FIVE YEARS LATER

I awoke one morning to a bright November day.  The sun shone across little bits of frost from the night, that all but dazzled my eyes.  I got dressed, hurried down the stairs, and brushed my teeth.  After a quick breakfast I went outside and hopped on my bike to go to school.  It was a very cold morning indeed, for as I reached the main road and waited for my friend, a wind whipped up.  It was about ten minutes of standing there in the cold before my friend Robert arrived.  “Boy I really do wish we still had busses,” he commented sadly.  I was once again reminded of the crisis our country was in.  About a month ago gas prices had soared to $15.00 a gallon.  Then just last week the last coal and oil had been used up.  It was a devastating change.  Our family survived on a small amount of food and a small solar powered light bulb.  As we pedaled down the road we talked of old times.  We passed a small stand selling tiny windmills.  Then we turned into our school, Erskine Academy.

When we walked in the school all the kids were shouting for joy.  I was puzzled.  “What is going on?” I asked Frank, a good friend of mine.  “The headmaster said that there is no classes and that everyone can work on building a very effective electricity machine,” he replied in a rush.  I now understood what was going on.  Everyone was creating some sort of sustainable energy machine.  I doubted that any of the projects would work well, but it was still a good idea.  

At the end of the day everyone had come up with a plan and felt confident with it.  Mine was a huge magnifying glass over a black board put into the sunshine.  The magnifying glass would warm up the board which radiated heat. The heat would then rise upward into a chamber.  The hot air would turn a fan which would turn a generator.  The teacher said all our ideas were good, maybe not practical, but good.  That night I was reading a book on how solar panels work and I started to think.  Couldn’t you twist the cells double and then fold them over to get twice the energy out of them.  I came to school the next filled with excitement.  I asked our science teacher about my idea and she said she would have to think it over.  Later that day she came back to me and said she thought it might actually work.  I stayed after school and we discussed how it would work and some tips to make it better.

My mom said she would walk with me the long walk to the city to show the governor my idea.  He liked it and said I should sell the idea to a big company and they could make it and distribute it.  I sold it to Apple for $10,000.  The first thing I did with my money was make a donation to my school for helping me and encouraging me.