Yesterday's heat and humidity had vanished along with my parents. They were winging their way to another continent. Being apart was fine by me. It wasn't much different from their usual summer research trip. A year instead of three months. Antarctica instead of something closer to home. Like Gramp would say, no biggie.
And now I had the summer, then a whole year with Gram and Gramp. Perfect. As long as the Fates didn't catch on.
But they did. They wanted to take Gramp away from me.
~~~
Draped in a hand-stitched quilt from my grandmother, I hunkered down in a corner on the deck. Staring into space made it easier to breathe. I flew away from battles with my parents and school and away from the need to be on alert for whatever attack would come next.
As the stars winked out with the approaching dawn, life seemed infinitely small and the universe infinitely vast all at the same time. It was beautiful and totally awesome. Out there was the answer to everything. That's what I really believed, and when I said it to Gramp during our trip to the planetarium last month, he'd nodded and said, "I know exactly what you mean."
The recent return to Earth of the uncrewed Astraea spacecraft, with its liquid samples from the Saturn moon Enceladus, hyper-launched my dreams of planetary travel. I'd help settle Mars and build a spaceport for planet-hopping explorers. There, viewing things differently would be a plus instead of isolating me and I wouldn't be the most alien thing in the environment for a change. I'd be away from everyone and everything that said I had to be more flexible and forgiving of people. The idea of spending as much time as I wanted alone with my own thoughts made me dizzy.
But today, today was for squirreling myself away in Gramp's shed to work on FetchBot, the robot I'd built with Gramp's encouragement. It was a hoarder's fantasy in the shed, and it became my very own makerspace, a perfect workshop, a perfect escape for the entire summer.
The white clapboard shed stood a few feet from the back door. No one else used it except me and Gramp. When he built it, Gram had insisted on a window over the workbench so she could see him from the kitchen and Gram would know what he was up to. Gramp said he put it in so he would know when Gram was in the kitchen baking.
Lining the shelves were old mayonnaise jars, coffee cans, and odd containers filled with bolts and screws and fasteners of undetermined origin. Gramp's tools hung on the pegboard on the long wall of the shed. One of my favorite tools was his Estwing claw hammer. It held a place of honor at the center of the board. Its ancient patina had mellowed to a mottled brown, and the leather-wrapped handle was worn smooth by Gramp's strong grip. His vise, firmly attached to the bench, had a few remaining flakes of the original red paint, along with the red nail polish I used in an attempt to repaint it when I was six.
At home in that shed, we fixed stuff, made stuff work. Last summer Gramp and I had helped out the animal shelter by rigging up a repair to their ancient clothes dryer. They couldn't afford a repairperson, let alone a new dryer. All it took was one repurposed coat hanger and a few mismatched screws—screws no doubt found on the ground in some grocery store parking lot as Gramp strolled to his car. Word got around about what we had done and we often spent Saturdays as volunteers for places needing our help.
I leaned back for a moment as the sun's early rays stole away the chill in the air.
Gram opened the French doors. "Savanna, time for pancakes."
~~~
Wearing Gramp's cardigan, with its pulled threads and too-long sleeves, I slid down the turquoise-upholstered chair until my legs jutted under Gramp's bed. FetchBot was on the floor at my feet. I raised my hand to brush away a strand of hair and a faint scent of turpentine on the sleeve reminded me of the time Gramp helped me refinish my dad's old desk. Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe I had been helping him. The memory slipped away.
The thin skin on Gramp's eyelids, traced with fine blue veins, seemed so fragile. I murmured my plea to his sleeping form beneath the blankets. "Gramp, promise me you'll stay forever. You're the only one who gets me." I looked out the window and whispered to the clouds scuttling across the afternoon sky. "The only one."
Gramp shifted under the blanket and blinked several times as if he was struggling to focus. His lips were dry and caked with saliva in the corners. His words were crackly. "Smuggle up any Circus Peanuts for me?"
I pulled a bag out of my backpack and tore it open. I placed a piece of the slightly squashed, vaguely peanut-shaped, god-awful orange candy on a tissue on his nightstand.
Gramp smiled, sat up, and guided FetchBot to a pill bottle he'd dropped. On the way, with the bottle clamped in its hand, the bot bumped the nightstand, and sensors corrected its direction. Gramp said, "Let's take Big Bird outside for a spin where there's more room. It needs regression testing."
Because of last month's public humiliation at the science fair when FetchBot froze mid-demonstration and would not reboot, no way testing of any kind appealed to me. For unknown reasons, the organizers had included it in their promotional video. That was special.
I said, "Big Bird won't work in the yard."
Gramp coughed slightly as he swallowed his morning pills. "Let's do a test run anyhow. To see what happens."
Carrying the bot, I followed him down the stairs and into the yard. Twenty-five pounds, yellow, and about twelve inches square with two platforms, the bot had an extendable arm that made it resemble a long-necked, awkward bird. I never called my robot Big Bird except around Gramp. I knew he meant it with affection, but it seemed childish when I said it.
The lower tier on a flexible aluminum chassis held the motor, the sensors, and the brains. On the second tier, a smaller upper deck was for the plastic arm and video camera attachment. There were four omni-directional wheels to give it more mobility. With all the parts and wires visible, it wasn't elegant. Just a few tweaks were necessary, that's all.
"Okay, let her rip!" Gramp raised his cane and dropped it like he was starting a car race.
Big Bird crawled across the dirt toward dense grass. The front wheels rose up over the tall blades and came to a complete stop. I pressed the reverse button on my tablet and then forward again. The wheels spun uselessly. "I don't know why I even bothered."
Patting me on the back, Gramp said, "Never be afraid to try. You can learn from every test run."
"Yeah, I learned I was right. It doesn't work outside."
Gramp's narrowed eyes shot a warning at me. "There's no pouting in engineering. Come on, what can be changed for a better outcome?"
"Different wheels? Larger wheels will mean higher clearance. It won't catch on stuff."
"Now you're thinking. The wheels are a good place to start. Sketch out some of your ideas. We can talk about them after lunch. Meanwhile, send Big Bird down to the mailbox." Gramp waved at the mailman. "Hey, Dave! Hold up. We're trying out our new mail retrieval device."
Strange. Dave wasn't the mailman's name. It was Justin. Dave had retired a few years ago after being their mailman for as long as I could remember.
"Gramp, that's Justin, the new mailman."
"What are you talking about? Dave's always been our mailman. I've known him for years."
Justin waved to us.
Big Bird's slow roll began. After a minute, Justin's smile shifted into an expression of impatience. When the bot finally reached him, I began to extend the arm, but Justin dropped the mail in the small basket wired to the back and jogged to his truck.
Gramp said, "Looks like you could do with more torque. Play around with the duty cycle and maybe gear down more." Gramp retrieved a large manila envelope from the basket.
I frowned. The heat rose up my throat and all the way to my face until my ears burned. "But I didn't design it for this surface." I didn't dare say it was an unfair test, but it was, totally. "This is outside the design specs."
Gramp said, "That doesn't mean you can't make improvements. How about working with the kids from your old makerspace? It'll do you good in other ways, too. Sometimes you act like one of your parents' post-doc students. It's like you're fifteen going on forty."
"A post-doc wouldn't have blown it at the science fair."
"You can't win them all. So what if it has a few flaws? It's no biggie. What's important is that you keep making improvements. You have to learn to do it without me."
The tether holding me to Earth frayed a tiny bit more, the loose filaments unraveling, unable to hold fast.
~~~
A hazy spindle of smoke drifted upward. I wrinkled my nose at the pungent odor, relieved there wasn't enough smoke to set off the alarm.
This time.
The power supply wires for the motor had come loose and needed to be re-soldered. More proof my design sucked.
I carried FetchBot across the yard and into the kitchen. Gram had taken Gramp to the doctor again, so I had the whole house to myself.
I drove FetchBot up and down the hallway and in and out of the bedrooms, picking up socks or anything I could find. It was hard to record a video and drive at the same time, but inside the house, it functioned perfectly.
A catnip mouse dangled from the arm as FetchBot rolled down the hall. Bait for the unsuspecting. Darwin, one of my grandparents' cats, burst from under my bed. He batted fiercely at the mouse. With a guttural yowl, he spun and raced away.
Darwin hated FetchBot, but it was so worth it. I uploaded the video to my robotics channel on KangaWho. A follower complimented me because the low center of gravity had kept it from tipping over when attacked.
I made the rounds of different robotics sites to work out some details for all-terrain capability. Tracks instead of wheels maybe. I envisioned a tank climbing over obstacles, churning away, undaunted by whether the surface it crossed was soft or wet or uneven. But it also meant it wouldn't change direction easily. Loss of maneuverability was a deal-breaker. It had to move around in tight spaces.
After asking a few questions on my favorite bot makers forum, I decided increasing the wheel diameter and thickness would be a good compromise. It would help the bot deal with bumpy, rough surfaces. One forum member had some used wheels with aggressive treads that were exactly right, along with a better gear motor. He was willing to sell them to me cheap. Even so, I'd have to tap into my allowance.
A PM pinged in from one of my forum buddies. She said I should consider making my bot a shape-shifter. A brilliant idea, but it would mean practically starting over, though it could've been worse. Gramp had been right about a modular approach with cables and connectors instead of hard-soldering everything. I loved soldering, but making changes to modules would be easier, even though re-programming would take a big chunk of time.
~~~
I heard the car doors slam and I ran downstairs with my laptop. "Gramp, I want to make my bot a shape-shifter. There are some new circuit boards available. I can add an expansion board. I'll have to think about the skeleton. Oh, and the skin. We can work on it over the summer."
"Whoa, there. Let's not jump ahead of ourselves." Gramp sat down and removed a letter from the manila envelope on the side table. "Here. Your mom signed you up for Parallax this summer." He raised his eyebrows when I cringed. "This is good news, kiddo. It's a shot at your dream."
You have been accepted into the first annual Parallax competition. We're excited to include you in a practical team-oriented experience. The winner will automatically qualify for NASA's Young Astronaut Program.
A chance at the NASA program meant everything to me, but not this way. Not another competition where losing would be announced to the world. Of course my mom stuck her nose into it. I slumped against the cushions on the living room sofa and put my feet on the coffee table. I squished one of Gram's needlepoint pillows into my stomach and hugged it tightly for protection, a soft, insulating armor. "I won't do it. I mean, there'll be teams."
Gramp's expression tightened and he chewed on his lower lip. "So, you're going to be that person? Someone who makes a bad choice just to stay safe?"
This had been one of the good days when Gramp was clear-headed and I'd made him mad at me. I couldn't let that happen, especially when something was wrong with him. His lapses were worse, more frequent. Scarier. I didn't want to get into the Junior Astronaut program if it took me away from Gramp. Why didn't anyone see it? Gramp was more important to me than anyone or anything. My chest constricted like I might never breathe again. I wouldn't survive without him.
I stared out the window and managed to say I was sorry before it was too late. Then I didn't speak for a moment, torn between the dismay I might make Gramp angrier and the pressure to make sense of things, but I had to know. "Don't you want me here anymore?"
"Savanna, it's not that. Seeing your engineering skills grow has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. You and I, together we're unstoppable, but I mean it when I say you need friends your own age. I've let you lean on me more than I should have. I can't ignore that my father had dementia. I've drawn the same genetic short straw." Gramp's half-smile told me he wanted to make a joke. "Hope I start getting those senile citizen discounts soon." Serious again, he said, "The doctors said I'm showing signs. You have to accept that. We all have to."
"But I promise I'll help out. I won't be a burden. And I want to spend as much time with you as I can. Because I don't know if..." I couldn't finish. I couldn't say that I was afraid he'd disappear if he was out of my sight. Or that he'd forget me if I wasn't around to remind him I existed. That one day he might not recognize me seemed impossible to imagine, yet I couldn't stop imagining it.
"Hey, now. Don't start crying. I may be an old geezer who's slowed down a lot in the last few months, but none of this will happen tomorrow. Besides, I plan to see you in your astronaut uniform, you know. That'll keep me going."
I smiled one of those thin smiles, the kind that is forced, that gives a person the vague appearance of indigestion. The kind of smile that can vanish without a trace if the conversation doesn't change. Gramp smiled back.
I hoped I'd never forget that smile. It would be a memory to hold close for the day when I was far away on Mars.