“I don’t know. I heard that Mr. Marcantonio said that they designed good machines, and that some of them are going to be used in shop class.” Which was the first Brent had heard about that.
The first day as a sophomore in high school is supposed to be different from the first day as a freshman. Well, this was certainly different. People who would not talk to lowly freshmen when they were sophomores and juniors, now as juniors and seniors, seemed quite willing to talk to lowly sophomores, at least if those sophomores owned a company. Others seemed to resent them for not staying in their place.
Then there were their classmates.
A significant percentage thought the whole thing was ridiculous. That Delia and the kids were wasting valuable resources that Grantville needed for other things. That they would never build a working sewing machine, and even if they did, why weren’t they using the money for something that mattered? Like weapons or reapers?
“I’ll tell you why,” said one would-be wit. “Because no one would let the Bill Gates wannabes mess with something that mattered.”
Sarah almost got in a fight over that one. “Baby Gates” was the first, but not the most popular of the nicknames the four got. The “sewing circle” was the favorite. Then there was the rather convoluted “Barbershop quartet,” based on the notion that they were four would-be “singers.”
They found a similar range of attitudes, mostly without the name calling, among the teachers. Some were enthusiastic, some concerned, and some sarcastic.
All in all, the change in status made it a difficult and confusing first day, to be followed by a difficult and confusing first week. All of the “Sewing Circle” had some heavy-duty adjustments to make. Over the summer they had been less involved in high school stuff than most of the kids in Grantville. They had after all, been rather busy.
“This too shall pass,” and it did. There was altogether too much going on for any but the most obsessive to keep up the teasing for long. It rapidly became just one more thing among many that the sophomores in Grantville High concerned themselves with. There were discussions about the army, about the future of Grantville, and about the German immigrants. Then there were the German students. Who had their own attitudes and beliefs.
The German students were, for the first few weeks, reluctant to put themselves forward. Partly this was because of the language barrier, but not entirely. They also felt a status difference. The up-timers were rich, with rich parents, and the down-timers were refugees. Don’t give offense, study hard, and make friends. These instructions, often contradictory in practice, were impressed on the down-timer kids by their parents, all too often using a belt or a rod to reinforce the point.
Their attitude toward the “Sewing Circle” was somewhat different. To them, the important point was not whether the sewing machine company would actually succeed. That wasn’t unimportant, but the really important point was that the “Sewing Circle” had parents who could afford to start them in a business. Granted, all the up-timers were rich, but there’s rich, and then there’s rich.
Since Delia Higgins was the backer of the enterprise, this attitude focused on David.
Short and skinny for his age, David Bartley had never been one of the popular kids among the up-timers. Mostly, he still wasn’t. But among the down-timers he was very popular—especially with the down-timer girls.
The down-time girls took a pragmatic view of romance. David, Brent and Trent—but especially David—looked like they might be wealthy enough to marry years before most other boys in school. Not that the girls were looking to marry right away, but the period between puberty and satisfaction was uncomfortably long for a tailor’s daughter.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, David didn’t really know how to handle the situation.
September 10, 1631: Delia Higgins’ House
There were extra guests for dinner at Delia Higgins’ house the night of the first TV broadcast. Ramona had invited Karl Schmidt and his family. They had been seeing each other since mid-August. Not every day, but once a week or so, Karl would bring in a load of parts and Ramona would take the afternoon off.