Vulpine Voltage Repairs

Screams of laughter and splashing could be heard from over the tall fence. Effie sat on her on the back porch, facing away from the fence and her back pressed up against the railing. Her gloves - today a bright blue, like the sky - lay across her lap and her new lego set sat in front of her, only half-heartedly started.

Grandma was in town. Her mom’s mother, which meant she couldn’t spend all her time in her basement and had to go out and get ‘fresh air’ while her sisters, mom, and dad went to the pool party next door. Apparently, it wasn’t healthy for a 12-year-old to spend all their time in the basement tinkering with the ‘computer junk’, and she needed hobbies and interests beyond that.

That’s how the lego thing happened, and if she didn’t get this stupid castle built or at least substantially off the ground by the time Grandma tomorrow afternoon, she was going to be in trouble for being ‘ungrateful’ or ‘having a bad attitude’.

Effie heard a scream from over the fence, followed by a loud splash and laughter. She glanced over her shoulder, but couldn’t see anything over the tall fence. Technically, she had been invited to the pool party too, but she obviously couldn’t go. Effie didn’t remember what excuse her parents had used this time, but she hoped it wasn’t chickenpox again. It took ages for the Dugan boys to stop bawk-bawking at her every time she took a walk.

Grandma was supposed to be watching her play with her lego set - to spend time with her little darling granddaughter since “hardly got the chance”, but had wandered over to get some fun pictures of Ellie, Emme, Ed, and Eva in their new swimsuits. Her sister’s got new swimsuits and she got the lego set -- Effie still wondered what the hell her parents told Grandma to get her to go along with the gloves, and the homeschooling and whatever else. Her father had just gingerly patted her on the head and said “Don’t worry about it, we have it all taken care of.”

Effie ran her fingers along the smooth lego piece as she examined the problem in front of her. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the lego sets - or, well, okay, she didn’t despise them like she did the stupid easy-bake-oven Grandma had tried the last time. It was just the pieces were so small and all of them were the same color. This was a castle, sure, but did all the pieces have to be grey?!

“Is that an English or a Scottish castle?”

Effie jumped, disturbing the little board she had so the pieces didn’t fall in between the cracks in the porch. There was a pop somewhere in the house that told Effie she would have to reset the breaker again -- fine, she’d do it later. But she was more preoccupied with the boy that wandered over from the party on the other side of the fence. He had dirt on his nose, held a soccer ball, and wore a power rangers shirt with black swim trunks.  Effie gaped as the boy peered at the lego box she propped up as a reference

“Who the hell are you?!”

The boy took his gaze from the box to her, scandalized. “You can’t say hell,” he said.

“I can so!”

The boy looked like he hadn’t thought of that. “Oh.” He stared at her. “I’m Michael.” He went back to looking at the picture of what her lego castle was supposed to look like. She realized he was a kid from across the street - not one of the Dugan boys, but he was always playing soccer on the front lawn with his brothers.

Nervously, Effie put the lego piece back on the corkboard and quickly went to put her gloves back on. “I’m Effie,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s a Scottish Castle or an English Castle, I don’t know what the difference is.”

“There are differences,” the boy said, looking at her knowingly. She believed him but had no idea what he was talking about. “You don’t look like you have the chickenpox.”

Effie bit back a groan. “I don’t.”

“That’s what your mom said you had. That’s why you aren’t swimming with everyone else.”

“Yeah,” Effie said, giving a non-committal shrug. She couldn’t correct herself and saying she did have chickenpox actually because that would be a lie - she couldn’t do that.  She could figure out some fancy wording as her dad taught her, but she wasn’t exactly keen on the neighborhood children thinking she had chickenpox again.

“Are you sick or something?” The question was blunt enough to make her stop thinking about hawking prepubescent boys.

“What?”

“Sick,” Michael said again. “Is that why you don’t go to school or come to parties or anything?”

Effie didn’t answer, and looked back at her lego set, reaching out for one of the larger pieces so she could keep her hands busy. It was harder with the thick rubber gloves around her fingers - it would be a nightmare trying to complete it with her gloves on.

“It’s just better like this,” Effie said, realizing that Michael hadn’t moved from the spot. More splashing and screaming from over the fence caught his attention.

“Why?” he asked, though he was craning his head to see if he could get a glimpse over the fence.

Annoyance crept into her. Why did he even come over here to bother her? “Can you go away?”

Michael looked back at her, surprised. “Why?” he asked. “You’re not contagious, are you?”

“No, I’m just trying to do my lego set.”

“You’re doing a bad job. You haven’t even started on the watchtowers, and you put the wrong pieces in for the draw bridge.”

Effie’s gaze snapped back to the set in front of her. “I did not!” Except there was a large possibility that they did. They all looked the same and were the same color. Whose bright idea was that? She frowned.

“You want to use the A-3467 parts, not those. I think my cousin has that set.”

Effie blinked, looking between Michael and the set. He was looking back over the fence again as someone turned the music up. Justin Timberlake grew louder. “Oh… So then is it a Scottish or an English castle?” Effie said.

Michael finally looked back at the box and looked like he was thinking very hard. Her dad would have joked that he could see the steam coming out of his ears. “English,” he decided, finally.

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t have a dragon.”

Effie stared at him. “What?

“It doesn’t have a dragon. All Scottish castles have dragons.”

Effie didn’t know enough about English and Scottish castles to say otherwise, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t correct. Dragons didn’t exist… Right? She couldn’t say anything else though, because a bunch of boys was bellowing Michael’s name.

“Crap - I was supposed to get the ball,” Michael said, holding up the soccer ball. “See ya Effie, hope you’re not contagious for much longer!”

He was gone as fast as he came, running down the side of the house shouting to his friends, leaving Effie there alone with her lego set of a decidedly English castle.

She couldn’t explain why she started to cry, but she did. Something ached in her as she heard the party and the splashing and everything else on the other side of the fence. Effie wanted to play too. She wanted a new swimsuit and friends to yell at her because she took too long retrieving the soccer ball. No one should be able to stop her from having that. Effie could go march upstairs and dig through Emme’s dresser -- they were almost the same size, or so Emme said whenever she ‘borrowed’ her sweatshirts. She had tons of swimsuits. She could go. She should go.

Effie had half risen out of her little corner on the deck, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, when she realized what would happen if she waltzed over there ready to join in the fun. She couldn’t go swimming, but inevitably, she would be thrown in the pool and everyone in there would get electrocuted while she crash-coursed herself on learning to float.

Her neighbor with his eyes rolling back into his head as he fell, clutching his chest. The screaming from his wife and her mother’s iron grip around her shoulder as she pulled her into the house. What did you do? Everyone would know it was her this time.

Effie winced, and she sat back down, glowering at the lego set and the gloves that were still on her hands. She remembered the relief when her father put them on her. It was enough then to know that she wouldn’t kill anyone by shaking their hand. Effie checked three times to make sure she was still alone before she took off her gloves. She called it being thorough but knew she was just hoping Michael or some other kid would come back and talk to her.

A few minutes later, she was fiddling with the stupid directions again, trying to figure out how the drawbridge was actually supposed to look and trying not to think about how much more she wanted. Enough was all she needed, and she had better get used to it if she didn’t want a bigger body count.