around the fields surrounding the school, rather than just inside the school grounds. This was a lot more interesting, there were slopes both up and down to be navigated safely.