The Plan
The orange glow of mornings arrival woke Rodney.
Ran a comb through his hair, pulled on his dungerees, and
a striped tee shirt. He quietly crept downstairs,
made some peanut butter toast,and gulped it down with some juice.
Having saved the crust, coaxed Clipper on the screen porch,
so he wouldn't follow him. Unhooking his army knap sack from
it's peg, slung it on and gave his bike a push, as he swung his leg over.
Morning air was crisp and filled his lungs as he pumped the pedals
down the road. Once he made the hill down to the bridge he would coast,
and search for bottles along the ditch. What luck there were 2 by the bridge
railing and he poked his head under the bridge, 2 more from somebody that had
been fishing. Putting his swag in his pack he headed to the feed store.
He always looked by the straw bales, where the farmers sat in the afternoon.
His search turned up another empty. Five was good for a trip to school,
that made 15 cents. Rodney hurried to the store to cash them in before school.
When he was there he saw an ol lady with a bunch of bottles in one of those
fold up grocery carts. " Can I help you", Rodney smiled. "Oh sure honey",
the old woman said. Rodney pulled the two wheeler the rest of the way across
the lot. Rodney cashed his bottles in. He would add that to the coffee can bank
under his bed.That money was for his new bike, but sometimes he put
it in the tackle box in the back of the garage. That was seed money for the gang.
All together he had about 18.00 in the coffee can, and 12.40 in the tackle box.
This was all bottle money except for the birthday dollar from Grandma and
Grandpa.
That day at school he was talking to Travis and Brian about the gang.
He disclosed his plan about everybody working together to get new bikes
by summers' end. Travis said", I got too many chores to do, let alone do
more work for some gang, Hotrod". "Yeah, My ol man got me mowing the yard
every other day in the summer", chimed Brian. "Hotrod you're crazy",
added Travis. "You see that's the beauty of my plan", said Rodney
"How fast could you do all that crap if you had 7 guys helping you?"
"So what kinda extra work are we doing?", "That's the best part, Travis"
"People are just goin to give us their pop bottles!", beamed Rodney.
" Now I know you're crazy, Rod" said Brian. "You'll see," said Rodney
" I got the idea today when I was at the store, I saw this ol lady
she could barely carry her bottles." People don't like to
mess with them 'til they have to, then they got so many it's a bitch 'cause,....
'cause they got so many."
Tomorrows' Saturday, meet me at the barn, and we'll start planning.
"I got to mow," Brian complained . "Me too" said Rodney "Get up early
get your chore's done and we'll have the meeting at 10:30."
That night Rodney could barely sleep he was thinking about all the
potential things he would face to make his plan work.
How he was going to juggle all the gangs chores and still
have time to collect the bottles from all the little ol ladies in
Springtown. He was going to have to get busy on getting
customers.
Morning arrived way too soon, but he dragged his butt out of bed.
Took a shower and gulped some chocolate milk, and ate a cold pop tart.
It was 6:30 am when he tugged the rope on the mower.
Clipper was chewing on some roadkill bone when he finished,
"Let's get you some dog food boy", Rodney got the kibble out of the metal
trash can in the garage. Clipper wagged his whole body at the attention.
" Come on boy, we got stuff to do before the Travis and Brian get here."
The two of them headed to corporate headquarters....
Tune in next time for another exciting episode!
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