"And what sort of things would you like to make and sell?" I asked.
The usual products, of course, with these junior achievement efforts, are chemical specialties that can be made safely and that people will buy and use without misgivings—solvent to free up rusty bolts, cleaner to remove road tar, mechanic's hand soap—that sort of thing. Mr. McCormack had told me, though, that I might find these youngsters a bit more ambitious. "The Miller boy and Mary McCready," he had said, "have exceptionally high IQ's—around one forty or one fifty. The other three are hard to classify. They have some of the attributes of exceptional pupils, but much of the time they seem to have little interest in their studies. The junior achievement idea has sparked their imaginations. Maybe it'll be just what they need."
Mary said, "Why don't we make a freckle remover? I'd be our first customer."
"The thing to do," Tommy offered, "is to figure out what people in Ridgeville want to buy, then sell it to them."
"I'd like to make something by powder metallurgy techniques," said Pete. He fixed me with a challenging eye. "You should be able to make ball bearings by molding, then densify them by electroplating."
"And all we'd need is a hydraulic press," I told him, "which, on a guess, might cost ten thousand dollars. Let's think of something easier."
Pete mulled it over and nodded reluctantly. "Then maybe something in the electronics field. A hi-fi sub-assembly of some kind."
"How about a new detergent?" Hilary put in.
"Like the liquid dishwashing detergents?" I asked.