FanStory.com - Some Call It Luck - Chapter 6by Jim Wile

Background
A brilliant and beautiful but insecure, nerdy young woman befriends a going nowhere older alcoholic caddie. Together, they bring out the best in each other and collaborate on a startling new invention

Abby St. Claire

3 days later
December, 1977

After church and lunch today, I went up to my room to start sketching my plans for Lester’s cat door. The hardware store was closed on Sundays, so I had the whole afternoon to myself. I had a big piece of white construction paper that I used to draw my plans. I also had a ruler and a pencil.

Lester came up with me, so the first thing I did was to measure him, or try to anyway.

“Lester, stand still, would’ja?” He kept moving around and trying to bite the ruler. “You’re a pest, do you know that?”

It took a while, but I finally decided that an 8” x 12” opening at the bottom of the door would work for him.

It was a solid wood door, and I had measured the width before coming upstairs so that I could make the drawing to scale. The door was 32” wide. On my construction paper, I drew the width of the door as 8”, making the scale 1:4.

Then I drew the outline of the opening, 2” from the bottom of the door (or ½” in my drawing.) I figured that would be necessary so the door would remain sturdy. I would need to drill ¾“ holes at the four corners so that I could position a jigsaw blade to cut out the opening.

I was so absorbed in my plans that I didn’t notice when Mom came in to see what I was up to. “Abby, this room is a pigsty! There are clothes all over the floor and books and papers everywhere.”

Lisa and I had separate bedrooms now, and I guess I wasn’t that neat about mine. “I know, Mom, I’m sorry. I just get so busy with stuff, and I forget to put things away. Right now, I’m designing a cat door for Lester at the bottom of the back door.”

“Well, that’s very industrious. Did you ask Dad if it’s okay to cut a hole in the door?”

“Yeah, he thought it was a great idea, but he wanted to see the plans first. That’s what I’m drawing up now.”

“That’s fine, but see if you can’t straighten up some before coming down again. I don’t know how you can function in such a mess!”

“Okaaay, Mom.”

“Don’t use that tone with me, young lady!”

“Sorry,” I said contritely. Mom was a family court judge in Butler County and could be pretty strict sometimes. She left then, and I went back to work.

I now designed a flap made out of thick rubber that would be attached by two hinges screwed in at the top of the opening with wood screws. It would be able to swing both ways, so Lester could go out or in, and would fit just inside the opening so that it wouldn’t rub and so it would prevent drafts. I would attach this to the hinges with little threaded machine screws and nuts.

Then I thought it would look better if I put some trim around the hole on both the outside and inside of the door, so I made a note to use flat-head screws for the hinges, so the trim would be able to lay flat over the top of them.

I went downstairs then and showed the plan to Dad. He studied it for a while then said, “This looks very good, but I have one suggestion: I think you should chisel out the outline of the hinges to make them slightly recessed so that the trim that goes over the top of them, will lay perfectly flat against the door. I could help you with that part if you need it.”

“Thanks, Dad. That’s a good idea.”

Lester had come down with me and started meowing at the back door to be let out while I was showing the plans to Dad. “You’ll be able let yourself out in a few days after I install your new cat door,” I said to him when I got up and opened the door for him. He just scooted out.

As I was lying in bed later that night before falling asleep, I thought again about the good time I had yesterday skating with Fred. He’s a really good skater. He told me he took lessons in Pittsburgh, where he used to live, and that he was going to start taking them again after the New Year. Pittsburgh is only about 40 minutes from here, so the drive isn’t too long to the rink where he has his lessons, he said.

I’m not that good a skater and fell down a few times. After one fall he helped me up and held my hand for a while because I was a little shaky. I liked holding his hand, but then some kids started making fun of us, and I pulled my hand away. Fred just took it again and told the kids to bug-off.

I wish those dumb kids would leave us alone. Fred doesn’t seem too bothered by them. He stutters more when they come around, but he seems pretty confident otherwise. I wish I could be like that. I usually just try to ignore them, but it still hurts. Maybe I’ll get over it someday.

Fred and I promised to go skating together again over Christmas vacation, which starts next weekend. I can hardly wait for that!