Cindy Lou was Woody's hot rod. Or to be more precise, she was Woody's 1940 Ford coupé, which he was converting into a hot rod with the hope one day of competing in drag races. He'd already milled her head, worked over the chassis, changed the gear ratio, and moved the engine so that it was no longer in front of the driver's seat. Instead it was alongside the driver, and separated from the driver by a makeshift firewall. All that was needed now was to buy a four-carburetor manifold and Woody figured that Cindy Lou would hit a hundred miles an hour in a quarter mile from a standing start. A hundred miles an hour wasn't championship speed or anything like it. Some of the boys were getting a hundred and thirty out of their mills. But it would be good for Cindy Lou, and with more expansive engine modifications, it could be improved even further. But the final payment on the carburetor rig, secondhand, would cost ten bucks. And Mary Jane was expecting to be taken out that night with the same ten bucks. "Maybe," said Woody hopefully, still cleaning the float chamber, "I could give the guy five on the manifold and squeak by with Mary Jane on the other five." But he knew even as he said it that the compromise wouldn't work. Bob Peters, who had the manifold, wanted cash and spoke darkly of several other offers. And Mary Jane wasn't the kind of girl you could take to the corner drugstore for a lemon coke, then to the movies, and call it an evening. Every now and then Mary Jane got it into her head that she wanted to go out in style. And Woody knew he'd better take her. She went through phases of being very sophisticated and looked upon drugstore entertainment as kid stuff. During her sophisticated intervals, she read books by Aldous Huxley and talked about the social obligations of the upper strata. At such times, and this was one of them, Mary Jane didn't want to hear a word about Cindy Lou, in which she was normally interested. And the mention of carburetors and manifolds left her slightly hostile. The telephone rang, interrupting Woody's reflections. He wiped his hands briefly on his khaki pants, got down off the stool, and went over to the phone, which was fastened to a wall of the garage. "McNess Union Service Station," he said into the mouthpiece. "Hi," said a cheerful voice at the other end. "That you, Woody?" "Yep." "How are things?"