Bob of Small End (45 page)

“
And we
would want our company name printed too.
Small End Wooden Toys
. Can you print the label
on one side so it can be read when the box is on the shelf? I think
it could be put here,” and Bob showed Dan where he meant on the
sample cylinder.

“
What
colour ink?”

“
Black I
think. That would stand out.”

“
Do you
want the name of the toy that’s inside printed on the
box?”

“
No. I
think we’ll use a sticker for that. We don’t know how many of each
we would need.”

“
I can
print a check-off box on one end then all you’d have to do is tick
the box that names the toy you’ve put inside.”

“
Yes.
That’s a good idea. Put in four lines, leaving one blank because
we’re probably going to make some different toys. The label would
list Train, Farm and Village. Thanks. How long would it be before I
received the boxes Bill?”

Bill stopped
copying Bob’s instructions for a moment and said, “How long
Dan?”

“
It’ll
only take a week right now because the time I reserved on the
cutters for the client who died hasn’t been taken by anyone else.
All I have to do is program the computer and adjust the cutters.
Cutting and putting adhesive on the pasteboard doesn’t take very
long. You’re lucky.”

“
Do you
deliver to Small End, a village near Big End?”

“
Yes we
do. No charge for delivery for that distance. We’d fit it into our
other deliveries. But that might add a couple of days to the time
before you get it.”

“
Then
call me when they’re ready and I’ll pick them up. I want them as
soon as possible. Here’s my card. I’ll give you a cheque for all of
them now.”

“
Thank
you. Then let’s do the paperwork.”

“
Can I
take that cylinder you made to show my partner?”

“
Sure.
Here it is. How’s the business doing?”

“
Very
well. We anticipate selling two hundred sets a week and we hope to
sell more. Almost a hundred retailers showed interest in buying
these toys at their conference this week. That’s where I met Tina
Liscome. She told me about your factory. She buys her boxes from
you. There’s one of them there,” and Bob pointed to one of the
boxes that Tina used that was hanging on the wall.

“
Ah yes.
We both know Tina. Say ‘Hello’ to her from us next time you see
her.”

“
I
will.”

‘
What
luck,’ thought Bob, as he left the factory. ‘A box like that will
surely increase sales.’ Then he started to worry, what are the
retailers who only have the old boxes going to think? ‘I bet they’d
be unhappy. What can I do. Oh, I know, I’ll replace their old boxes
with new ones.’ That being settled he drove to the next nearest
shop on his list.

It was about
4:30 when Bob parked at the Small End workshop. He carried the
pasteboard cylinder into the office. Ken was arranging the
furniture that had arrived. The desks, chairs, cabinet, shelves and
a few boxes filled most of the space. “Which desk do you want Bob?
You get first choice.”

“
It
doesn’t matter Ken. You’ll be using the office much more than me.
Which do you want?”

“
This
one. It’s near the phone outlook and I can see through the window
into the waiting room if I sit here.”

“
Okay,
that’s your desk. I’ll take the other one. Move it anywhere that
suits you. Where’s Craig? I didn’t see his bike when I came
in.”

“
It’s
Friday Bob. Craig told me he had a date and I let him go at four. I
might do that each week as a small bonus. I’ll think about it. I
paid him, gave him a cheque for £125. I think he’s happy with that;
we’d have to pay a man twice that. I want to pay the staff at the
end of each week like I said Bob. We could make it every two weeks
but I think it better if we pay weekly and it’s easier to make
changes if they take a day off, for instance. They feel better once
they have the week’s pay in their pockets, too.”

“
Whatever works Ken. Hey, look at this,” and he held up the
cylinder. “Do you know what it is?”

“
It
looks like a cardboard cylinder to me.”

“
Well,
yes, it is, but it has a lid,” and Bob opened the top. “I’ve
ordered a thousand of them. The outside will be coloured to look
like a log, a silver birch log. We’ll use them for our toys. I
think they’ll add to our sales when people see these on the
shelves, it makes them look more like a gift than the our cardboard
boxes. They cost £250 and I gave them a cheque.”

“
I think
they’ll look very attractive once they look like a log.”

“
I’m
still a bit worried about all the money we’re spending Ken. I’ll
list all of our expenses this weekend and find out how we stand.
It’s near the end of the month so we’ll soon have to pay the bills.
I’ll phone you if we don’t have enough in the bank. I hope we don’t
have to add more.”

“
Okay.”

“
How
many sets do we have now?”

“
We made
another fifty farms and are working on a hundred villages. We’ll
make them in lots of a hundred from now on. Altogether there are
seventy five villages, a hundred and five farms and a hundred
trains at the moment, minus the ones you handed out
today.”

“
I gave
five of each to nine retailers. So we’ve got thirty villages, sixty
farms and fifty five trains. I’ll mark it on the sheet. Do you have
it?”

“
Yes,”
and Ken pulled it out of his pocket. “I’ll pin it to the notice
board when its up. How many sets do you think you’ll need each
day?”

“
I can
probably go to ten shops if I spend time talking to the owners.
More if they’re together in a town and many more if I just simply
hand the sets over and don’t talk to anyone. Right now I’d need
fifty of each set each day.”

“
Okay,
then we’ll have to hire more workers. Craig and I can only make
about a hundred sets a day.”

“
Of
course it’s only now I need that many. Later they’ll only need to
replace the ones they sell.”

“
Yes but
they might sell a lot more than we expect. You might have to
deliver a hundred of each every day.”

“
A dream
Ken.”

“
If we
ever sold that many do you know what that’d bring in each
week?”

“
No.”

“
Well,
after all our expenses are paid it could be as much as a thirteen
thousand pounds.”

“
No. I
don’t believe that.”

“
Nor did
I at first, but think. Retailers sell our sets at different prices,
fifteen, twenty two fifty and twenty five pounds and we receive
sixty percent of that. Here, let me write it on a piece of paper,”
and Ken picked up the pad and wrote ‘£9, £13.50 and £15.’ “That’s
what we get from them. Let’s say, on average, we get £12.50 a set
and that we sold the same number of each set. Now I’ve roughly
calculated what it costs each week and, after paying for wood,
paint, distribution costs, Craig’s salary and so on it’s a bit less
than three hundred and fifty pounds. When you do the rest of the
maths we’ll make about nine pounds on each set. That shouldn’t be a
surprise, you used to take home more than that for each set you
sold to Rose. The big difference is that we can make more than a
hundred a day whereas you made only a few. So if each set sold
gives us £9 net and if they sell a hundred of each set a day, what
do we get?”

“
£9,
times three, times one hundred.”

“
Which
is £2,700. And five days a week gives us £13,500.”

“
And
£13,500 for fifty weeks makes nearly seven hundred thousand pounds
a year! No, it can’t be right Ken. A hundred of each set, that’s
three hundred sets each day! That means we’d need a hundred
retailers because each might only sell three a day. And five
hundred retailers if each sold only three in a week.”

“
It is
right Bob. However, for that to happen we’ll have to expand our
distribution area. We might need four or five hundred
retailers.”

“
I
couldn’t possibly deliver to that many.”

“
Yes I
know. We’d have to hire drivers and more vans. Or find a
distributor to handle our stuff.”

“
We
wouldn’t get as much money from each sale if we hired drivers,
rented more vans or used a distributor.”

“
No I
know. But all this is in the future. We’ll just see what happens
over the next two or three months.”

“
I can’t
think about what’s going to happen over the next two or three
months Ken. It’s too much to handle and gives me a headache. Two
many things might go wrong.”

“
Well it
is a lot to think about, I agree, but that’s the way I am. I’ve
always liked to think about the future, even if what I think might
not happen. In the long run we’ll just have to see what happens
Bob.”

“
Yes.
Just don’t change too quickly Ken. It worries me, aiming so high
and spending so much money as we go along. Spending money is the
worst part for me, I don’t have that much.”

“
Ah,
don’t worry Bob. We’ll not go too fast. Now, let me help you load
the van.”

They put all
of the sets into the big cardboard boxes that were in the van and
Bob drove off, his head reeling. To think that he could be earning
over a quarter of a million pounds in a year! He couldn’t imagine
it. ‘What could I do with that much money? Give it all to the
children? That wouldn’t help them live a sensible life,’ he
thought. ‘Give it to charity? That might be the answer. But do I
want to work that hard just to give the money away? Ah. It’s not
sensible to think about this. It’s like imagining what I’ll do if I
won a million pounds in the lottery; it’s a waste of time. But Ken
thinks it might be possible.’

It wasn’t
until Bob had finished his supper and switched on the television
that his mind stopped thinking about such a future. Slowly he
focussed on what else was happening in the rest of the world, the
real world, not the fantasy world that Ken described.

He changed his
Saturday routine that weekend, thinking it would be nice to have a
couple of days at home for, in future, he’d be sitting in the van
most of the week. He wouldn’t even drive to Big End; any shopping
he needed he’d do during the week in between calling on the
retailers.

It was a
bright, sunny Saturday morning. He checked the vegetables and did a
little weeding. There were a few radishes big enough to eat so he
pulled them. After coffee he took the sign and some screws, a level
and a screwdriver to the workshop. Jane saw him as she climbed into
her car and shouted, “I’m glad you’re putting that up. It’ll stop
people knocking on our door. You’ll be at the Crown tonight?”

“
You
bet.”

The day
continued to be a bright and cheerful one so he decided to take a
longer walk than usual. He crossed his garden, went to the back of
the station’s parking lot, made his way carefully down the slant
where the bulldozer had dumped the bricks and wood from the station
and onto a lot where the builders had just dug the foundation. He
walked along the edge of the lot then along the road toward the
T-junction, passing five houses that were in various stages of
construction and three finished ones that had a ‘For Sale’ sign
pasted on the front door. Half-a-dozen homes were already occupied,
with cars in their driveways and people were working in their
gardens, seeding grass, putting down sod, planting bushes and small
trees.

At the
junction, where the road heading south met the road to Big End, he
turned north, walked between two unoccupied houses to the remains
of a barbed wire fence, climbed the slope and crossed the railway
lines. He stopped on the far side for he could already see several
changes. There were no more fields. The hedges had been removed and
the trees that used to grew in some field corners had been removed.
He hardly recognised the place. Muddy tracks ran from the torn-up
acreage to the main road. There were signs where they intersected.
He worked his way down the slope and crossed to one of them and
read ‘
Section Eight
.’
Presumably these ‘sections’ would be sold to developers. The
cleared land extended for what seemed to be a mile to the north and
about the same to the west.

He remembered
playing there when he was young. In those days there were farms,
barns, hedges, trees, fields, crops and cattle. He and his friends
would pick apples from the ancient trees that grew in the hedges.
His Mum would wash the apples, cut away the many bad parts and
conjure apple pies or apple sauce from what remained. Sometimes
they stole carrots but they never took them home for their fathers
would have told them off or hit them. Mostly they ate the carrots
raw but sometimes they made a fire and cooked them in a tin can.
They also stole potatoes and cooked them with the carrots although
he preferred his potatoes baked in the hot ashes. They tasted much
better than the boiled ones, even though the outsides were burned
and covered with ash. One year he and two other boys made rabbit
snares and placed them in the runs. A farmer came by while they
were doing it and told them to catch all of them if they could, he
didn’t want them eating his crops. The only bad part was killing
the ones that hadn’t strangled themselves with the wire noose. His
Mum didn’t enjoy eating them so he didn’t do it often.