Randy Mills, District Nine (18)
The first one to see me when my office hours began was Kasha Wilman. Really I didn't have an office or set hours. I was home most of the day goofing off or playing cards with my mom so I was usually ready to see inventors or entrepreneurs that came by. I turned away the old ones, though. I wasn't looking to invest in stuffy businesses and make a bunch of money. I wanted to help kids like Laurel who wanted to make Nine a better place- people like Kasha.
"I made this hand," Kasha said, showing the contraption that started where the dark skin of her natural arm ended.
"How'd that come about?" I asked as I waved her into the house. Mom got out another teacup and refilled the plate of cookies we'd been eating.
"When I was nine I lost my hand to a thresher," Kasha said. "Right away I started making new ones. I got better and better and this time I have something worth talking about." She pulled of the arm and plopped it on the table. "It's made of scrap tines from old threshers and the joints are barn wire. All it needs for power is two D-cell batteries. That's the only part of it you have to buy. The rest is all lying around."
"You made a new arm out of the thing that took your old one?" I asked. I could only imagine being that smart.
"Yup," Kasha said proudly.
"That's awesome!" I said.
"So can you help me out?" Kasha asked.
"One hundred percent! Let me get you some seed money for now, and write your contact information down in my book. I'll have Narcissa get back to you for all the scholarship stuff." I liked the giving away money and scholarships part. The bookkeeping and administration stuff was best left to people who weren't kind of dumb.
Kids reacted all different ways when they found out I was going to help them. I helped everyone who came, but not everyone got a scholarship. I would have given everyone a scholarship but Narcissa had swooped in and told me that I only had so much money and literally couldn't give everyone a scholarship. She gave me a quota to give out and I did my best to stay inside it. But artificial arms made for less than an hour's pay? I couldn't pass that up! Anyway, everyone reacted differently. I'd had kids who burst out crying and kids who ran up and hugged me. Kasha was more stoic about it. She was so focused on her ideas and what she could do for kids like her that I could see she was already thinking about college and what specialties to focus on. She was going to do awesome things and I got to give her a start.
Laurel would have loved her.
At the heart of my engineering scholarships there was always Laurel. I gave them out based not on which was the coolest but which one Laurel would have liked. She knew way more about this stuff than I did. When I started seeing kids running around with barn wire and thresher tine arms it would be Laurel I thought of. That was the sort of thing she would have made if she was still here. I couldn't bring her back but I would always keep her dream alive.
Sometimes a lot of kids came by and sometimes none at all. It was afternoon before I got my next visitor.
"Hi! I'm John," the stout boy said. "I figured out how to make these masks for people with lung problems. They're made out of corn husks and coffee filters…"
Randy is black and buff and really heckin pretty. He's a sugar baby so he has to look good.