jalopy. Then—at the crucial moment—he didn't even have that
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All that Barry had to beat out his rival was an asthmatic old jalopy. Then—at the crucial moment—he didn't even have that |
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Barry Whitney's mother was in the kitchen getting dinner the night he brought his "dreamboat" home. As it roared, sputtered, and thumped up the long driveway, Barry, at the helm, had a dim, futile hope that she might not hear him. He knew that she would not be pleased, even though he had told her about the car. Even though she had known full well that Barry's wealth had for the first time in all his sixteen years stretched beyond one figure and built up to ten dollars, and with that fabulous sum he had bought the Buick, vintage 1924.
Hurtling to a stop in front of the garage, Barry saw that his small hope had indeed been vain. His mother had heard and was picking her way across the backyard by the beam from a flashlight.
"This is it!" Barry howled at her across the hood, which came almost to his shoulders. Dismally he waited for her verdict and, for a moment, tried to unwrap the car from his streamlined dream and see it through his mother's eyes. As she explored it with a point of light, Barry saw four mammoth wheels, a hood and a platform or bare boards where the body should have been. That's all there was, except the driver's seat, if there had been a driver's seat, it occurred to him that he had become somewhat calloused by those same bare boards. But almost immediately, with the versatility of youthful optimism, Barry clothed the car in his fancy with a radio, heater, and a sleek red body that closely resembled that of a Lincoln Zephyr. "Turn it off, Barry," his mother screamed across the shuddering motor. "It's going to blow up!" "That's just the head," Barry yelled back. "It's cracked. But it's all right." He reached into the darkness beneath the steering wheel and the motor coughed itself to death. In the silence that followed, Barry said, "How do you like her, Mom?" "Mmmm," Mrs. Whitney said noncommittally, and before she could launch into the scolding he half expected, Barry quickly unfurled a large roll of paper drawings with which his pocket had been bulging. "Here are the plans, Mom," he said excitedly. "Look what she'll be like when I -" "Silly," his mother said. "I can't see in the dark. Come on in the kitchen and show me. I'm from Missouri." |
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