Carly wipes the sweat away from her eyes. She had grease on her cheek and hands. She hated wearing gloves.

“How are the repairs coming, Carly?” Christina brings over a nice glass of lemon aid.

“Almost done, Mrs. Simpson.” Carly tightens up the last spark plug and put the new wires on it.

She takes a rag out of her back pocket and wipes away the sweat and grease on her face. She gathers all her tools and put them back in her mechanics bag. She reaches inside the driver window and starts the car right up.

Mrs. Simpson couldn’t believe Carly had managed to get her car going again. She hands the glass of lemon aide to Carly “I thought you might like something cold to drink.”

“Thank you.” Carly accepts the glass and takes a sip of the lemon aide.

“I can’t believe you got the car going.” Mrs. Simpson walks over and looks at the car as it ran.

“It just needed a tune-up and an oil change.” Carly had done a full tune-up and put a new oil pan gasket on.

Mrs. Smith turns the car off and looks at Carly. She was amazed that a girl her age knew how to work on cars.

“How much do I owe you?” Mrs. Simpson had gone to the bank yesterday and drew out the cash from Carly’s estimate.

“Less than I quoted you originally.” Carly managed to get the new wires cheaper, then what she originally priced.

“Good, so what do I owe you?” As Mrs. Simpson pulls the money out of her pocket.

“Two hundred dollars for everything.” Carly pulls the work order she wrote and hands it to Mrs. Simpson.

Mrs. Simpson looks at the bill. She notices the prices for the parts Carly originally quoted, were cheaper. She hands the money over to Carly.

“Thanks, Mrs. Simpson. If you know anyone else that can use my services. Tell them to tell me you sent them, and I’ll give them a 10 percent discount on any repairs.” Carly gives Mrs. Simpson some of her business cards to pass around.

“I will Carly. You be careful and thank you.” Mrs. Simpson watches as Carly climbs into an old Terminix pickup truck.

Carly checks her schedule as she drives off to see if she had another job for today. She had two more, but those were quick jobs. She heads towards her second job, which was a brake job on a 1995 Toyota Corolla. The next job after that one was a simple oil change.

By the time Carly gets home. It was seven in the evening. She pulls her truck into the garage and locks it. She was so happy to be home.

Carly takes her tennis shoes off and slips out of her work coveralls before she heads into the house. As she walks into the kitchen, she grabs
some ramen noodles packets out of the cabinet and starts boiling some water.

Carly watches as the water starts to boil. As she adds the noodles and the seasoning packet. It stirs up memories of when she was living on the streets. She ran away from home because her step-father was an abusive and bigotry person.

He never said a kind word to her, no matter how hard she tried to please him. Her mother, on the other hand, she was wrapped around her new husband’s little finger. Her mother found it a bother to take care of her. The only gifts she received was from her aunts and uncles. They always made sure she had toys, food, and clothes.

Carly shuts the stove off and transfers the noodles from the pot to a bowl she made herself. She learned how to make plates, bowl and even coffee cups from clay. They were pretty good, and she sold a lot of them. She still goes down to the flea market to sell the dishes she makes and online.

Carly heads into her living room to eat the noodles and listen to some music. As she is eating and listening to music. Her cell phone beeps, letting her know she received a text message.

She looks at it and notices it was from her friend Sammy. He wants to know if she is interested in going with him and do some picking. He has a lead on a guy who is willing to sell some of his collection.

She texts him back asking him when he wants to leave. She didn’t mind doing a little picking. She had nothing planned for the next few days.
Carly finishes her dinner and goes to pack an overnight bag. Hopefully, she can find some nice items to bring back and sell at the flea market.
As she is packing, her phone beeps again. Carly looks at it “Tomorrow, at 7 will pick you up at your house.”

“Okay, I’ll have coffee for us.” Carly heads back into her kitchen and set the coffee pot for 6:00 am. Once she has the coffee all set-up for tomorrow. She heads back to her bedroom and finishes packing.

“How has business been?” Sammy looks over towards Carly as they traveled down the road.

“It’s covering the bills.” Carly had enough to cover next month’s rent and a little left over to buy groceries.

The auto repair business paid the rent and whatever else she wanted. She uses the money from the custom dishes business to pay for her picking. The selling of items from that covers her expenses for the clay and paint for the dishes. She also uses some of it to buy more items from picking.

Sammy couldn’t wait till they get to the address he was given. The owners of the property were willing to sell everything from what he was told.

“How are your uncle and aunt? I heard they are thinking about moving to Florida.” Sammy’s mother is friend’s with Carly’s aunt and uncle.

“Aunt Melania wants to move down there for the warm weather and Uncle Ted wants to move for the golf courses.” Carly knew her uncle was into golf.

“I don’t know how anyone can play that game. Anyway, here we are.” Sammy pulls up to a long driveway and follows it towards the end.

As they approached the farmhouse, they could see that the owners were in the process of cleaning the house out. There were several other looking barns and garages that looked to be filled with stuff. Sammy pulls the van up next to a beat-up Chev pickup truck.

Carly follows Sammy as he gets out of the van and walks over towards a man that looks like he could be in his forties. Standing next to him was a short black-haired woman that was a little taller than Carly herself.

“Hi, I’m Sammy Anderson and this is my friend and partner Carly Gilles. We heard that you were trying to sell a few items.” Sammy hopes he made a good impression.

“I’m Tony Williams and this is my sister Betty Williams and your right we are trying to sell some of our father’s collection. How did you guys find out about us selling items.” Tony was curious how these outer towners found out.

“I have friends that live in this area and they passed the word to me and my partner. We’re like the guys from American Pickers. We buy old stuff and resell it.” Sammy spotted a few items he was interested in.

“So, you like old stuff?” Betty looks at Carly when she asks that question.

“Yes ma’am, very much.” Carly loved making money from antiques.

“Well, we can help you.” Betty starts escorting Sammy and Carly around the property.

As they walked throughout the property. They find things they hadn’t seen before. Carly couldn’t believe how much stuff they had. They spend all day going through things and asking how much they were selling them for. It was good they brought a lot of money with them.

They fill his van up with their purchases. What they had would bring some good money at the little shop Sammy operated. On the way back from the farm. They spot a junkyard.

“Sammy, can we stop here, please?” Carly bats her eyes at him and gives him her pouty lips.

“Ah, I hate when you do that.” Sammy pulls into the junkyard.

They see that the owner of the place was in the process of closing. Sammy stops the van, as Carly hops out of the van.

“Excuse me, sir? I was wondering if we could look around really quickly.” Carly was hoping he would say yes.

Charlie had seen a black cargo van coming up the driveway, while he was closing the gates. He looks at the young long brown hair girl as she hopped out of the cargo van. He notices she was wearing a pair of blue jean bib coveralls and a black t-shirt underneath it.

“Sorry Mrs., but I have an appointment to get to. If you want to come back tomorrow morning. I’ll be open at 8 o’clock.” Charlie had to meet with his wife and a few friends.

Carly felt disappointed. They were planning on staying overnight, but they were heading in the opposite direction. Maybe, she could talk Sammy into it.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” Carly gets back into the van.

“Well?” Sammy looks at his partner.

“We have to come back tomorrow morning.” Carly was using her puppy dog eyes and pouty lips at him.

“We’ll you stop it with the eyes and lips. You don’t need to use them all the time. Sshh, you are worse than my little sister.” Sammy just shakes his head at her.

“I thought I was your little sister?” Carly had a teasing smile on her face.

“You are.” Sammy knew if he had a little sister, he would want her to be like Carly.

“We’ll spend the night and come back tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Sammy.” Carly places a kiss on Sammy’s cheek.

“You’re welcome.” Sammy looks for a mid-price hotel they could stay at for the night.

He finds a nice motel that was reasonable and had a good rating when Carly looked them up. He pulls into the parking lot and park. He watches as Carly hops out and heads into the main office and register them.

After twenty minutes, she comes back out and hops back onto the passenger seat. She looks towards Sammy “I got us a twin bedroom. It’s room 106.”

“Good.” Sammy starts the van up and drives down to the room.

Once they were parked and inside the room. Carly drops her bag on the bed closest to the bathroom.

“Do you want to shower first, or can I take it?” Carly was unhooking the straps on her coveralls.

“You can have it. I’ll order us some dinner.” Sammy looks through the collection of taking out that delivers.

Carly lets the coveralls drop to the floor and remove her t-shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath her t-shirt. She wasn’t very big in the chest. She leaves her panties on until she walks into the bathroom and removes them. Sammy knew she was transgender, but she knew she made him a little uncomfortable.

She removes her panties and gets the water going. Her being transgender was another reason she ran away from home. Her parents had been talking about admitting her to a mental hospital. Her stepfather knew a Psychologists that would be willing to place her in a mental hospital.

She overheard them talking one day by accident. The doctor was going to make it appear she suffered from serious mental insane. He wanted more money for the job.

Carly pulls the shampoo, body wash and conditioner she brought with her out of her bath bag. She washes her body and hair. When she washes between her legs, she wishes her birth defect wasn’t there. She found a way to disguise that she had a penis by pushing her testicles and penis up inside her body where they came from and used medical superglue to keep them there. She hated tucking them between her legs and using medical tape to hold them in.

“I wish you would go away.” As she rinses the soap from between her legs.

After twenty minutes, she gets out of the shower and wraps a towel around her head. She slips on a pair of cute panties and her nightshirt.
When she walks out of the bathroom, she notices Sammy had ordered Chinese takeout for them.

“What did you get me?” Carly loved Chinese food.

“I got you your favorite, Szechuan Beef, and two eggrolls. Also, a two-liter of Pepsi to share between the two of us.” Sammy sets out two plastic cups and pours soda into them.

“Thanks.” Carly enjoys her dinner. She loved eggrolls with duck sauce on them.

Sammy selects a movie for them to watch as they eat. He glances over towards Carly a few times. He knows how much she wants to be a real girl. The first time he met her, she was wearing a bikini while she was washing his neighbors’ cars.

She was driving a little beat up rust eaten Toyota pickup truck with everything she needed to wash cars with. The small tank of water in the bed looked like the shocks of the truck couldn’t support the weight. She got red as a lobster that day.

A few days after that she was on the other side of the street from his house mowing and edging the lawn wearing only her bikini top and short shorts. Sammy knew the guy she was cutting grass fore liked young girls.

During the next two weeks, he saw Carly doing odd jobs for people on his street. She helped a realtor clean out a house that had been auctioned off. That took a few days to do. She used her small truck to transport the contents to a substation.

Then one weekend while he was at the flea market, he saw her selling hand made dishes. He had gone over and picked one up to examine it and saw that it indeed was hand made. He saw her initials on the back of the dish. The artwork was unique and nice looking. She made complete sets and took custom orders.

He looks over towards Carly and saw her curled up on top of the blankets. Her dirty dish was sitting on the corner of the nightstand that was between them. He gets up and grabs her trash and throw it away.

The Next Day:
“I can’t believe you bought all three cars.” Sammy looks over towards Carly as they drove back home.

“Hey, he had a 1969 Ford Mustang, a 1944 Willys MB Military Jeep, 1967 Chev Nova already setup for racing for sale. The mustang I’m going to invest money in for racing. The Willy’s I’m going to restore and sell to Robert down at the navy and army surplus store. The Nova is partially done. All I need to do is finish it.” Carly had to call a friend of hers to come and pick the cars up and take them to Johnathan’s garage. He rented the back of the place out to her.

She was completely broke now. Carly just watches as Sammy drove them home. He drops her off first.

“I’ll see you later and thanks.” Carly gets out and heads towards the house she was renting.

She would love to own one of her own, but she doesn’t have the money. First, she wants to get rid of her birth defect. Secondly, she wants to open her own garage and work on cars for people. Lastly, she wanted to buy her own house.

Carly walks into the house and tosses her dirty clothes in the washer. She strips out of the clothes she has own and head to her bedroom to get the rest of her dirty clothes. She slips her nightshirt on that is laying on her bed.

She grabs the shop manual she has on Willy’s jeep and looks through it. The cars she bought won’t be at the garage till later at night. While she is looking through the shop manual. She checks her messages to see if she had any jobs come in. There was a couple over on Hayberry Ave that wanted her to give them an estimate to landscape their backyard.

She’ll call them back later and schedule a time to go over and look at the yard. So, far that has been the only call she got for work. She hopes another call comes in.

Carly heads out to the garage and gets her riding lawnmower. She cuts her grass and after cutting the grass. She edges the lawn. By the time the sun goes down, she is extremely tired.

Carly fixes herself some dinner and watches a movie afterward. After the movie is over, she heads to bed. She can’t wait until the vehicles she bought are delivered.

A Day Later:
“Carly, are you back here?” Joseph was looking for Carly.

“I’m out here.” Carly was sandblasting the rims from Willy’s Jeep.

Joseph walks outside and spots Carly wearing a mask, protective glasses, she had gloves on and wearing a full jumpsuit. She had the cuffs taped up, so no sand went up to her sleeve or down her gloves. He spots two of the rims already sandblasted and one still waiting to be sandblasted.

“Johnathan needs your help up at the front desk.” Joseph had been sent to get Carly.

“Alright.” She stops blasting the rim and removes her glasses.

Carly brushes the sand off her suit and removes her gloves as well. She follows Joseph up to the front counter. She spots Mrs. Willes who lives a few doors down from her standing and talking with Johnathan.

“What can I do for you, Johnathan?” Carly was curious why she was called.

“Mrs. Willes wants you to work on her car.” Johnathan didn’t know how she knew Carly rented a bay at his place.

“Okay, which bay is in?”

“Bay 4.” Johnathan went ahead and had its place in the bay.

Carly heads towards bay four and spotted it already on the rack for her. She looks at the work order and performs a few tests. It takes Carly about an hour to locate the problem. It was a bad relay. She heads back up to the front and over to Johnathan.

“I need to order a new relay. This one is causing all her problems.” Carly tosses it to Johnathan.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Johnathan has his part person order the part.

“Let me know when it comes in.” Carly heads back to her bay and finishes working on the wheels on the Willy Jeep.

Thirty minutes later “Carly, your part is in.”

Carly looks up when she hears the announcement. She was three-quarters of the way done sandblasting the wheels. She heads up to the
front of the garage and grabs the part. It takes her five minutes to put in and test the car.

Once the car was purring like a kitten. She heads back up to the front desk “all done and ready to go, Mrs. Willes.”

“Thank you, Carly.”

“You’re welcome.” Carly hands the keys to Johnathan.

She heads back to her bay and finishes up on sandblasting the wheels, so she can send them out to be powder coated. Carly looks up and notices that the rest of the shop was closing up. She was glad the area Johnathan rented to her, had its own security and locks.

Carly looks up from under the hood of the jeep. She finally got it purring like a kitten. She reaches over and grabs a slice of cold pizza she ordered hours ago. She’s been so intense on getting the jeep working, she lost track of time.

She checks what time it is on her cellphone and saw it was quarter till, midnight. She stretches and cover-up a yawn. She loads the sandblasted rims into the back of her pick-up truck. She’ll go by Kellam’s tomorrow morning to have them powder coated.

Carly locks her place up and heads home. She took the rest of the pizza she had leftover with her. She hits the remote and watches as the garage door opens. She’s been talking to the owner of the house she was renting, and he might be willing to do a rent to own for her.

Carly drags herself into the house and into her bedroom. She strips out of her coveralls and brushes out her hair. She wanted to get some of the sand she accidentally got in her hair, out. She debates on jumping into the shower or going straight to bed. Taking a shower wins out, as she heads into the bathroom.

The next morning, she gets up early and heads towards the powder shop to drop the wheels off. Afterward, she heads towards McDonald’s and grabs some breakfast, while she heads over to Mayberry Ave. to look at the lawn she was called about. As Carly is walking around the yard. She hears someone calling her name.

“Carly, hey Carly what are you doing over here?” A young guy that is a couple of years older than her, comes running over to her location.

Carly looks at the guy and tries to figure out where she has seen him before. Then it dawns on her, that he was Alex Sexton’s little brother. She hasn’t seen him or Alex since she ran away.

Shawn couldn’t believe that he was seeing Carly. The last thing anyone heard about Carly, was that he had run away from home. When he gets closer and is able to see Carly clearer, he notices that Carly was dress as a girl now.

“Hey Carly, how have you been?” Shawn stops near her.

“Fine. What brings you to this neighborhood?” Carly was curious.

“My parents just bought the house up the block a week ago. How come you ran away from home?” Shawn was out getting the layout of the neighborhood.

“My parents couldn’t deal with the fact, that I felt more comfortable as a girl, then I did as a boy. So, I ran away. Where is your brother?” Shawn’s brother used to pick on her and beat her up whenever he could.

“He’s in jail. He and some of his friends tried knocking over a liquor store. They didn’t count on, that one of the clerks that worked there, was an off-duty police officer.”

“Damn, that sucks. How long is he going to be in there?”

“He’s going to be in jail for ten years. He was the getaway driver. If he behaves himself, he might get out in three years.” Shawn understood that his older brother messed up.

“Well, all I remember about your brother is, he enjoyed picking on me and beating me up. So, I hope he learns something while he is in prison.”
Carly hasn’t forgiven him, for pulling his pants off.

She had been wearing a pair of her mother’s high waist lace panties. Every kid in her neighborhood, including some of the teenagers, saw them on her. She was called sissy and found pairs of girl underwear stuff into her locker. After that incident, she decided the hell with it and started going to school as a girl.

Shawn looks at Carly and could understand why his brother picked on her. He was a bully and picked on him as well until he punched him in the nuts. He got a lecture from his father about hitting guys in the family jewels.

“Well, it's nice seeing you. I have to go.” Shawn waves goodbye, as he runs off.

“See you as well, Shawn.” Carly watches as Shawn runs off.

Carly finishes her measurements, photo’s and takes off afterward.

Four Weeks Later:
Carly looks over towards the person she just beat in the quarter-mile. The Chevy Nova she raced had beat one of the fastest cars around. She had spent the past two weeks upgrading the nova and preparing it for the race.

She used the money from Willie’s Jeep she restored and sold to buy parts for the Nova. It took a lot of work and a lot of expensive parts to get the Chevy back into racing shape. Once she did that, she had to work her way up to the top position, in order to race the current leader.

The first few races, she almost lost control of the car, because of how powerful it was. However, after she got used to the power her Nova had, she whipped every person she raced. Carly stands there and looks at everyone who had gathered to watch the race.

She was happy and couldn’t wait for the next race.