The Fight for Kidsboro (17 page)

The next night as I was leaving to go to my real home, I was surprised to see a light on in Nelson's clubhouse. Nobody really wanted to hang around town that much at night, because it got awfully dark in the woods. I knocked, but Nelson didn't answer. Thinking he might have left his battery operated light on accidentally, I opened his door. Nelson was fast asleep. His head was flat on his desk, his glasses pushed over so that his right lens was over his left eye. He was holding a red wire, poised to place it somewhere on the underside of a computerized car on his desk. Four empty cans of caffeine-enriched soda lined a window ledge.

I tapped on his shoulder, first gently, then with more force. He awoke with a start. “I can't do any more pull-ups!” Nelson shouted and stood up, his face full of utter terror. Obviously, he was having a gym-class nightmare.

“Nelson, it's me.”

“What?” he said, straightening his glasses and looking disoriented.

“It's Ryan. You were having a dream.”

“Oh.” He sat back down at his desk, shook his head, and without missing a beat, put the red wire into a hole near the back end of the car. He began to screw it tight.

“It's late. You need to go home.”

“Is it curfew?”

“Pretty close.”

“Okay, I'll work until curfew. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“How long have you been working on this thing?”

“Since about five …” he cleared his throat, “this morning.”

“That's … 16 hours!”

“I've got it worked out. If I come in here at five o'clock every morning for the rest of the summer, I'll be able to fulfill all the car orders I have by the time school starts back, depending on—”

“Car orders? What do you mean?”

“I did a little demonstration for a group of people yesterday after I showed the car to you. Several of them wanted their own—just like Scott.”

“How many?”

“Twelve.”

“So you're going to pull 17-hour days until school starts in order to get this done?”

“I'm giving myself Sundays off. And the Fourth of July.”

“Are you crazy? You'll be brain dead by August.”

“These people are paying top dollar. I could end up as rich as Max.”

“How much are you charging?”

“Twenty starbills a car.”

My chin dropped. Twenty starbills was an incredible amount of money—and Nelson was planning on making that 12 times over. He could practically buy a
real
car for that. He could buy his own
company
and make …Wait a minute! Mr. Whittaker's words flashed into my head.

“Nelson … why don't you start your own company?”

“How?”

“With that much money coming in, you could start a factory right here in your clubhouse. You could hire people to do this work
for
you.”

“I don't have any money to hire people.”

“You could have investors. Ask people for money up front to start your business. Then when you start selling lots of cars, they can share in the huge amounts of money you'll be making.”

“So, I could have employees?”

“Sure. Is there anything you could teach other people to do, like attaching the wheels or something?”

“Yes. I mean, with some training, pretty much anybody can do the body work and some of the easier circuitry.”

“So, why not?”

Nelson stood up, as if the ideas flying around in his head had lifted him off his chair involuntarily. He turned to me and smiled.

And so was born Kidsboro's first mega-business. The next day, Nelson went around to some of the richer citizens of Kidsboro and asked them if they were interested in investing in Nelson Motors, Inc.

“Nelson Motors?”

“Yes,” I overheard Nelson say to a potential investor. “I'm planning to start mass-producing the computer cars. I already have 12 orders at 20 starbills apiece.”

“What do you need me for?”

“I need your money so I can start the company and hire employees.”

“So you want me to give you money.”

“Not give. Invest. You see, if you invest in my company, you share in all the money I make off the cars. For example, if you give me 10 starbills right now, I estimate you would get 20 starbills back after I sell my first 12.”

“I give you 10, I get back 20. That's it?”

“That's it. And that's just for the first batch. I plan on selling many more after that.”

“So I can double my money without doing anything?”

“Absolutely.”

This was the pitch Nelson gave to everyone, and it worked! He collected 50 starbills in about two hours. He was ready to start his business.

His search for employees wasn't too difficult either. Everyone liked the idea of making cars. In fact, much to his surprise, several people offered to share their ideas about how to improve the cars. For example, Nelson wasn't too concerned about style, and one of his potential employees offered to make the car look “cooler” with new colors and shapes. He suggested they could even take custom orders. If a customer wanted a race car, a truck, or even a minivan, Nelson Motors would give him exactly what he wanted.

By the end of the week, Nelson had four employees: two builders, one designer, and one tester.

The wheels were rolling—so to speak—both at Nelson Motors and Kidsboro itself.

3

TAKING OFF

P
EOPLE SAW THE SUCCESS OF
Nelson's new business, and suddenly everyone wanted their own. Ideas were popping up everywhere. Jill and Roberto, the editors/reporters of the weekly newspaper, the
Kidsboro Chronicle
, created a new magazine. It would include stories and poems written by Kidsboro citizens, features about people and places in and around Kidsboro, and general interest articles. The first issue included a
Romeo and Juliet
-type short story about a boy falling in love with a girl that his parents didn't like. Jill wrote this story herself, and it was a favorite among the girls in the town, though the boys wanted more “explosions or something.” I personally didn't see an appropriate place in the story for a bomb, but I must admit the action did drag a little bit before page 15 or so.

Kidsboro also had a new attraction—a nine-hole miniature golf course created by Mark, the tarp guy. Mark, like every other Kidsboro citizen, had been given a certain amount of Kidsboro money in order to build his house and get established in the community. And by using tarp instead of having to pay Max for wood, he'd had enough money left over to start his business.

Mark bought a piece of property next to his house and brought in some wood to build boundaries and obstacles. He used actual golf balls and clubs. From the way he described it, it sounded like it was going to be one of the favorite activities in Kidsboro.

Then I tried it. He let me play the first round ever. The course went over dirt and around rocks and tree roots. He told me it would be challenging. He didn't want kids to get bored with it too quickly, but he had no idea just how challenging it was. On hole number four, the golfer had to clear the creek to land on the green where the hole was. The green was only about four feet wide—a dinky target. If you hit the ball too softly, it went into the creek. If you hit it too hard, it plummeted down a 15-foot cliff. I, of course, overshot the green and went down the cliff. It took me 18 strokes to get it back up, then the ball went into the creek. Mark just watched and chuckled.

Holes five through nine weren't much better. Hole eight had a working windmill, with turning blades and everything. However, the rotation of the blades was much too fast. If your ball had the misfortune of getting hit by a blade, it would be thrown about 30 feet out of bounds and into the creek. By the end, it had taken me 104 shots to complete the course, a three-hour round of golf. I told Mark I appreciated the challenge, but I was afraid the course might frustrate players more than challenge them. He agreed to take another crack at it.

The most promising new business was the Kidsboro Cineplex: an out-door movie theater with a small concession stand. Pete, one of two lawyers in town, was a movie buff. His parents owned a huge collection of videos. Mr. Whittaker allowed Pete to use an old video projector that belonged to Whit's End. Pete strung up some bed sheets between trees for the screen, and everyone would bring their own blankets or lawn chairs and watch the movie. It only cost three tokens to get in. Pete had to put up some more sheets to prevent people from peeking in when they hadn't paid. Then he discovered that kids were climbing a nearby tree and watching the movie over the sheets. So Pete hired Alice, our five-foot-eleven police woman who had biceps thicker than some tree trunks, as a bouncer to keep an eye on the trees around the theater. If she found anybody trying to take a free peek, she would shake the tree until the offender either fell out or surrendered. Pete also hired someone to work at the concession stand, selling popcorn and sodas to moviegoers.

It became a nightly tradition during the summer—every weeknight there would be a new movie and practically everyone in Kidsboro attended. No matter what the movie was, kids would come to the theater just to be with everyone else. It became a time when all of Kidsboro came together as a sort of family. It made me proud to be a citizen.

The only problem was that at the end of the movie every night, Pete would hold a discussion about the film. I think he mainly did this to show off his impressive film vocabulary. One night, after watching a mindless movie about a guy whose family is taken hostage by bad guys while he's in the garage (as it turns out, he bests them with a weed whacker), the discussion among the boys became quite passionate.

“That was so cool when the trailer blew up!”

“The hero was awesome!”

“That was an incredible fight at the end!”

“Great movie, man!”

Then Pete took the floor and announced, “The cinematography was a bit uninspired,” and went on and on about it. This, of course, took the wind out of the sails of anyone who had actually enjoyed the film. This happened pretty much every night. The crowd would talk about how much they loved the movie, and then Pete would get up and explain why the editing was uneven or whatever. It was actually getting a little annoying. Then one night someone finally had the guts to challenge him.

“I found the Jane character to be one-dimensional,” Pete said. “She was merely a piece of cardboard. And what was the point of having the grandmother come back? I found that to be a very implausible plot twist.”

“Oh, yeah?” came a voice out of the crowd. “You think you can do any better?”

Pete was totally thrown off by this. No one ever challenged him. “What?”

“You haven't liked a single movie you've shown here. So why don't you make one yourself?”

Pete's body twisted and it looked as if he was going to lose his balance. “Well … I'm not a filmmaker.”

“You act like it,” the boy said as others nodded.

“I don't have the equipment …”

“Your dad has a video camera, right?”

“Yes.”

“You've got a whole town full of people who can be your actors. What else do you need?”

Pete swallowed and looked out at the crowd. He took a deep breath, and then nodded. “Okay. I will. I
will
make a movie.” Suddenly, he stood up straight and, as if he were announcing his candidacy for president, said, “And it'll be better than anything you've seen so far.”

The crowd was both excited and skeptical. It was certainly a fun prospect to be involved in a movie.

And so began a new industry in Kidsboro: filmmaking.

4