He tucked the little blue box carefully under his arm, climbed halfway down, and hopped the rest of the distance to the floor, whistling.

The box landed on his shop desk with a satisfying thunk. "You're one of the good ones, all right," Hinopio grunted with approval. "None of this cheap plastic … actually gonna work…"

Wiping his brow, he left it there a moment and cleaned up his mess, malleting each lid back down onto its crate and lugging them all back to their organized shelves and stacks. Finally, he carefully returned his precious retro jet figurines to their proud little display. He took a moment to arrange them just right, admiring their gleam in the volcano's ever-present ruddy glow, and flicked a flake of ash from the middle one's fuselage. "They sure don't make 'em like they used to, do they, Blue Falcon?"

Hinopio made his way back to his shop desk, a rough thing made of more crates. Producing a red grease pencil from his tool belt, he retrieved a blank postcard with a picture of a volcano on it from an overflowing box on his desk. He bent over it, writing.

Hi Ginger, You're not going to believe this - I actually have one of the recalled ones! I'll ship it down the Midas River pipe as soon as I can. I hope Gaz likes it.Warmest regards -- HinopioP.S.: It's been a long time. Heard that place in Seaside still has those elderberry drinks you like. Any chance you'd

Hinopio's pencil stopped. He stared down at the postcard for some time.

With a sigh of exasperation, he pulled out a fresh one to start over. In an all-too-practiced movement, he snatched up the nearly-finished postcard and shuffled toward the little lava pit that served as his combination-stove-and-trash-can.

"Good thing I rarely sell any of you," he said to the postcard, lowering his round black safety glasses and holding it over the burbling little caldera. "Go on, join your siblings…"

But he didn't drop it in. He watched the words go shiny as they melted a little deeper into the cardstock.

Setting his jaw, he turned back to his desk. "Today. Today's the day. I'm gonna do this!"

Hinopio picked up the pencil again. "You're not gonna be awkward." He sank down onto his stool, his tool belt drumming a mocking rimshot against the metal of the seat. "You're not gonna make this... awkward..."

His eyes flicked to the lava pit again. To the postcard again. Back and forth.

Finally, he clunked his elbows onto his desk and buried his face in his hands. "This is gonna be what ends me," he groaned. "I wish I could just say it!"

The stone walls offered an echo of his last few words, but no further help.