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Byrd came in with her hands greasy and her hair pulled back in a messy pony-tail stuffed under her grandfather’s hat.

“Grandma!” she called. Gram!”

“What is it?” Esther called back from the kitchen where she’d been fixing them lunch.

Byrd flew from around the corner, breathing heavy because she’d run all the way in from the garage, around the front of the house, up the porch, and in through the den to find her. The long route.

“I need one of these!” She held up her left hand, her thumb and forefinger making a circle. She’d been very careful, she thought, to keep it the exact size and shape from the measurement in the garage.

Esther looked at it. “You need a hole?”

“No, gram! No, I need the thing that goes around the bolt!”

“Ah, okay.” Esther moved to the long cabinet, to the fourth drawer on the left. “You need the ratchet set.” She started sifting through and then a thought struck her. “What bolt are you ratcheting?”

Byrd put her left hand behind her, hiding it now. “Nuh-uh.” That was one of Byrd’s tells. She wouldn’t lie to her grandmother. But she would just say no or ‘nuh-uh’ if she didn’t want to say something that could be a lie. Don’t make me fib, is what it meant.

Esther kept the drawer half-open but stopped her search.

“Little Byrd, you need to tell me what you’re doing out there.”

Byrd looked at the refrigerator door, decorated with some of her drawings, instead of at her grandmother. “I’m just fixing the thing.”

“Byrd…”

“I mean, I’m making the thing. I’m making the flying thing. From papa’s magazine.”

Esther closed her eyes and thought about what that actually meant. “The flying thing… What magazine of your papa’s is that in?”

Byrd looked back now, smiling, excited to talk about it. “The science ones! It’s in the back, they have all these old things you can order, and one of them was the flying thing. And when I got to the bottom of the stack, I found the book that says how to make it!”

Esther’s husband wasn’t exactly handy or inventive. But he liked to dream that he could be. So yes, he’d collected a bunch of subscriptions to Popular Science and Popular Mechanics some forty or fifty years ago, and it was very like him to have bought into the idea that they could teach him how to make a flying… car, or ship, or whatever this was.

“Is this a toy you’re making?” She still needed to know what it was being made out of.

“No, no… It’s a ship! I can ride in it, and then I can fly and go to outer space!”

Good lord, Jack, what did you cook up for me to deal with today?

“Little Byrd, can you bring me the book you’re looking at?” And then she glanced back at the stove. “Or, on second thought, let’s finish up making lunch and I’ll come out there and look at what you’re doing.”

Byrd looked doubtful. “Are you gonna bring the bolt thing?”

Esther sighed. “Yes, I’ll bring the ratchet set. Now go grab me the bread out of the fridge.”

The garage was a sight. But it had been a mess for the last two years at least. When Jack had gotten sick, he couldn’t keep up with the organization of it. Things got taken out, loaned to neighbors, used for a quick repair, and never got put back the same way. If at all. And then when Jack was gone…

Esther tried to pick out what was today’s mess from the mess that had already been there pre-Byrd.

“Okay, do gram a favor. Clear off those two lawn chairs there. We’ll eat and you can show me what you’re doing.”

Byrd would’ve say on the dusty cement floor but obeyed her grandma’s wishes. She’d gotten her tools and a sandwich and fresh strawberry-lemonade on top of it. And it had occurred to her that some of the details of the instructions for the flying ship didn’t make as much sense to her as she would have liked.

Two bites into the turkey and sprouts sandwich and Esther was already pretty full. She would normally have given half to Jack. She pulled the small workbook from the bench and thumbed through it.

“Okay, Byrd. I think… well, first off, this isn’t a flying ship. Not exactly.”

“Oh no!” Byrd cried. “But it says–“

“I know what it says,” Esther continued. “But the name is kind of misleading. It’s called a ‘hovercraft’ because it floats over the ground. But only a few inches. So it can glide over the lawn, or the street, and maybe water. But not up in the clouds.”

Byrd was pouting. “Not even outer space?” she said, defeat in her voice.

“It won’t get you there at least,” Esther shook her head. “Unless our papa has plans for a rocket ship around here,” and she wasn’t sure that it was too far-fetched that he would so she let that trail off. “But why would you want to go to outer space anyways? What’s up there you want to see so bad?”

“Nothing. I just don’t want to be here.”

Esther was taken aback. She had no idea that Byrd wanted to run away. That she wasn’t happy.

“Did I– did I do something wrong? Byrd, did I upset you in some way?” Her voice cracked.

Byrd saw the look on her grandma’s face. “Oh no! No, you didn’t do anything! Oh gram!” And she got out of her chair, nearly spilling her lemonade, and hugged her grandmother hard. “No, you’re the best gram in the world!”

Esther let the warm hug wash over her. She collected her feelings and kissed her little one on the cheek. “I love you too,” she whispered.

Then, when things felt normal again. “Okay, so why don’t you want to be here?”

“Amanda.”

Ooh, that name. And the way Byrd said it. Esther had heard her granddaughter talk about Amanda many a time, and never in a nice way.

“What did Miss Amanda do to you now?” She added a hint of ‘I don’t like her either’ to her tone, just to make Byrd feel understood, even though Esther had never met the other girl.

Byrd just went into it. “She always makes fun of me. And she calls me names. And she says my name is stupid because I’m a bird that doesn’t fly. And I hate her. And she has a stupid name too and an ugly face and bad teeth.”

Esther didn’t want to laugh but barely caught herself. “Okay, okay. So she’s mean. So why would you want to leave. Why not get her to go away?”

Byrd frowned and shook her head no. “Because I wanted to fly. I wanted to fly all the way to the moon. And then Amanda would say, “I’m sorry, you can fly, I was wrong!” And I wouldn’t have to hear her because I was in space.” She started fumbling with the case for the ratchet set to open it. “But now I can’t fly. I can just hover. So I guess I’ll just float to an island or France. And then I still won’t have to look at her dumb face.”

Esther took the tool set and opened it. She showed Byrd the different sizes to find what would fit the bolt. And how to attach them to the ratchet driver. “But wouldn’t you miss my dumb face, Little Byrd?”

“Well, sure, gram. But I wouldn’t stay there. Not forever.”

“Oh. Then I guess it’s okay.” She watched Byrd take the set and start holding up parts to a bolt on the lawnmower. “Is… is that what you’re trying to take apart? My mower?”

Byrd didn’t turn around to look at her. “Nuh-uh.” She just kept looking for the right size.