But we had to get in. We had to get out of there."Come on!"It stank inside. There was dirt and dust everywhere. Empty beer cansand rubbish in both foo... wells. The ash tray was open and overloadedwith cigarette butts. A pack of cigarette's lay in the cavity on thepassenger side of the dashboard. In the back of the van were assortedoily or rusty car parts, strewn all over amongst the rubbish.Tina got in the other side and turned her nose up, daintily flickingwhat rubbish there was onto the. DeadAndBack had his forge humming, and he went to work on the new gears that we'd use in the mill with a will. Replacing the old wooden gearing of the power hub with big and solid wrought iron gearing would give us a lot more power and a lot more torque to use. Once the foundation was poured and set, we poured the wheel footings on the river side and began to build the mill race. The new mill was far more powerful than the old one, and the wheels we built were almost twenty feet tall. We built. There’s no way they can prove anything because I had such good grades.”“What about the sleeping with him part?” I asked quietly.“I know you know. But unless there’s evidence of favoritism, it won’t get that far. In other words, if everything checks out, they won’t care.”“And the rules?”“Only ban trading sexual favors or money or whatever for grades. I was surprised, really.”“If you need anything from me, just let me know. I do have to say, and this is spoken as someone who has made really dumb. They truly would have had a cow ifthey had even had an inkling of what was going on.The conversation was brief, and they were satisfied that I was homewhere I couldn't get into any trouble. As soon as my parents hung up, Icalled Linda as requested. We talked about my walk home, and I told herthat in a strange way just how much I really enjoyed it. We agreed thatI would return to her house as close as possible to 8:00 AM thefollowing morning and said goodnight once again.When she said "I'll see.