Chapter 2: What do we Make?
June 14, 1631: A Creek Inside the Ring of Fire
David was the first to arrive. Then Brent and Trent arrived together. By the time Sarah got there, the issue was decided.
Sarah, feeling somewhat left out, initially scoffed at the plan. But then David pointed out that, if what her father said was true, it was their duty to Grantville to do something. That ended that. David was a dedicated and marginally astute observer of Sarah Wendell.
So the four began their search for the right thing to make. First they compiled lists of things. Guns, airplanes, hovercraft, cars, electric engines, nails, pliers . . .
The lists got very long because Brent had declared that the first winner would be the person who came up with the most possibilities, whether they turned out to be possible or not. So the first list included such practical and easy to make things as phasers, space shuttles, nuclear submarines, and cruise missiles. Each of which was greeted with raspberries and giggles, but each of which gained the originator a point marked down by Trent. A number of the suggestions that were to eventually be made by one or another group of up-timers were greeted with the above accolade. After about an hour the kids were starting to get a little bored. Trent’s suggestion that they adjourn, and each make a separate list over the next couple of days, met with general approval.
June 16, 1631: The Grantville High School Library
Sarah won by fifteen entries. There was some debate as to whether all her entries were indeed separate items. In a number of cases she had included the final item along with several component parts. Among the four lists there were close to a thousand separate items. If you eliminated duplicates, there were still over five hundred. When you eliminated the utterly impossible, matter transmitters and the like, there were still over three hundred.
Then they tried to eliminate the impractical. But what makes the difference between practical and impractical? That is not so easy a thing to determine, and each kid came at the question from a different angle. To Brent and Trent it was still very much a game, so their version of practical had more to do with interesting than anything else. Sarah imagined presenting her parents with a list of things that could be sold and gaining their respect, so her version paid much attention to what would be saleable. David was the only one who was actually looking for something that would make a good investment for his family. His problem was, he really wasn’t sure what that meant.
All in all, the whole thing was a lot of fun. Some things—nails, for example—were eliminated when Sarah informed them someone else was already working on them. The finance subcommittee was apparently keeping track of that sort of thing. Other things, such as airplanes, were marked as practical but not for them. A number of things were marked as practical for them; but they didn’t stop at the first of these, since they had agreed to go through the whole list.
Then they reached the sewing machine. Brent, who had little interest in sewing, proclaimed that it was impractical because it needed an electric motor—and they had already determined that for them, the electric motor was impractical.
David remembered his grandmother’s old Singer and that it had been converted from treadle power. This was not actually true, merely a family rumor, but David didn’t know that. So he pointed out that a sewing machine did not need an electric motor, which was true.
Sarah, who recognized the root motive of Brent’s rejection of the sewing machine—sexism, pure and simple—naturally took a firm position in favor of the sewing machine.
Poor Trent didn’t know which way to turn. Arguing with Brent was dear to his heart, as was tearing down impossible schemes, but sewing machines were for girls.
“They’re too complicated,” he claimed, “we could never make one from an encyclopedia entry. We would need a design or a model or something.”
“We have one!” David was well pleased to be on Sarah’s side against Brent. “At least my grandma has one, and it’s old. It was converted from treadle or pedal power to electric sometime, but all they did was put on an electric motor to replace the pedals.”
What are you going to do when faced with such intransigence? You just have to show them. Trent and Brent were going to show that it could not be done. David and Sarah, that it could.
June 16, 1631: Delia Higgins’ House
Delia was sewing when the kids arrived. She had been sewing quite a bit lately. She had worked out a deal with the Valuemart, and she had been patching, hemming, and seaming ever since. It was now providing a fair chunk of the family income. Still, she was pleased enough to hear the pounding hooves of a herd of teens to take a break. Such herds had been in short supply since the Ring of Fire.
She was a bit surprised when the kids wanted to look at her old Singer. Kids took an interest in the oddest things. She showed it off readily enough. She was rather proud of it; almost a hundred years old, and still worked well.
* * *
Brent was converted. There were all sorts of gadgets and doohickeys, and neat ways of doing things. Figuring out what did what and why, and what they could make, and what they could replace with something else would be loads of fun.
Trent resisted for a while, but not long. A sewing machine really is a neat piece of equipment.
June 16, 1631: Evening, Delia Higgins’ House
As Delia watched David at the dining room table, his dark eyes studying some papers with an intensity rarely lavished on schoolwork, she thought about the incursion of the small herd of teens. David was up to something, she could tell.
She remembered a phone call she had gotten four years ago, from a ten-year-old David, explaining the hitherto unknown facts that Ramona had lost her job two months before, that they were about to be thrown out of their apartment, and there was no food in it anyway.
“Could we come live with you Grandma? Mom can help you out with the storage lot.”
“Where is your mother?” Delia had asked.
“She’s out looking for work. ‘Cept she ain’t. She goes to the park and sits.” David hastened to add: “She looked at first, she really did. But Mom don’t like it when things don’t work. After a while she just quits.”
They had worked it out between them. It was mostly David’s plan. She had called that night and asked if Ramona could come home and work at the storage lot, to give her a bit more time with her garden.
It had been a while after they got back to Grantville before David had gone back to being just a kid. There had been a certain watchfulness about him. A waiting for the other shoe to drop, so he could catch it before things got even more busted. The watchfulness had slowly faded. Ramona had never been aware of it. Any more than she had ever known about the plot to bring them home. But Delia remembered that watchfulness, and it was back. Subtler than before, more calculating, but there. David had decided that he needed to save his world again, and was trying to figure out how.
This time Delia would not wait for a phone call.
She finished dressing the Barbie in her version of a 1630s peasant outfit. “David, come give me a hand in the garden. I just remembered some lifting I need you to do for me.”
Delia kept a compost heap for her garden. This occasionally involved David, Donny or Ramona with a wheelbarrow. In this instance, it made a good excuse to get David alone for a quiet talk.
David, deep in the process of determining which parts of a sewing machine might best be made by a 1630s blacksmith, grumbled a bit; but did as he was told.
It took all of five minutes, and more importantly a promise not to interfere without good reason, to get David talking. This didn’t reflect a lack of honor on David’s part, but trust in his grandmother. Once he started talking it took a couple of hours for him to run down. During those two hours, Delia was again reminded that kids understand more and listen more than people generally gave them credit for. Or than they want credit for, mostly.
The economics of the Ring of Fire were made clear. Well, a little clearer. She learned about Brent and Trent’s talent for making things, how they worked off one another. She learned about Sarah’s understanding of money, and the financial situation of Grantville as a whole, and how Delia’s family’s situation was a smaller version of the same thing. That they had lots of capital in the form of goods, but nothing to invest it in. That what were needed were products that they could make the machines to make. David had to explain that part twice to make it clear. He used the sewing machine as an example.
“It works like this, Grandma. We have a sewing machine. If we sell it, it’s gone. Mr. Marcantonio’s machine shop could make sewing machines if we didn’t need it to make other stuff, but eventually it’s going to have breakdowns, and it won’t be able to make sewing machines any more. Especially if all it’s making is sewing machine parts and not machine shop parts to keep the machine shop running. But if Mr. Marcantonio’s shop makes some machines that make sewing machine parts, then when those machines break down we have some place to go to get more of them. Every step away from just taking what we have and selling it costs more, but means it takes longer for us to run out of stuff to sell. The machines that make the sewing machine parts don’t have to be as complicated as those in Mr. Marcantonio’s shop, because they don’t need to be as flexible. ‘Almost tools,’ Brent says.”
Sarah Wendell and the Partow twins made a new friend that evening; their parents, even more so. Delia was impressed by the kids and the parents who had given them the knowledge they had.
She was also impressed with David. She promised not to interfere unless asked, but made him promise to ask for her help if needed. She added her vote to the sewing machine because it was a machine itself, so in a way it added yet another level to the levels he had talked about. She gave permission to disassemble her Singer if it was needed. She also promised backing if the kids came up with a plan that they convinced her could work.
“We’ll find the money to do it, David. You and your friends come up with a plan that has a good shot of working and I’ll find the money.”
David Bartley went to bed that night at peace with the world. For the first time since the town meeting after the Ring of Fire, his stomach didn’t bother him at all.
That is, until he remembered that grownups weren’t to be involved. How was he going to tell the others? He had to tell them. Grandma could help a lot.
Emerson House
Vicky Emerson played with her dolls. She hadn't taken them all over to Judy's house to beinventoried and stored. She had her Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse and her half-dozen Barbies, including Malibu Barbie and Ken. The other girls had known that she was holding out, but no one had said anything. She felt a little guilty about it, but she hadn't wanted to give up her Barbies. Not all of them. Mom and Dad weren't paying any attention to her since the brat had been born and the Ring of Fire had just made things worse. She needed her dolls. So for an hour or so she dreamed about living in up-time California with her dream house and surfing with Ken . . . and not having a baby brother at all.
June 19, 1631: Grantville High School
David had admitted his breach of confidence three days before. After being shunned for a day and a half, he had been invited conditionally to rejoin the group. They wanted to know what his grandmother had said, and they wanted assurances that she would not call in their parents or try to take over the project. He had provided the assurances, and added that she thought the sewing machine was a good idea.
After much enjoyable debate, they had narrowed the list of things down. The sewing machine was now top of the list because they had permission to take apart the Singer. Before that it had been fairly low on the list because of its complexity.
Besides, Sarah had noticed a trend. Sewing machines were renting as fast as people could find them, and the price was going up. After some obscure conversation with her parents she had realized that meant there was a ready market for a fairly large number of sewing machines. Brent had thought of several places where a single machine could make up to three or four parts. You would make a bunch of one part, then change an attached tool and make another kind of part. If they could get a good start, they would be ahead of local competitors.
Trent felt it would be better in the long run to make separate machines for each part. “You’re making them too complicated, Brent. You always do.” Lots of really fun arguments in the offing.
The sewing machine was starting to look like a really good product, if they could build it—and just maybe they could. They had an incomplete list of the parts involved, most of which could be produced manually, and now they were in a position to get a complete parts list.
June 20, 1631: Delia Higgins’ House
The Great Sewing Machine Disassembly took most of the morning and reassembly was scheduled for the afternoon. Since Delia was now in on the secret and Ramona and Donny were at the storage lot, the kids could talk freely about what they were actually doing.
The sewing machine was carefully disassembled. As each part was removed it was placed on an old sheet spread on the floor. Its outline was traced on the sheet and it was numbered. Trent made a list describing each part and where it came from. Sarah had brought a digital camera from home.
Each step in the process was explained to Delia, which added to the fun. There is something very gratifying in explaining something to a grownup when you’re fourteen and in charge of it. It remains gratifying, of course, only so long as the grownup listens and does not try to take over. Delia listened. Delia offered no more than words of encouragement and the occasional leading question. In this way Delia managed to get her suggestions listened to. Not many were needed. Brent and Trent were knowledgeable, and Trent was meticulous. A born bean counter, Delia thought, but carefully did not say.
A part would come off the sewing machine and be placed on the sheet. While Trent recorded its function, Brent would suggest ways it might be made, with only a little regard for how practical those ways might be.
When Sarah got bored with the mechanics Delia engaged her in discussions of salability versus cost. This involved several repetitions of “My Dad said” and some of “My Mom said” as well. All of which Delia listened to with unfeigned interest. She was noting the differences between David’s version and Sarah’s. Sarah’s version had more detail and quite a bit more references to what the finance subcommittee was doing. They were working to establish American money as an accepted local currency with surprisingly good success.
Surprising because American dollars, being paper, did not at first appear to be worth anything. But the down-timers were familiar with several forms of monetary notes. Sarah wasn’t familiar with all of the mechanisms the down-timers used to transfer value through paper notes, but she had been told that they did, especially for large sums. The tricky part was, what was backing the American dollar? It was not gold or silver in a vault somewhere, but a calculation of goods and services. The Germans, at least some of them, saw the potential value of such a system. But they also saw how the system could be abused, and their experience had not taught them to have faith in governments. On the up side, Grantville had a lot of stuff the down-timers wanted to buy, and there was nowhere else for them to get it. Unfortunately, too much of that stuff was irreplaceable. It wasn’t stuff made in Grantville, but stuff bought from elsewhere up-time.
David took his own notes on the various subjects, trying to follow both conversations. His notes were a bit chaotic, but then again, so was the situation. David was beginning to develop something approaching a management style. It consisted of finding out as much as he could about everything he could, and then keeping his trap shut till there was a deadlock, or bottleneck of some sort, and giving credit for the idea to someone else. “Brent suggested,” “Sarah said” or “Trent said”—sometimes even “Grandma said.” David did his best to properly attribute credit, but sometimes he got it wrong. Sometimes there was no one to attribute the idea to. In those cases David fibbed. He went ahead and attributed it to the person he figured most likely to have said it if he hadn’t.
It was getting close to noon and David, as the least essential person, was assigned to make lunch. No hardship. David liked to cook. They had some jars of homemade spaghetti sauce in the icebox and plenty for a salad in the garden. Delia called the parents and arranged for the gang to have lunch with Delia and family.
Lunch was a quiet meal. The kids didn’t want to add to the list of who was in the know, and for now, neither did Delia. Ramona was unwilling or unable to admit that David could think for himself. To the extent it was possible, Ramona handled the fact of her children growing up by ignoring it. As soon as the sewing machine project came out into the open, Ramona was going to have to face some things.
After lunch they went back to it. The sewing machine was going back together with only a little trouble, but it meant a lot to Delia and each sticking screw bothered her. So she concentrated on continuing her conversation with Sarah.
About three that afternoon, Delia brought the whole question of whether this was a game or for real to a head.
“How do you form a company, Sarah?” she asked. “When Ray set up the storage lot all it amounted to was registering at the county courthouse and getting a tax number. But the county courthouse is three hundred years away in another universe. So how do we do it in the here and now?”
Somewhat to the surprise of the group, each member had decided that they really wanted to do this. Most of the hesitation had been the belief that they would not be allowed to—that the project would be declared frivolous, and they would be told not to waste time. Or that it would be declared too important to be left in the hands of children, and taken away from them.
Brent and Trent wanted to do it because really making sewing machines offered a more concrete outlet for their creative urges. Sarah, because this was the sort of thing that Grantville needed. David and Delia, because the family needed a source of steady income and neither had that much confidence in the long-term outlook of the storage lot. It was running at a loss at the moment and might well go broke within the next year or so. A storage container is, in its way, a luxury—and one that people apparently could not afford, at least for now.
“To form a company,” Sarah said, after they got back to the question, “is pretty standard. I think. I’d have to check with Mom, but I think it’s just a contract between someone and the government, or several people and the government. That is what the registering Mr. Higgins did at the county courthouse was. A corporation is more complex. I don’t know which we need but I can find out. What we need to do, is work out how much everyone is putting in, in labor and money. Then figure out who owns how much of the company and register it that way. The thing is, this is going to take a lot of money.”
At that point everyone got quiet. The kids because they didn’t have any money to speak of; Delia, because she wanted the kids to realize that they really weren’t in a position to just build the sewing machines in their back yard, that the game was starting to get real. Delia wanted to give them a chance to back away without losing face. So she waited a bit, to let it sink in, watching.
Then, liking what she saw: “How much money?”
“I don’t know. Mom says that it’s a law of nature that everything costs more and takes longer than you expect.”
“We have around a hundred parts,” Trent interjected. “Some can be hand-made, some will take special tools, and some will take machines. Some must be finely tooled. I have the numbers right here.”
“But that doesn’t tell us what we need to know,” Sarah pointed out. “At least, not all of it. How long will it take a blacksmith to make a part, how much will it cost? The only real way to find out is to go find a blacksmith and ask him, and you know some are gonna lie, and others are gonna get it wrong, because they think it needs fancy work, or because they don’t understand how precise it needs to be. So the only real way to find out for sure how much it will cost to make a sewing machine part, is to make one. Actually, to make several. Until then we’re guessing.”
“Well, a guess is better than nothing,” said Delia. “What if we go through Trent’s list one item at a time and make our best guess at the cost of each item?”
The rest of the afternoon, as Brent put the sewing machine back together, the others went through the list of parts and guessed.
When they were getting ready to go home Delia asked: “Have you kids looked at the museum on Elm Street?”
This was met with blank looks. Then Trent hit his head. “Oh. I remember, they have lots of old sewing machines.”
The light came on. They had all been there on school trips. On your mark. Get set . . .
Delia held up a hand. “Not tonight. You’re expected at home. We’ll work something out tomorrow.”
That’s the trouble with grownups—they don’t understand urgency.
Wendell House
Judy watched her sister with concern. Sarah was up to something and Judy didn't know what it was. That was simply unacceptable. Judy was good at keeping secrets. She was even quite good at determining who was and was not trustworthy in a specific case. She was also a snoop. Especially where her older sister was concerned. She found the whole notion of Sarah having a life that didn't include her to be grossly unfair. After all, how was she supposed to learn from her big sister's social blunders if she didn't get to watch them happening? "So, how is Brent?"
"Brent?" Sarah said, going slightly pink.
But, surprisingly, not as pink as Judy was expecting. "Yes. What have you been doing over at Brent's house?"
"I wasn't at Brent's house."
"Where were you then?"
"None of your business."
Judy went off in a huff, but as soon as Sarah was gone she got into Sarah's notes and found the sewing machine project. Then she got worried. She wondered if Sarah was going to get in trouble, because the idea of making sewing machines seemed pretty silly. She didn't want that, not real trouble. Sarah in a little trouble was fun. Sarah in real trouble would make things hard for Judy.
Judy questioned Sarah and got nowhere. She even subtly questioned her parents. Subtly, because teenage solidarity meant that she couldn't rat Sarah out even if she was keeping secrets about something as silly as making sewing machines.
Silly ideas like a sewing machine company would have been bad enough before the Ring of Fire, but now—with armies running around—it could be dangerous, and Judy didn't have much faith in Sarah's ability to speak without putting her foot in her mouth.
June 21, 1631: Delia Higgins’ House
Ramona was at the lot, but Donny was home, wanting to get in on whatever the older kids were doing. So when the twins and Sarah arrived there was a certain amount of awkwardness. Which brought up the problem of keeping this a secret. Delia suggested that David take Donny into the kitchen and make everyone a snack. In other, unsaid words, keep him occupied for a little while. Donny understood the words left unsaid, but a look from Grandma was enough; he went, grumbling.
Once Donny was out of the room, Delia got right to the point. “Keeping this a secret won’t work much longer. Donny already knows something is up. If we want to create a company to make sewing machines. Is that what we want?”
Delia waited, looking at each of the three in turn and received their nods of confirmation. “Well, that isn’t something that can be kept from your parents, and even if I could, I wouldn’t.” Not without a really good reason, anyway, she thought. “Up to now, it’s been a game. The first step to making it real is to bring your parents into it. I can talk to your parents, if you like. Or you can talk to them and I’ll give what support I can. How do you want to handle this?”
Sarah had never been all that concerned about her parents’ reaction anyway, so she was in favor of full disclosure. Though she offered the warning that “Mom and Dad will probably make us include Judy.”
“Oh no! Rachel!” moaned Trent, referring to their ten-year-old sister.
“Naw,” countered his twin brother. “She’s been following Heidi around since the Ring of Fire. Heidi might be a problem though. She’s pretty pissed.”
Brent paused with a nervous glance at Mrs. Higgins. Delia looked back with a raised eyebrow.
“Uh, upset with guys right now,” Brent continued. “Might try to get back by horning in.”
Brent was referring to their older sister, who was sixteen—but, in the twins’ opinion, not at all sweet. Heidi had just gotten her driver’s license, and suddenly there was no gas for the car. A pretty blond girl with a good figure, she had expected the boys in school to be mooning over her this year, but the Ring of Fire had focused almost the entire male teen population of Grantville on matters martial. It had all come as an unwelcome shock to Heidi. She was a bit self-centered.
“Maybe. Mom’s got her number, but might stick us with her just to get her out of her hair. Which,” Trent continued, “is why I’m worried about Rachel. Mom has a lot to do right now, and she is worried about Caleb.” The twins’ older brother had gone into the newly formed Grantville Army the day after graduating high school. “So we are liable to get Rachel and Heidi, whether they want in or not.”
There was a glum silence for a moment, as the kids worried about the prospective interlopers. On the other hand, with the adult backing that Mrs. Higgins had offered to provide, it seemed less likely that the project would be either taken over or cancelled by adults.
Sarah nodded and with dignity made the formal request. “Both my parents are at work right now. Let me talk to them this evening, but if they could call you tonight, Mrs. Higgins, it would probably help.”
“Dad’s at work, but Mom’s home. Maybe we should call her now?” suggested Brent. At Delia’s nod, he headed for the phone. There was some discussion, then Delia was called to the phone. More discussion followed while the kids looked on, ending with: “Thanks, we’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Boys,” Delia said as she hung up the phone, “your mother, and probably your father if he can get away, will be here for dinner tomorrow. I imagine you’ll be grilled tonight. If you would care for a little wisdom from the ancient, I suggest you don’t try to promote the project but simply answer questions as calmly as possible.” The boys nodded respectfully. This confirmation of her status as ancient, while not unexpected, wasn’t particularly comforting.
“Sarah, I hope your parents will be able to come too. I think it would be a good idea if we all got together and talked things through before going much further.” David and Donny returned with a snack tray.
“Meanwhile why don’t you four take Donny and go to the museum. Spend the day, take notes, and explain what is going on to Donny. Take the snacks with you.”
Telling Ramona about the sewing machine project was much less difficult than Delia had imagined. Ramona was, after all, the one who had been presiding over the emptying of supply containers. She knew things weren’t going well for the lot, and she understood that the Ring of Fire had changed things. What she didn’t understand was how things had changed, or what she was expected to do about it. Her biggest concern—terror really—was that as an adult she would be put in charge of something. That Mom was still in charge came as quite a relief.
June 22, 1631: Delia Higgins’ House
The Partows had, over some strong objections, left Rachel at home with Heidi. The Wendells had brought Judy the Younger. While there was some discussion of the sewing machine project over dinner, it wasn’t till after dinner that the pitch got made.
“You four,” said Delia, grinning, “take Donny and Judy into the sewing room, so your parents and I can talk about you behind your backs.”
The kids retreated at speed. Which impressed their parents.
It can be uncomfortable, but still gratifying, to have a casual acquaintance spend a couple of hours telling you how great your kids are, and how much they respect you, complete with quotes of things you have said to them while convinced they weren’t listening.
Uncomfortable, because it’s really easy to remember changing diapers—they make an impression, after all—and forget some of the changes the intervening years have made. They sneak up on you. Are my kids really that bright, hard working, and mature, and why didn’t I know about it? Gratifying, because you want to believe they really are what you raised them to be, and it’s nice when someone else tells you that you did a good job. With teenagers, it’s especially nice when you find out that they actually listen to you.
At least Fletcher and Judy Wendell and Kent and Sylvia Partow found it so, probably because of those concrete examples from Delia:
“I never understood how the federal reserve worked till I heard Sarah’s discussion of the Fed Fairies.”
And:
“My family has owned that Singer since before I was born. I have repaired it countless times, and I have learned more about the how and the why of its inner workings in the last few days than I had learned in the preceding fifty-nine years, mostly from Brent and Trent. I’ve watched Brent sketch out a machine to build a part of the Singer—one that I am sure will work—and then seen Trent tear apart the design and add or change details that make it work better. It’s been a privilege to watch the kids work.”
* * *
For the next four days, as the parents had time to look them over, the kids showed their parts of the proposal to their parents.
Kent Partow, a tallish heavyset man with sandy brown hair and brown eyes, was impressed by the work and the skill his twin sons had put into the designs. He told them so, briefly: “Basically a good job, boys.”
He then spent the rest of the four days when not busy at work or sleeping telling them in detail each and every place where their designs fell short. The focus of his criticisms didn’t have much to do with things that would actually keep the designs from working. He readily admitted there weren’t many of those. No, he dealt with ways that their designs made extra work for the person making the machine, or the person who would be using it.
Mr. and Mrs. Wendell lavished their praise rather more generously, almost uncomfortably so. Certainly enough to produce resentment in Judy the Younger. Well, more resentment. The real focus of Judy’s resentment was that she wasn’t getting to play.
They did suggest several small changes, and one monster.
The monster was this: Normally, in a project like this, you would make your estimate and add say, twenty percent for the unforeseen. In this case, because of the fluidity of the situation, and the large number of unknowns, they suggested a fudge factor of one hundred to two hundred percent of the original estimate.
In the sewing room
"So what's this about?" Judy asked. "Do you really think you can make sewing machines?"
"They can," Donny said with a level of certainty that Judy didn't buy for a moment. So while Judy's parents were learning about Sarah, Judy learned about Mrs. Higgins and the sewing machine factory. She had already gotten chapter and verse about the need for salable products at home. It was the mechanical practicality she didn't trust. It wasn't that she didn't wish her sister well, but there was no way she was going to put her friends into something this risky. At the same time, she really wanted in because if Sarah was in business, then Judy should be in business too. Just more successfully. Judy couldn't remember a time that she hadn't been in competition with her older sister. It was a friendly, even supportive, competition with rules. It rarely, if ever, devolved into sabotaging each other. It was more about getting to play too.