Turns out, Carl hears just fine.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to take my profit and pass it on to you. Is that right? Is that what I’m hearing?” Carl shouted into the phone. I looked at Dad and tried to hand him the phone, but he shook his head and pushed it back at me.
“No…um, I mean, I guess. It’s just that we could really use that money to buy other stuff.”
Okay, looking back, that was a really stupid thing to say. I just hadn’t been prepared for someone to get all bent out of shape by my just asking if they could give us a better price. Dad kept saying the worst thing they could do was say no, but this was way worse than no.
“And what about me? What about my business? Don’t I got other stuff I need that money for? Don’t I got two kids heading off to college next year? Twins! I don’t even get a break because they start the same year.”
“I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought that since Elwin Farms quoted us the same price, you might want the chance to underbid them.”
“That’s extortion. That’s what that is.”
“What? No. That’s not what I meant.” I turned to my father and whispered, “What’s extortion?”
Dad chuckled, and I put my hand over his mouth.
“No, no, no. I know exactly what you’re doing,” Carl said.
“Please. Can I just explain?”
“No. You wanna do business with that slime bucket over at Elwin, you go right ahead. The two of you deserve each other,” he growled and then hung up.
“Thanks a lot,” I said to my father.
“Yeah, well, some people don’t like you to negotiate. They take it personally.”
“And wasn’t this a piece of information you should have shared with me before I made the call?”
“Nah. This was way more fun,” he said, grinning. “Besides it’s all part of the learning process. I knew getting you guys to do these projects was a great idea.”
I’d never missed school so much.
16
I don’t know what Carl was talking about. Abe, the guy at Elwin Farms, wasn’t a slime bucket at all. Though he didn’t lower his prices, he did throw in free delivery because his delivery guy passed through Petersville anyway. He even said he thought the doughnut stand was a smart idea, and I’m pretty sure he meant it even though I was a customer, and Starting Your Own Business for Dummies says you should always say things to make your customers happy even if they’re not true.
Once Josh and I had finalized the budget, I biked it over to Winnie, along with some molten chocolate cake to sweeten the deal. It took almost two hours and three molten chocolate cakes, but in the end, she settled for seven percent of the profit per doughnut. I knew Dad would have been impressed since I talked her down from twenty.
The book says you should always get everything in writing, so I told her I’d type something up on the computer at home and bring it back for her to sign the next day.
“Why wait? What if you get home and decide I don’t even deserve the measly seven percent. Oh no, Slick. We’re getting this down right here and now,” she said. Then she pulled a typewriter out from under the counter and set it down in front of me.
“Oh, okay.” I studied the machine. I’d never actually seen one up close. It looked way more complicated than a computer, which is kind of funny when you think about how much more computers can do.
Winnie slid a sheet of paper into the machine, then rolled it into place with what looked like a metal rolling pin. “All set.”
Each time I hit a key, I watched one of the little metal arms swing up and smash its letter into the ink ribbon. After a couple of words, I accidentally punched an A instead of an S and asked Winnie how you delete.
“You don’t,” she said.
“But what happens if you make a mistake?”
“Don’t.”
“Too late,” I said. “Didn’t people make mistakes back when they used typewriters?”
“The newer models had correction keys, but this one is from way back when people took enough time to be careful and just do things once.”
“Well, I live in a time when we do things fast and sloppy and have to do them over and over again, so what am I supposed to do?”
“No need to get all snippy, Slick. Just X it out and start again, and this time don’t make any mistakes.”
Know what happens when someone tells you not to make mistakes?
That’s right. It took me almost ten tries before I got it right, where right meant my own name had a typo.
“Congratulations,” Winnie said. “Now we need another one.”
“What?”
“Both parties need an original. Doesn’t your book say that?”
Unfortunately, it did. “Can’t you type the second one?”
“Oh, fine.”
I turned the typewriter around and handed her the agreement.
“So let’s see…” She squinted at the paper, then at the typewriter keys. “First word…agreement. A…A…A…A… There it is. A.” She punched the key, then squinted back down at the paper. “Yup. A. Okay, what’s next? G…G…G…G…”
She didn’t make a single mistake, but she took even longer than I had.
When we finally had two agreements, and we’d each signed both of them, Winnie pulled some cards from her pocket and handed them to me. “Don’t screw it up or sell it to Martha Stewart.”
“Is she that blond lady with the magazine?” I asked, flipping through the three chocolate-stained cards.
“All you need to know is she’d kill to get her hands on that recipe, and she’s already done hard time so I wouldn’t put it past her. Point is, you keep it to yourself. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
Then I ran across the street to show Josh, and we celebrated by eating more molten chocolate cake and figuring out how many doughnuts we’d have to sell to become millionaires.
Biking home,
