Clay (Matilda)

Punishing Your Parents Again?

Sometime later, Harry recovered from his fainting episode. He grabbed a hat and made his sons help him get some packages from the garage and put them into the car. Clay climbed in after handing his father what appeared to have been a wheel wrapped in brown. Michael had a pipe. "Get in." Harry shouted at his sons as he put the car parts in his trunk.

Dirty Dealings, like buying stolen car parts never stay secret for long, especially when the King's Secret Service gets involved. From across the street in a black car, two agents were snapping pictures of Harry and his car parts.

"9:17. Suspect exits domicile." One of the two says while using his recording device. "I've for 9:18." The second one corrects. The first looks at his watch and turns his recorder back on. "9:17 is correct."

After a while, the three boys arrived at Wormwood Motors. It was a small place with a lot of cars, the majority were at a cheap price but not as cheap as Harry had when he bought them. 

"Michael, one day this will all be yours," Harry said proudly to his oldest son. 'Why am I not surprised?' Clay thought to himself. "This?" Michael asked as he looked at the junk-filled garage with terrible cars all over the place. Harry smiled proudly as he pointed to the nearest car that they were going to work on today. "See this junker? I paid a hundred dollars for her. She's got a hundred and twenty thousand miles on her, the transmission's shot, bumpers have fallen off. What do I do with her?" Harry asked as he used his finger to write a few more zeroes next to the hundred on the dusty windshield. "I sell her."

Now, Harry grabbed a can of "Super Super Glue" and started to paint it into the connecting part of the bumper with his sons on both sides of him. "We really should weld these bumpers on, but that takes time, equipment, and money." When he finished, he put the brush back into the "Super Super Glue."

"So, we use 'Super Super Glue' instead." Harry made his sons attached it to the very old car that could probably fall apart if someone touched it. Clay was very concerned. He had read several books about cars and how to fix them and glue was not safe enough for cars. "Go ahead, put it on there."

"Won't it fall off?" Michael asked surprising Clay since he was about to asked that same question. "Definitely." Harry said while kicking the bumper into place. "Dad, isn't that dangerous?" Clay asked. 'Glue should only be used for kids art projects and wood if needed never a car. At least, that what I read about in my books.'

"Not to be, okay." Harry told him then he smiled and clapped his hands together. "Now for the transmission." Harry grabbed a paint can filled with sawdust and started to put it into the engine. "The sawdust quiet the gears and lets the engine run sweet as a nut... for a couple of miles." Harry said then he laughed like he made a joke. "Dad, that's cheating!" Clay told him. 'This is dangerous for anyone. What if the king bought a car? You could get arrested.'

"Of course, it's cheating! Nobody got rich being honest." After he finished, he went back to his workbench, grabbed a special drill, and got under the car. "Now for the mileage counter. Twenty years ago, we could turn the numbers by hand." Harry said then he took off his hat and handed it to Michael. "Here, take my hat." Michael put the hat on the bench near the car where the super glue was. "But the King's Secret Service likes to test the ingenuity of Knighton's businessmen." He crawled under the car with a few tools and once he finished with the wiring, he crawled out and opened the driver door. He then showed Michael the drill he had in his hand. "Two-directional drill. Run it backward, the numbers go down. Watch the speedometer." Harry said as he turned on the drill and the numbers started to go down. He smiled proudly as he saw the excitement in his oldest son's eyes.

"Awesome." Michael said intrigued. "See?" Harry asked Michael. "Yeah." 

"Dad, you're a crook!" Clay told him clearly upset with his father. Harry stopped using the drill and looked at Clay. "What?"