CHAPTER 2-2
378 Words
Ten rows from the back of the plane, Mara took the aisle seat next to an older woman who was reading in the middle seat with her grandson sitting next to the window. The kid, who looked to be seven or eight, squirmed while alternating between staring out at baggage handlers on the ground and playing with a mobile game console. Grandma was stylish, with short-cropped silver hair, high cheekbones and a trim figure. She did not look comfortable dealing with children, leaning away from the boy, watching him from the corner of her eye. Mara guessed she had married into a family later in life.
Just as the flight attendants shut the plane doors and began their safety demonstrations, the boy announced his game console was dead. Grandma looked panic-stricken.
“You want me to take a look?” Mara asked.
“I said it’s not working,” the kid said.
“I know. Maybe I can fix it. It’s what I do. I work at a gadget repair shop.”
He looked dubious. The girls-don’t-fix-stuff look.
“Let her look at it, Jeremy.”
He reached across his grandmother, handing it directly to Mara.
“Thanks. I’m Mara.” She shook hands with grandma. Jeremy had already turned away to watch the tarmac roll by.
“Sarah Gamble. Not that I don’t appreciate the help, but you don’t look old enough to be an engineer.”
“Engineer would be overstating it a bit. I’m more of a gadget mechanic, I guess.”
Mara turned over the game console and fished a key ring out of her jeans pocket. It held a couple minitools including a Phillips head screwdriver. Probably as illegal as oversize crystals as far as airport security is concerned but handy nonetheless. Once the back panel was off, she found and fixed loose fittings connecting the console’s rechargeable battery to the rest of the mechanism in a couple minutes, a common problem with this brand of Korean console. She worked on dozens of these back when they were the hot new thing. She closed up the back, slid the Power switch and the device announced itself with a high tone that drew the boy’s attention.
“Hey, you fixed it! Thanks!” The boy reached for the console, but the accelerating plane pressed him back into his seat before he could grab it. Mara handed it to his grandmother who passed it along.
Mara smiled, sat back and closed her eyes. What a geek.
She snoozed.
*
- Writer
