It turned even colder, and the snowdrifts grew tall in the yard. Someone shoveled the walkway between the dormitory and the schoolrooms each day, and as the snow accumulated, the path became an icy tunnel with walls of snow on either side. One night the wind battered the metal walls of the dormitory so brutally it seemed it would knock them down. But I had more blankets now—I had traded my extra socks for them—and Carla beside me who always slept through the noise.
Most days before Materials, Lion and I lifted weights. I learned all the machines and got better. Every few days he added more weight. Most mornings before everyone was up Lion and I ran, sometimes on the track outside the dormitories, if the snow was cleared, and sometimes on the Candidate track. We usually saw one or two Explorer program trainees and sometimes caught a glimpse of Theresa and James and Simon.
I got better—slowly. Sometimes Lion would stop and watch me run.
That’s skipping! Not running!
I knew what he meant but didn’t know how to fix it.
Move your arms! he yelled the next time I came around. They should move with your legs.
I tried and it was a little better. Less of a shock, less of a PAM PAM every time. I moved my arms and moved my legs and moved my arms.
Better! But elbows in! he yelled. You look like a—
But I was too far away to hear what I looked like. I pulled my elbows in.
I look like a what? I asked, breathing hard, the next time around.
Like a chicken.
I pulled my elbows in more.
He got up and ran after me. He had his hood up and his puff of hair underneath made it look like he was even taller than he actually was. Hey, it’s a joke. He smiled and pumped his arms. Just try to match your stride to mine.
But his legs were so long. I couldn’t make my short legs go so far, but I tried. I made my stride as long as I could—so long it felt like leaping, so long my legs felt like they might come out of my hip sockets. My legs burned with the effort, and my nose ran, but it worked. My leaps fit just inside his stride.
There you go, Lion said. Now let’s speed up!
I was doing well in my classes. In math I was able to follow everything written on the whiteboard. I even went up to the board when prompted by Theresa, and what I wrote didn’t get erased. She started giving me extra problem sets so I could catch up on what I’d missed before I arrived at Peter Reed, and I brought the finished work to her office after classes were over. I liked her office. It was a small corner room she shared with James in the faculty building. There were two desks that faced each other and two chairs and a space heater on the floor. Notes and diagrams and schematics covered the walls.
Usually when I showed up Theresa was alone, and she would check my work while I sat in James’s chair. She took her time, and afterward she would ask me questions in an exacting way. About why I chose the method I did and the different ways I could have gone about solving the problem. Sometimes I would talk to her about Materials lab and the improvements Carla and Lion and Nico and I were making with the hand. But if our conversation strayed beyond the topic of school—if I tried to ask her about the fuel cell or about Inquiry and Endurance—she’d gather up my work, hand it back, and tell me she had other things to do.
Sometimes when I arrived I heard two voices behind the door when I knocked. On those days Theresa opened the door by just a crack—through it I could see James leaning over his desk on his elbows, a mess of papers in front of him—and she would ask me to come back another time. One evening I showed up after Materials lab and heard them arguing. Theresa’s voice was more insistent than James’s, but her words were muddled by what sounded like tears. I was surprised and stepped back from the door. Then I heard my uncle’s name, Peter.
We’re never going to figure it out without Peter, Theresa said, and her voice cracked.
We’ll just keep working, James said. Okay?
At lunch I stayed quiet. I watched Lion and Carla, how they talked to each other and to the other kids at the table. What they laughed at. They laughed at Nico, mostly, who was always doing something weird to his food or making faces or arguing with other kids. But he didn’t seem to mind them laughing; he liked it. I tried laughing too, but it felt strange.
In Materials I did what Carla asked me to do. A long line always formed to use the 3D printers, and sometimes we had to wait until the very end of lab to get on a machine. Teams with four or five members would send someone to hold a place in line, and that became my job. I spent so much time in line I got to know the printers, and when they broke down I figured out how to fix them. Eventually, even when I wasn’t waiting for a printer, I got called over when one broke down. At first this annoyed Carla, but then Lion figured out we could broker this for more time on the printers for our team, or for spare parts, and then she was pleased.
When I wasn’t in line I stood with Carla and Lion and Nico at the table and listened. I was allowed to do small tasks, like searching through the hardware bin for tiny screws and washers or cutting down pieces of metal mesh.
Lion and Nico decided changing the thumb on number five would improve its grip after all, and eventually they convinced Carla to let them try it. They left me at the table while they went to go trade with another team for the materials they needed, and I picked up the hand. The metal was warm from Carla and Lion and Nico moving its digits and rotating its thumb. I wrapped its fingers and thumb around my own wrist, squeezed, and felt the give of my skin against the hard metal.
What does a hand do? I thought.
I repeated the actions. Open, shut. Unsqueeze, squeeze. Hands are soft, I thought. They change shape based on what we want to do, from one moment to the next. But that kind of softness can’t survive in space—
How do you make a metal hand soft?
Melt it. In my mind I softened an imaginary titanium hand. But it was too soft. The hand in my mind turned to liquid, became a puddle.
Cut it so thin it gives to pressure. No, too hard. My imagined hand bent and cracked down the middle.
What then? I said this out loud, and the group at the table next to mine stared.
I squeezed the fingers of the hand around my wrist again, tighter this time. Tight enough that it hurt. Again I saw the hand in my mind blown up large, like a balloon, and then shrunk down small, like a piece of desiccated fruit. Its shriveled fingers made a fist.
What if—
Everyone came back to the table, talking loudly, and Carla asked me to find the hardware they needed to redo the thumb. Go look in the bin, would you?
I still had number five wrapped around my wrist, and the desiccated fist hung in my mind.
Carla’s face was impatient.
Lion put his hand on my shoulder. His fingers were warm and firm. June? Did you hear?
Right, I said, and I went to the hardware bin and began digging through it. I didn’t know the answer to my question—how do you make a metal hand soft? But I knew there was one. And I knew changing the thumb on number five wasn’t it.
I found two of the six washers we needed. Then I went to the supply closet and got a latex glove.
Back at the table Carla and Nico were arguing again.
We’re going about it all wrong, I said, and I held up the rubber glove.
Carla raised her eyebrows. Lion cocked his head to one side.
This is the answer. I took the glove and blew air into it and tied it at the wrist. I held it out to Carla, as if to shake hands with her.
It looked silly. I knew that. But I was trying to show them about the blown-up and shrunk-down hand—
Nico started to laugh. And then Carla laughed, and Lion too.
Their laughter wasn’t mean.
Lion shook hands with the glove. Nico actually had tears in his eyes. You are a weird one, you know that? he said. But you’re all right June. He wiped his eyes.
Carla shook hands with the glove too. When she did that it felt good, like I was wrapped up in something warm. So good I pushed the imaginary hand from my mind.
Now we’ve had our fun, Carla said, where are my washers?