Bob of Small End (83 page)

“
I see.
When you’ve done that can you help me install these signs Craig?
We’ll need a piece of wood to mount them on.”

Craig dug the
holes and tamped the dirt back in as Bob held the posts in place.
Ken arrived soon after the signs had been erected and they walked
inside together. Lori was waiting for them in the office.

“
Dave
Posser has just called. He wants another three thousand, a thousand
of each. Can you deliver them Bob?”

“
Yes.
Glad to.”

“
Okay,
and he thinks that he’ll want more this week. We’re okay at the
moment but we’ll run short soon if he asks for a lot
more.”

“
How
many do we have?” asked Ken.

“
We’ll
have about two thousand of each after this delivery.”

“
Then
I’ll try and speed-up the line,” he replied. “We can make a
thousand a day if we work hard. Even more, if they’re
trains.”

“
Have
you finished the barrel sander?” asked Bob.

“
No. I
couldn’t get it to work well enough and Mary hates me spending my
weekends in the garage. She wants to go and see Larry again. I’ve
said we’ll go there next weekend so the sander will have to
wait.”

“
Well
I’ll get back as soon as I can from the delivery and give a hand.
Can you help me load the boxes Craig?”

Ten minutes
later he was on his way. With no tea break he was back by twelve
and helped wherever he could for the rest of the day.

There was a
letter from Maria waiting for him. She wrote that she was really
looking forward to the Lake District tour. ‘Anything to get away
from answering the phone and all the desk work!’ The letter was
signed ‘with much love from Maria.’

There was no
call from Dave Tuesday morning and Bob spent the day in the shop.
He was glad when five o’clock came and, being too tired to cook for
himself, he ate in the Crown, siting at the bar and talking to Len
about the number of new people coming to live in Small End. Len was
happy about the growth of course, Bob was less so, preferring the
slower pace of the times gone bye. After supper and his second pint
he walked slowly up the hill to his home and was fast asleep in bed
by nine o’clock.

Dave Posser
called again early on Friday. “I need another 1,000 of each,” he
told Lori. “I’m sure it’s people who’ve seen the BBC documentary
and the rush will die down soon. Once it does I’ll only order on
Fridays. It’s easier for you and makes it easier for our accounting
department if I do that.”

Lori told Ken
about his call and he asked her how many they had in inventory.
“With what we’ve added since Monday, and after taking off this
order we’ll have about five thousand, about two thousand farms and
villages and a thousand trains. I could go and count them if you
like but I think that’s what we’ve got.”

Bob delivered
the toys and when he returned Ken took him into the office and shut
the door.

“
I’ve
just had a call from John Barker, the president of
Great Toys
. They want to buy our
company and he’s asked us to visit and talk about it.”

“
Buy us?
Take over the company?”

“
Yes.
Actually he said they really only wanted to buy the name of the
company. It’s a good job we registered it!”

“
They
just want to buy the name?”

“
Yes,
that’s right.”

“
What
would we do if they bought that? I don’t want to start again under
a different one.”

“
Well we
wouldn’t have to. They’d actually buy the company and close this
shop. They’d make our toys in their London factory. They’d pay us
five hundred thousand pounds.”

“
The
name and company is worth much more than a half a million Ken. We
can make that in less than a year at the rate we’re
going.”

“
Yes we
can, right now. But, remember, we said that wooden toys might just
be a fad and that people might not want to buy them one day. If no
one wanted wooden toys the company wouldn’t be worth
anything.”

“
Well
I’m not selling the company if they’re going to close this shop. To
sell and put everybody out of work is not fair. I’m willing to take
a gamble on us continuing. How about you?”

“
I
agree. I’d like us to continue. But not forever. I’m sure we’ll be
selling fewer toys before long. Then we should sell,
perhaps.”

“
When
does he want an answer?”

“
I can
phone him now and tell him we’re not interested.”

“
Okay.
Let’s get it over with.”

Ken picked up
the phone and dialled his number.

“
No.
Sorry. We’re not willing to sell.” He listened to the reply, put
his hand over the mouthpiece then spoke to Bob.

“
He’s
asked us to visit and talk about it. I think he will offer us more
money. Do we still say no?”

“
Yes.”

“
Sorry,
John. We still don’t want to sell so we won’t come to talk about
it. Maybe in a year or two. Oh. Okay. I understand,” and Ken hung
up the phone.

“
He said
that they probably wouldn’t want to buy us in a year or
two.”

“
Yes, I
guess he wouldn’t if our sales went down.”

There was a
knock on the door and Lori poked her head in.

“
Excuse
me, but everybody said they’d work over lunchtime if we’re going to
be short of toys. I didn’t know what to tell them. Do you want them
to?”

“
No
Lori. If you say we’ll be fine for a while there’s no need. Come
in, there’s something we want to tell you.” She came in and sat on
her desk facing them.

“
We’ve
just had an offer from the president of
Great Toys
. He wants to buy the company. We said
no, we aren’t interested in selling.”

“
Didn’t
he offer enough?”

“
He
offered half a million pounds. Which isn’t enough we
think.”

“
No, it
surely isn’t,” she replied, “not with what we’re making
now.”

“
The
worst part of it Lori,” said Bob, “was that he only wanted to buy
the name. He would close the factory and make our toys in his
London factory. I hated that part of it most.”

“
I guess
we both hated that part of it,” added Ken.

“
Well
I’m glad you told me. It would be terrible to find out that our
jobs were gone. Everybody likes working here and would hate to look
for another job after working here. They wouldn’t find one as good
as this.”

“
We’ll
never close the factory unless it starts making a loss,” Bob said,
“so don’t worry about it. You’ll know how we are doing financially
before we do. We’d talk to everybody before making that kind of a
decision, wouldn’t we, Ken?”

“
Oh yes.
We’d do that.”

“
Will
you tell everybody about the offer Ken?” asked Lori.

“
What do
you think Bob?”

“
Sure.
We’ve just said we’ll talk about things like that with them. Tell
them at lunchtime.”

Halfway
through lunch Ken asked everybody to listen and he told that about
the call from John Barker. Everybody except Lori and Craig was
shocked but they quickly recovered when Ken and Bob told them they
wouldn’t be selling. They answered questions afterwards and
continued until everybody was satisfied. Bob noticed that Craig
didn’t ask any questions, he guessed that Lori had earlier told him
what had happened.

Thursday was
another busy day for everyone as they worked hard to increase the
inventory. They made about a thousand farms and began making
villages on Friday. Dave Posser called again and asked for another
thousand farms a thousand villages and five hundred trains. Bob
delivered them, returned to the shop and everybody decided to work
until five o’clock. Early closing on Friday afternoons, they
agreed, was stopped for now. At the end of the afternoon Lori said
they had, roughly, three thousand farms, two thousand villages and
seventeen hundred trains. She said she’d pin a list of what they’d
got on the door and keep it up-to-date. Bob thanked her, for he was
getting worried about how big Dave’s orders might soon become. Lori
also told him that she had ordered twenty thousand boxes and they
should be ready to pick-up sometime next week. “Do you want to
collect them?” she asked, well knowing he’d answer “Yes."

He sat with
Ken in the office after everyone had left telling him he wanted to
discuss money.

“
We are
going to have a problem next week; there won’t be enough money in
the bank to pay everyone’s salaries. Lori’s told me we’ve only got
about £1,780. We’ll have to put some more in or hope that we start
receiving money from the July retailers, the ones that we’ve
delivered to. Trouble is, it’ll take a week for me to get another
mortgage, although they might be quicker this time.”

“
I can
look after next week Bob. I can lend the company £2,500 from my
savings, £5,000, if needed. It’ll take only one day to transfer
since the business bank is also my bank. But let’s wait until
Wednesday before doing that; we might have some cheques by then.
Did Lori tell you how much we’ll get from the sets we sold
ourselves?”

“
Yes she
did. £27,989.”

“
Well I
bet some of it comes in soon. Not everyone waits until the
fifteenth to pay.”

“
Yes,
that’s right. All right. That was my biggest worry but there’s
another one. Dave bought the first lot July 18th and that means
that
We-Have-It
doesn’t have
to pay us until September 12th. We wouldn’t get that until
September 13th or 14th. So it’s going to be tight for several
weeks.”

“
What
are our weekly expenses these days?”

“
June’s
was just over £8,750. With more people working for us and using
more materials I estimated that July’s would be about £16,000. Our
August expenses would be about the same. More, if we work
overtime.”

“
We
might have to do that, thanks to the BBC, but we can manage, it’s
only the salaries we have to cover each week, almost all of the
rest doesn’t have to be paid until the end of the
month.”

“
I know,
but I don’t want to borrow more money.”

“
Ah
don’t worry Bob. Think of September—it’ll start rolling in
then.”

“
I guess
so. Lori added up what we’ll get from We-Have-It; it’ll be £91,212
and fifty pence!”

“
I
guessed it must be over a seventy five. Minus our expenses we
should net quite a bit more than fifty thousand. Let’s hope these
sales continue. Hey, look at the time! I must be off. We’re driving
to Manchester tonight. I hope the traffic isn’t bad. You’ll be in
on Monday?”

“
Yes.
Have a good weekend Ken.”

“
You
too.”

Chapter 35 Maria and Sally

Maria’s letter
was waiting for Bob when he opened the door. She was very
interested in the Small End episode, saying that BBC documentaries
were sometimes broadcast in Portugal and she would keep an eye open
for it. And, yes, she was still tired and that guiding the tour
would also be tiring ‘but your presence will invigorate me.’ Bob
didn’t quite know what to make of that but he was happy she had
said it.

He drove to
Big End Saturday morning and took five hundred pounds from his
savings account. He hoped it would be enough for his holiday, that,
plus his credit card. He bought groceries and some frozen shrimp,
planning to make a shrimp stir-fry, Thai-style, with noodles for
supper. He added a couple of kippers to have for breakfast on
Sunday. Once home he hoed, tidied the garden and hung his clothes
on the line, hoping it wouldn’t rain. Unfortunately, as he sat down
for lunch, the rain began so he hurried out, collected the damp
washing and draped it over the living room furniture. Since he
didn’t feel like walking in the rain nor reading or watching
television in a room full of drying clothes he decided to try the
computer.

Plugging in
the cables was simple, Lori’s numbers made it fool-proof. He turned
the machine on, sat in a chair and watched the screen. Mysterious
numbers and instructions came and went and he waited. After nothing
had happened for two or three minutes he found diskette number one
and pushed it into the slot. Nothing happened. Then he remembered
that Lori had put the diskettes in with the label showing on top so
he pressed the eject button, removed the disk and reversed it. This
time some coloured squares appeared on the screen with several
labelled boxes on top. One of them said ‘instructions’ so he moved
the mouse, just as he’d seen Lori do, and pressed it’s left-hand
button. The screen changed and a description of the game and what
one had to do appeared. He read everything carefully and eventually
found he could move the text upwards and he was able to read what
was previously hidden below the bottom of the screen. Five minutes
later he had won his first computer game. Ten minutes later he
started losing them, as the moves became more difficult to do. An
hour later he stopped, having scored the maximum number of points
and been told he was a ‘champion.’

‘
Well,
that’s enjoyable,’ he thought. ‘I’ll try the next one,’ and he
continued playing until four o’clock. It was getting dark in the
room for the rain was still falling and his eyes were tired. ‘I’d
better stop and have my bath. Playing games on the computer’s fun
but I’d better ask Lori to show me how to type a letter or I’ll be
playing all day.’ He had his bath, dressed, collected the alarm
clock from his bedroom then went to the living room. The clothes
weren’t dry so he moved those covering his easy chair to the
kitchen and sat down with the computer manual in his hands. ‘Time
to read a little and find out what else I can do.’ He set the clock
for five-forty five, just in case he fell asleep.