No Rest for the Weary

Myles woke up that morning to Shane’s cry for assistance.

“Myles! My car broke down again! Need help!”

Groaning, he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He really had hoped today would be a slower day. Running a family business as a young teenager is not easy. Especially when business is booming. Not to mention his friends like to break everything and he is usually the only one around who knows how to fix it.

As he ascended the stairs he was immediately bombarded by his struggling friend.

“Buddy, hey!” Shane greeted. “Something doesn’t seem right with my old girl.”

Yawning, Myles replied, “Last I checked, Shannon was fine.

He got bright red in the face. “Quiet man! You know that’s not what I meant.”

Myles chuckled and elbowed his best friend in the ribs.Shane only told him about his feelings for Shannon. Myles knew he wanted to keep it quiet, but he couldn’t resist teasing time after time. It was hard having a best friend six years older than yourself.

In no time, Myles had once again fixed the old jalopy. “It should be better now,” he said as he packed his tools away. “You know I can get you a sports car, right?”

Shane smiled. “Thanks, pal, but this is fine for now. You do enough for me anyhow.” He rubbed Myles’ blond hair and drove to work.

Sighing, Myles made his way to his warehouse to get started on that troublesome project. He and his employees were at it for months and yet nothing seemed to be working. They were trying to invent a new machine to successfully locate landmines via drone across a long distance. He wanted soldiers to be able to detect them from their base rather stumbling upon them blindly.

“If something goes wrong, we could endanger thousands of soldiers,” a worker said as another test failed.

“Thanks for the reminder,” Myles growled. “There has to be something else we could do.”

“Call for help from other experts,” someone said behind him. It was Mr. Wyght. “I heard it was for the military so i offer you my services.”

Prideful, the teenager refused his offer and ran the tests again.

Unfortunately, The machine still wasn’t detecting all of the mines.

Myles became agitated. “There has to be something ridiculous that we are missing.” Thinking out loud, he said, “Sometimes past events have relevance and can fix problems of the present. Me fixing Shane’s car this morning does not help me at all.”

Putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder, Mr. Wyght smiled and said, “There is still nothing wrong with asking for help. Remember, you are just a kid with responsibilities. I mean sure you graduated college before you were ten years old, but that doesn’t mean you have to do everything alone.”

Myles took a deep breath and finally let him assist them.

It took weeks, but they finally figured out the problem with the sensors. Quickly they fixed it and in no time the first prototype was completed and the “Powell Landmine Locator” was ready to begin manufacturing.