Her interview with the boss hadn't gone particularly well.
"Why did you apply to work here?"
"It sounded different."
"What do you know about engines?"
"Nothing."
"Can you drive, at least?"
"Yes - I mean no." He'd regarded her steadily until she'd elaborated. "I know how to drive - kinda. I don't have a permit."
He'd raised his hands. "Okay, I get it. Can you at least make coffee?"
She'd admitted that yes, she could make coffee, and had found herself walking round the building trying to remember the beverage preferences of a couple of dozen men, who almost without exception looked at her as if she had no clothes on. Two weeks of this? She'd be insane by the end of the day.
The exception was the young man half under the car in bay three, who failed to even look up at her question as to what he wanted to drink. "Coffee. Decaf, white, no sugar."
Sam, by now on her fourth round trip to the kitchen, hesitated. "The machine doesn't do decaf."
He half turned his head. "Gee, I guess you'll have to use the kettle. The jar's in the cupboard with my name on."
Sam nodded and fled, only realising after she'd closed the door that she lacked one vital piece of information. She went back into the bay in some trepidation. "I'm sorry -"
"What?" The head emerged, wearing an expression which suggested he was barely staying civil.
"I don't know your name. For on the jar."
"Jason. Now leave and don't come back without a decent cup of coffee, okay?"
.
Fortunately for her, there was only one labelled jar in the cupboard. Sam took the time to decipher it fully, and smiled at the attitude. 'Jason's coffee. Drink at your peril.' Lacking in any clues as to what he considered decent coffee, she settled for plenty of coffee and plenty of milk, and left the kettle to boil while she dealt with the machine-suppliable requirements of the occupants of Bay Two.
.
She hesitated at the door of Bay Three with just the single mug left on her tray. The only person within five years of her age in the building, and he had to be an arrogant prat who couldn't even be bothered to look at her.
Inside the bay there was nobody immediately apparent, but shortly there was a clang from under the car, followed by an inventive stream of curses.
"I brought your coffee," she ventured.
"Never mind that. Get in the car and tell me what the rev counter says."
Sam did as she was told, abandoning the tray on a shelf. "Three thousand."
The engine revved higher. "Now?"
"Still three thousand."
The engine roared to full throttle, and she didn't attempt to shout over it. "It didn't twitch," she reported as the engine note returned to idle.
"What the hell is going on here?"
"Maybe the needle's stuck?" she ventured.
"Yeah, right. Turn the engine off and see for yourself."
She did so, and the gauge fell back to zero. "Oh."
"That all you can say? Get me the wiring manual from the shelf by the door."
Sam automatically obeyed, and froze in horror at a long row of identical books with tiny, smudged titles down the spines. "I can't see it."
"'215A Wiring'. Come on!"
She squinted desperately at the titles, and just as usual her brain let her down. "Err..."
"It's blue." The tone was pure exasperation.
Colours were easy. Sam grabbed the book with the blue tag and proffered it under the car.
"Like I can read it under here? Tell me what it says about rev counter wiring."
Sam opened the book without hesitation at a random page. "I know nothing about this. Why don't you come out, drink your coffee before it gets cold, and read it for yourself?"
"I guess I might as well." He pushed himself out from under the car, stretched up to a not inconsiderable height, then effortlessly bent double at the waist and flattened his chest to his legs. Sam was still gaping at this display of flexibility as he straightened up and eyed her critically. "And you dressed like that because?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Because this is a workshop, and you're going to get filthy. You think you're only going to make coffee? You wanted work experience on a racing team. Believe me, that's what you're going to get. You can start by finding the dashboard wiring diagram in there."
Sam shook her head. "I'm going to get some coffee of my own first, thanks. I'll be back in five minutes."
He snorted, and much to her relief, opened the book himself and started to flick through it. Sam left in a hurry - not that she much fancied coffee machine coffee, but she'd have to get some now that she'd claimed it as her excuse.
She went back to the bay, sipping unenthusiastically at her drink, only a couple of minutes later. Jason at least didn't spend his time undressing her with his eyes, and watching a rev counter was one thing she could cope with. She might as well stick with him for a while. He wasn't bad-looking either, and the Aussie accent was cute.
He wasn't visible, and the engine was running again. Sam leant against the wall, working through artificial-tasting coffee and listening to alternate engine-revving and what she presumed was multilingual swearing.
"Sam? Tell me what else these wires could connect to. The engine's running, I've got signal down here and nothing up there." He paused. "There is nothing happening up there, right? I'm not revving the temperature gauge?"
Sam sat back in the driver's seat, and listened to more revving engine. "No. Nothing's moving - well, the temperature's gone up a bit."
"Everything else read normal?"
Sam snorted. "I don't know what half these gauges are. My stepdad's car has a speedo, a rev counter, a clock and a fuel gauge. I can see the speedo and the rev counter. The other six?"
"No fuel gauge, for a start. Driver doesn't need to know, it goes straight to the pit." Jason hauled himself out from under the car again. "Now if we had a fuel gauge, I'd be suspecting they were crosswired, with what we're getting. I wonder..." He dived back underneath, and shortly there was a cry of triumph. "Got you, you bastard! Okay, Sam, read me what it says right under 'alternative dashboard layout'."
Sam got slowly and walked to the table. This wasn't good. "Where's that?"
"Half way down the left hand page." There was an edge to his voice. "This is getting tiresome."
There was no way out of it. It was time to fall back on her ultimate excuse. "I'm gonna throw up -" and she bolted for the door.
When she returned five minutes later he was sitting at the table reading the manual. "Feeling better?"
"Yes, thanks." Sam considered his expression, and decided against the joke. "Must have been the coffee."
"Oh, I don't think so." There was a calculation dancing in his eyes which she didn't like at all. "How about you come here and read this to me?"
"How about you read it yourself!" Sam retorted instinctively.
Jason shook his head. "You can't do it, can you? I'd heard kids graduate who can't read. I never would have believed it before today."
"Go to hell." Sam turned to walk out, and impossibly he made it to the door before her.
"I've no interest in humiliating you. Just do me a favour and drop the cute blonde act. You've kept it hidden for this long, there must be brains in there somewhere."
Sam glared. "For all you know, it's at the top of my resume."
"This is ISO Racing. There's more brains in this building than most research labs. If your resume said you were illiterate you wouldn't be here."
"So why wouldn't you just tell them? You just met me an hour ago! What's in it for you?"
Jason grinned. "I'm fed up with being the youngest round here. Plus I have a friend who'd kill me if she found out I'd scared off a girl apprentice within a day. If you want to work, I'll give you a chance. The others will, too."
"And if I walk out?"
He gestured at the door. "Be my guest. I'd guess you'd need another academic class to graduate, though."
"Yeah." Sam's shoulders slumped. "I'll give it a try."
The smile twitched higher. "You can start by putting on those overalls. I'm going to show you the right way to set up the brakes on one of these babies. And you'll find losing the outfit helps with the other guys, too."
.
Sam wasn't sure when it stopped being something to be endured and started being fun. She also wasn't sure what had made her keep what she was doing from her family. They knew what she'd applied for, she'd told them she'd got it, and apart from 'did you have a good day?' they'd asked no more questions. It might have been the devil's own job getting her hands properly clean at the end of each day, but she obviously wasn't the first person to have needed to go home from ISO Racing not smelling of oil. The range of cleansing products in the washroom was truly impressive - and they actually worked. A fresh coat of nail varnish applied on the bus home covered up a multitude of sins, and by the time she walked into the house she looked exactly as if she'd spent all day sweeping up hair trimmings instead of draining oil from engines.