Chapter 10

• The next four weeks go by in a blur. Dad gives us R500 allowance every week, I’ve been using it to buy the parts I need to build the device. I found the blueprints for it in one of the library books. The parts are complicated and some I’ve had to pay a panel beater to make for me. I didn’t want him to see the whole blueprint so I traced the image of the individual part out by hand.
• “Can you make it?” I ask the round man with a stubby beard.
• “Yes, but it’ll cost you,” he said. I paid the price and he created the part for me. Every week I returned with a new drawing, every week he made the part. I built the device as I received the parts. The motherboard was the trickiest part because it had to be calibrated to the specifications indicated on the blueprints.