Roger sat in the back of his car, looking at the building. It used to be a large brick warehouse. He’d bought the property for his own use. The plan was to keep as much of the outside building in place as was possible. He could only hope that they could. ‘Best laid plans of men and mice’ as they say.

He really should have the boys with him. Well, this was just one of the limitations of their school schedules. He’d have to take some of the dry stuff all on his own. At least the exciting parts could be scheduled for nights and weekends.

God, they were excited about this. Not too much of a surprise. Roger could only imagine how thrilled he would have been if his dad proposed some long project that they could work on together. But that wasn’t his way.

The quick image of his father threw Roger’s train of thought completely off track. The old man had died the spring before. They hadn’t talked as much over the last few years and Roger hadn’t asked for advice in nearly a decade. Now he felt like he sometimes desperately needed someone else that he could talk to about what he was doing.

It’s a shame that his dad hadn’t lasted a few years longer. He would have gotten a real kick out sharing this. Three generations, all working together. Yes, that would have been very special.

The first question he would have asked is just how guilty he should feel over this whole thing. It had gone pretty much just as he pictured it. When he got home he found an excuse to take the boys out. Once they were alone he sprung his trap.

It was very simple. The first thing he did was to act just a little distracted. Phil, his older son, finally asked him what was on his mind. He proceeded to tell them that he’d been invited to enter a contest but he didn’t think he could. He could tell by the way they looked at each other that they were hooked.

They ‘dragged’ the information out of him one bit at a time. When he got to the end all he needed to tell them was that he didn’t want to make any commitments that would keep him away from them as much as this threatened to. They wouldn’t hear of it, of course. No son wants to get in the way of his father.

Part two of the trap was even easier. This was the part that had the sweetest bait. Roger allowed that maybe if they could help him out, he wouldn’t feel so guilty. Still, that wouldn’t be fair, he protested. I don’t want you to miss out on any school stuff. They were now 110% on his side.

The only thing left to do was to have them help think up an idea to go with. They all agreed to think about it for a couple of days and then they’d put their heads together again. The agreement also included keeping their mother in the dark.

Over the two days he saw them go in radically different ways. Alex started looking at a lot of online articles about ancient warfare. He’d been the one that would spend hours playing strategy games with the computer. Roger figured this to be just another extension of that.

Phil’s behavior was a little more puzzling. One morning the cuckoo clock was missing from the dining room wall. When his mom asked, he said that yes he’d taken it. He just needed to take a good look at the gearing inside. For some kind of project he said, and his mother let it go.

Two days passed and the three of them went out again. As soon as they had some privacy (and overflowing milkshakes), Roger asked them what they’d come up with. He was a little afraid that they wouldn’t have anything useful. Well, he’d burn that bridge when he came to it.

Alex went first. He wanted something that showed warfare throughout the ages. From the Greeks and the Romans all the way up to modern day. Roger cringed. This was just the type of bloodthirsty thing that a teenaged boy would come up, but they couldn’t possibly build some kind of ode to Rambo. Yes, ‘war’ was an eternal theme and all that. The problem was that it was also an ugly one.

Well, he’d just have to guide the subject matter a little bit then, wouldn’t he? Something to show the downside and the pain. Or maybe Phil would save him.

He turned to his older son. After some stammering, he was asked if he’d ever heard of those clocks they have over in Germany and Switzerland. You know, the type with all of the figurines. They dance every half hour and once a day they do something special. Probably once a year, they do some other unique thing that always drove people to town to watch them. He wanted something with that type of feature. He wanted the world’s largest and most complicated cuckoo clock.

Now that was more like what he’d been hoping for. Something interesting and quaint. Something with ‘the world’s something-est’ attached to it. He could see the newspaper articles about it already. But what about Alex. Could he completely throw his idea out the window?

What if he didn’t have to? He wanted to accommodate both of them and sometimes the best ideas were the ones where you smashed two things together. Could he do that? Some kind of intricate machine that would show the horror of war throughout the ages. That might just be the thing.

He asked them if they would mind if they were put together. Neither one did. They could each act as a kind of supervisor over their side of the project. Would that suit them? He could tell from the broad smiles that it would.

For one second the guilt drained away. They really would be learning something here. Something important. Something that no school would ever be able to teach them. He was teaching them how to lead and create.

Now there was only one critic left to convince. Their mother. At least now it was three on one. He felt certain that there was no way she could refuse them after the idea had gone this far. Yes, he’d manipulated the whole thing but it really was for the best.

Roger sat in the back of his car thinking of everything that had brought him around to this moment. He took one more look at the large brick building. This was the place, he felt sure of it.