Day 359 - Garage

 GARAGE

Prompt - Garage : Write about some random item you might find in a garage

"But it's Xmas Eve!"

"I know Rob, but this guy made it sound like it was really urgent, really important.  Says he needs to be underway tonight or a lot of people are going to suffer."

"And you believe that?!  It's always urgent, always important, isn't it?  What's so different this time?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure.  He just seemed like he meant it, and I believed him.  Sometimes you have to follow your instincts.  So will you stay or not?  I've let Joe and Pavel go home, they've got kids.  But you and me are OK, aren't we?  I'll buy you a pint after."

"Aye, alright.  You've got me wanting to know who this guy is now, and what's so important.  What did he say his name was?  He's not one of our regulars?"

"Kringle.  With a K.  Never heard of him before.  Said it was something unusual and we said we'd tackle anything so we sounded like the people he needed.  That a lot of people needed."

"Eh?  Weird name, and who are all these other people then?  Will they pay?"  Rob laughed at his own poor joke.

"We'll find out soon enough, said he'll be here in ten.  At least we've got plenty space after all we got through today.  Let's see if we can make for one more contented customer.  It'll look good on the online reviews, eh?"

They turned as a deep voice boomed across to them from the garage door.  "Hello, is one of you Dougie?"

"Aye, that'll be me.  Are you Mr Kringle?"

"That's right, but just call me Kris.  With a K.  Can I bring my vehicle in for you to have a look?"

"Sure.  You never said exactly what it was though.  Be best if it's a model we already know our way around, we've not got all night."

"No, I need to be back out soon.  Going to have to fly, or there will be a lot of disappointed faces.  But I'm sorry, it isn't something you've seen before.  Bit of a one-off really."

"OK, bring her in."  The man turned and left.  Rob looked at Dougie with raised eyebrows.  "What?"

"He's a bit... weird, eh?"

"Different.  Like his car."

"But you don't think it's a bit odd?  Xmas Eve?  Old guy coming in with a strange bit of kit.  Old guy who's kinda tubby, with a big white beard and curly white hair?  Ring any bells?"

Dougie stared at Rob.  He couldn't tell if he was joking or not.  Rob looked back at him with an expression that said he wasn't.  Their staring was interrupted by a whooshing noise and suddenly there was a vehicle in the middle of the floor.  They looked.  They looked at each other, mothes open.  They looked back at Kringle's ride.  Neither had any words.

The 'car' was a ... what was it?  A sort of sleigh?  About the size of a Transit, with sparkling red paintwork and strange looking pods on the side.  There was only one seat, mounted dead centre, and from this the white haired man emerged.  He smiled encouragingly at them.  Dougie recovered first.

"What's the actual problem Mr Kringle?"

"And what the hell is that?" added Rob.

"I did say you wouldn't have seen one before.  Only one of its kind.  Do you think you can help?  One of the runners has split."  He bent down to point out the full length metal strip that ran the full length of the vehicle."

"What does it do?" Rob asked tentatively, "If you've got the wheels what does the slider thingy do?"

Kringle bristled.  "The wheels won't get me very far young man, and I've got a long, long way to go tonight.  Can you help me or not?  Your blurb says you'll tackle anything.  Well, do you or not?"

"Of course we do, so let me have a look" said a mollifying Dougie.  He bent to examine the damage runner, could see the split about a third of the way back and around twenty centimetres long.  Could easily catch on something and rip off the whole unit if it was going along the ground.  he went round to look at the other runner, to confirm how it should look, and put his hand to his chin, gave it an oily rub.  It looked like the wheels could be retracted, so maybe this thing really did run along on snow.  He looked inside at the driving position and saw nothing much he recognised.  "We could do with putting it up on the ramp.  Maybe you could drive it on for us please."

Rob looked at Dougie in shock.  It was a big rule of the garage that customers didn't drive on to the ramp, there'd been too many accidents before.  Dougie looked back and raised his eyebrows, gave a shrug, saying this was different.  

Guided by Dougie, the old man manoeuvred the sleigh on to the ramp, it was raised up and the guys got under to take a better look.  Kringle was directed to sit in the 'waiting room', a tiny adjunct to the grubby office with more girlie calendars than chairs.

The underside was like nothing they've ever seen before, smoothly sculpted to be highly aerodynamic , though whether to generate lift or downforce wasn't clear.  They examined the runner that was in good nick, before having a closer look at the damaged one.  The surface clearly needed to be ultra smooth, slippery, sculpted to blend in with the undamaged surfaces.  Dougie went back to the customer.

"We're not really a body shop Mr Kringle, and if we do try something I'm not sure we'll be able to make as good a job of it as you... want."  He'd been going to say 'need', but did he really know what this old man needed?  Wasn't he making too many assumptions?

"But you can try?  You really are my last resort, and, as I said, so many depend on me getting out tonight."

"We can try.  No promises.  It's trying to find the right bit of material to patch it with, and making a decent job of it.  But we'll give it a go."  He went back to Rob.  "OK, let's see what we can think of.  The cracks just a bit too wide to weld shut, so we need to patch it - agreed?"  Rob nodded.  "So what can we use?"

"I've no idea what this metal is, but I'm sure we've nothing like it here.  Would any of those scrap body panels do the job?"

"Maybe.  I'll have a look through them, you scout round the place and see if anything else offers itself."  So Rob went on the hunt, while Dougie found some scraps from some panels they'd had to cut up.  But none of them were fine enough, the metal too thick to fit, and requiring too much work to taper.  

"Will this do?"  Rob held up a chrome strip from a seventies Humber they'd been restoring.  the owner had wanted it chrome free, so they had quite a bit of it.  Dougie looked at the strip, held it up against the gash.

"I think you might be a genius, Robbie boy.  Let's give it a go."  

Cutting, hammering, welding, smoothing, they managed to fill the gap and create a good runner surface.  With the rest of the runner shiny from use the chrome hardly looked out of place at all.  

"Mr Kringle, would you like to come and take a look?"  The old man was surprisingly spritely in jumping up to follow Dougie.  "We've done the best we can sir.  Can't guarantee how long it'll hold, but it should do as a stopgap.  Have you got far to go?"

"Round and about you know, round and about.  But only for one night.  If it lasts that long then the job's done.  Well done gentlemen, I knew I could rely on you.  How much do a owe you?"

"Call it a hundred, if that's OK with you."

"A bargain gentlemen, for such a service to humanity."  He pulled a fat wallet from within his voluminous jacket and counted out seven twenty pound notes.  "You deserve a little bonus my friends.  I thank you, as will every child around the world."  Kringle got into the sleigh, manipulated the controls and slid smoothly backwards out of the garage, waving enthusiastically as he went.  

"Well, that was different."

"Different?  Weird you mean.  The old guy's a bit cracked, eh?"  Rob remained suspicious.  

"Yeah, well, can't argue about it now.  We got him sorted, another happy customer, and a bit of extra cash too.  Oh bugger, I forgot to ask him to leave a review.  I asked him to write down his details while he waited so maybe we can get in touch with him."  They went into the waiting area but the form was blank.  On each seat sat a box, neatly wrapped and bowed in blue and silver.  "And he must have left these by accident.  Will they give us any clues?"

There was a label on each box, but all they said was 'Douglas' on one, and 'Robert' on the other.  They looked at each other wide eyed, and rushed out into the street.  The sleigh was already gone, but a noise overhead made them look up.  And there it was, the driver now brightly dressed in red and white.  And there it wasn't, suddenly vanishing as if transported, and all that was left behind was a booming jolly laugh.