One Red Paperclip by Kyle MacDonald

Author:Kyle MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307395597
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2007-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

1. 30 hours recording time at the #1 studio in Canada, enough for an album.

2. 50 hours mixing/post production.

3. Return transportation to Toronto from anywhere in the world.

4. Accommodations in Toronto for duration of recording.

5. The album will be pitched to executives at Sony-BMG and XM radio.

I looked up at Dad. He smiled and said, “This is great. Somebody’s going to really want this. It’ll be easy to trade.”

“And it fits on a single piece of paper,” I said.

Dad went back to not reading books by authors who prehype chapters in the other room and I called Brendan, the guy who’d offered to trade the recording contract. He picked up right away and we agreed to the trade. He was excited. So was I.

To make the trade, I had to drive the cube van another three thousand miles east to Toronto.

I went into the other room and said, “I just talked to Brendan. We agreed to the trade. Wanna drive to Toronto?”

“I’ve never driven east across the country,” Dad said.

“Cool, you’re in then?” I said, hope in my voice.

“When you going to leave, sometime next week?”

I looked up at him and said, “No, tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

The way he said “oh” wasn’t reassuring. “Oh what?” I said.

“Well, I can’t leave tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve got stuff to do.”

I thought about it for a second, but I couldn’t possibly imagine anything better than a five-day cross-country drive in a noisy, slow cube van in the dead of winter.

“Well, I gotta get back to Montreal and see Dom,” I said. “I’ve been away for almost a month.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “Thunder Bay. I can do half…”

We booked his flight to Thunder Bay, where I would pick him up so he could join me on the trip. I called Brendan and told him I’d be there in about a week to make the trade.

I left Vancouver the next day. I drove north through Whistler and met up with Rhawnie, Corinna, and the red paperclip. It felt funny to see the original red paperclip after more than six months of trades. I looked down at it and said, “Wow, it’s the red paperclip, but you know what, it’s still just a paperclip.”

“Yep, it sure is,” said Corinna.

She looked up at me and said, “Hey, you’re going to Toronto?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Do you want to deliver something to my brother for me?” she asked, hope in her eyes.

I thought about the cube van out back in the snow. I looked at Corinna and said, “I don’t know, it’s not like I have hundreds of cubic feet of extra cargo room or anything…”

“Yeah, right!” she said.

I laughed. There were actually many hundreds of extra cubic feet of cargo room left in the truck. That’s why it was so funny. Extra cubic feet of cargo are like that. I smiled and said, “What can I deliver for you?”

She went to her room, returned with a box, and opened it. Inside was a wooden fish. Corinna looked up at me and said, “It’s a bit of an inside joke.

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