Then she closed the book and came over and sat down on the floor next to me, on the concrete, in her jeans, which I had also never seen her do.
"Show me," she said.
"Show you what?"
"Whatever you're doing. Show me the thing. The float bowl. Whatever you'd show somebody."
I looked at Grandpa. He was eating his donut very slowly and looking at the ceiling like there was something up there he needed to study.
So I showed her. The Lawn-Boy wasn't the right engine for it, so I got the carburetor off the Craftsman we'd picked up on Tuesday from the curb on Plymouth Street, which I'd soaked overnight, and I unscrewed the float bowl and took out the float and the needle and set them on a rag, and I showed her the jet. I handed it to her. She held it like it was going to bite her.
"It's just brass," I said. "It won't break."
"Everything breaks," she said. "I've seen the budget."
"Hold it up to the window. Look through the hole in the middle. Like a straw."
She held it up to the window and squinted. She turned it a little. She closed one eye.