Tug-of-War by Eric Luper

Author:Eric Luper [Luper, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

A few weeks later, we’re all checking out how the mill is coming along, when Mr. Dave pops his head up from a hatch in the floorboards. “Everything is looking great. Any idea when the gear will be finished?”

“I spoke to Alan earlier,” I say, looking down from a new balcony in the rafters. “He said it should be done today.”

“Doesn’t give us much room for error,” Grandpa says. “The grand opening is on Saturday. The mayor is coming to cut the ribbon.”

Saturday. That’s five days away. My chest flutters and my palms get sweaty. There’s no way this place will be ready in five days. Grandpa puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

“Why do they cut a ribbon when they open a new business?” Hannah asks. She’s sitting with Cocoa and Nilla by a railing that faces the stream. It’s a chilly day and her scarf is wrapped so high around her head that I can barely see her face.

Grandpa Irving stares across the stream. “I don’t rightly know when it started, but it means a new beginning, like whatever is behind that ribbon is ready and waiting to be shared with the world.”

“Hopefully they bring fistfuls of money,” I say.

Alan stomps through the door holding a tote bag. C.C. follows close behind. Her fur is lime green today. She rushes over to Nilla and Cocoa out on the porch.

Alan taps something into his phone and reads from the screen. “The ribbon-cutting ceremony was first done in 1898 to open a railroad in Louisiana. But ribbon cutting has been done in other cultures for centuries, mostly for weddings.”

“That little box told you that?” Grandpa asks him.

“Amazing what this little box can do.”

Grandpa waggles his head. “What happened to the days of good old-fashioned conversation?”

“It disappeared with the days of not knowing stuff,” Alan mumbles.

I rush over to Alan. “Do you have the pieces for the gear?”

Alan hands his tote bag to Mr. Dave. “Hot off the printer,” he says. Mr. Dave pulls out one of the pieces. It’s bright orange and as big as a wedge of cheese. He pulls out a purple one and slides the two together to make a quarter circle. “Clever,” he says.

Alan beams. “I didn’t have enough plastic filament to do the whole gear one color. When it’s all together, it kind of looks like a pinwheel.”

Grandpa moves closer and peers down his nose at the pieces lying on Mr. Dave’s workbench. “How’re you going to make them stick together,” he asks. “That gear has to be strong enough to turn a grindstone.”

“It’s the strongest plastic available for a 3-D printer,” Alan says. “Not sure about the glue.”

“We can use epoxy resin,” Mr. Dave says. “It’ll be stronger than steel.” “And it only takes five minutes to harden,” Grandpa adds.

Mr. Dave laughs. “So, you do know something about the twenty-first century, Irving.”

“A few things …”

Before long, we’re all wearing blue rubber gloves. Grandpa, Hannah, Alan, and I are holding two wedges each, and Mr. Dave is mixing together two gooey liquids in a cup with a Popsicle stick.

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