Toady and My Money-Making Project (Part 2)

The worst thing about Toady and his course was each of us must have a project that we could make money from. Everything must be real and he would visit us one by one to make sure that we were not fooling him. I felt discouraged after hearing that. It’s because in my life I had never been successful in doing anything concrete. I used to grow bean sprouts and they became rotten. I used to make salt eggs and, again, they became rotten. I used to keep small fish, but they died and my mother forbade me from keeping any animals so I fed house lizards instead.

In the end I chose to grow ‘Pludang’ a kind of climbing plant. I had my own reason. First, it grew so easily without fertilization or care from me just the same way the grass did. Second, it needed no investment because I spotted some in front of my neighbors’ houses. So my plan was to ‘borrow’ some in some early morning on the way to school. Toady approved of my project and said he would inspect my work at the end of the second semester.

The first task was to prepare a plot of land for the plant. I asked my father to do that for me. The second task was to borrow the plant from some neighbors. My mum was assigned to do that exclusive job because her innocent look could be helpful to her in case the neighbors caught her in the act of borrowing. After handing over the jobs to my parents, I hummed happily. Toady told us to keep a logbook so we could track the expense and income. I think my ability to lie started here. Toady was to blame.

At first I did my business honestly. The borrowed plant grew very well while the number of the mosquitoes was increasing too. In my life, I had never sold anything before. Selling my plant to strangers was difficult for me. So I thought the best way was to start with my immediate family. I sold some plants to my mother. It wasn’t a mutually agreeable deal because she complained a lot before giving me one dollar to shut me up. I recorded the first income in my logbook as instructed by Toady.

The following week I dealt the business with my mother again. Grumbling, she paid me without receiving the goods. The third time I came back to her, I told her my business should go to people outside the family. I continued that she, as my mother, was selected to be my sales executive by taking my plants to sell people at her office. I couldn’t convince her to do my request. In the end, I ended up making up an impressive story for Toady.

When it’s near the time Toady inspected our projects, I was so nervous that I consulted with a friend how to stop him from visiting us at home. Finally, we agreed to drug him. No you didn’t misread. We planned to drug him by adding a strong laxative in some drink before serving him. We were not bad. We just didn’t want him to know where we lived because he might stop by to borrow money from our parents. It made sense enough. A girl was sent to a druggist’s and she was driven off after the pharmacist was told that we needed a strong laxative for our teacher.