Read Online The Car by Gary Paulsen - Free Book Online Page A

need some help with his car.”
    â€œThat’s what I
do . . .”
    Terry was still standing, staring at the woman, and Waylon laughed and spoke to her.
    â€œMaybe you’d better put some clothes on, Suze—I think you’re hurting his brain.”
    The model nodded but didn’t move until Wayne motioned with his chin. “We’ll stop for the day. We’ve worked enough—now it’s time to
play.
”
    The woman stepped down from the stand, moving as naturally as a soft wind—or so it seemed to Terry—and put a housecoat on, and at last Terry could take his eyes away from her.
    It was the first time since he’d come in the room that he could look around, and he saw now that on all the walls, hanging from wire hooks, there were gas tanks from motorcycles and parts of car hoods or air scoops and on most of them were paintings of nude women with large breasts in various poses. Here and there, there was a tank painted with an eagle or a skull and crossbones but most of them were women.
    Wayne wiped his hands on a rag and washed his brushes in a sink near one wall, and Terry realized that he lived in this same building. There was a bathroom in a back corner—the only closed-in room—and a large bed off to the right side of the building.
    â€œWhat’s with the car?” Wayne asked, when he’d finished the brushes.
    â€œIt’s outside. A home-built. It’s fine, but we need a little more punch.”
    â€œWe’ll look at it. Suze—” He turned to the woman, who had moved to a chair under a lamp by the bed and opened a book. “Why don’t you start some dinner while we look at the car?”
    She looked up, directly at Wayne, and Terry saw in the light that her eyes were purple, and he realized with a start that she was the one not just on the canvas but on almost every gas tank.
    â€œYou mean me?” she asked. “You want
me
to cook?”
    Wayne frowned, then shook his head. “I guess not.”
    â€œI don’t cook. You know that. And I don’t clean. I model and you pay me.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œYou’d better get your brain checked,” she said, going back to the book. “Even asking is crazy.”
    Wayne turned and went out the front door and stopped outside in front of the car.
    â€œOh wow, man. It’s a Blakely Bearcat!”
    â€œYou know the car?” Waylon moved off the side and Terry stood by the car.
    â€œKnow it? I helped a guy build one once. A guy named Blakely wanted Ford to build them and sell them, back in the late seventies. He made about four hundred of them and sold them as factory makes. Then Ford said no and he started selling them as kits. They rod up real good, real good.” He turned to Terry. “What’s it got inside?”
    â€œA 1974 Ford Pinto motor.”
    â€œThat twenty-three hundred-cc mill?”
    â€œYes—that’s what it said.”
    â€œOh, man, you guys are in luck.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Waylon asked.
    â€œThat’s a hell of an engine—incredible. With just a few modifications we can increase the power seven or eight percent, but that ain’t the best.”
    Waylon had let himself slide down the wall and was sitting in the dirt, smiling peacefully. His smile widened. “What else?”
    â€œI got a blower for it.”
    â€œA turbocharger?”
    Wayne nodded. “Some guy left it here in a box to pay for his Harley. It’s made by a company out in California—Bunks or something. The thing drops right in where the exhaust manifold goes, clean as snot.”
    â€œA turbocharger?” Terry’s ears perked. “What’s that?” He had heard about them but didn’t quite understand how they worked.
    â€œIt’s a high-speed fan that drives from the exhaust gases and pushes accelerated air into the carburetor. It’s like everything feeds on itself, man.