Chapter 2

By the time Nora got home from school the next day, her workbench wasn't hers anymore.

Owen’s gaming laptop was sprawled across the middle, with bags of snacks crushed on top of her blueprints.

Grant was busy moving her neatly organized parts onto the floor.

"Oh, perfect, you're back," he said, tossing Nora a rag. "Clean off that small table over there. You can work there from now on."

Nora froze in the doorway. "But the robot needs three laptops connected at once. They won't fit on that tiny table."

"Owen's taller, so he needs more space," Grant said, not even looking up. "Just be flexible."

I picked up the blueprints. The circuit diagrams were already soaked through with potato chip grease.

"Move Owen to the small table."

Grant stopped what he was doing. "Claire, didn't we agree last night that they were going to collaborate?"

"Collaborating doesn't mean making Nora give up her space for him."

"Mom," Nora pulled on my shirt. "It's fine, I can assemble it on the floor."

She dropped to her knees and began picking up the parts, looking like she was the one who had done something wrong.

Owen took off his headphones. "When do I get to learn the demo? Dad said the admissions counselor wants to see it on Friday."

Friday was only three days away.

It had taken Nora two whole months to master controlling that robot.

"I’ll teach you the basic commands first," she said, dragging over a chair. "Make sure you don't click the wrong thing here, or the mechanical arm will—"

Owen had already pressed it.

The mechanical arm jerked violently to the side, knocking over a box of sensors.

A dozen tiny components scattered across the floor. One of them hit the corner of the wall with a sharp crack, its outer casing splitting open.

Nora dropped to her knees to grab it.

"I saved up five months of allowance for this!"

Owen shrugged. "Well, why didn't you lock it first?"

"Apologize to her," I said.

He looked over at Grant.

Grant examined the crack. "A little superglue and it'll still work fine. Don't ruin Owen's enthusiasm over a tiny accident."

Nora clutched the broken sensor, her knuckles turning white.

"It's okay," she murmured. "I just didn't explain it clearly."

Grant smiled. "Now that’s a good big sister."

Nora was two years younger than Owen.

Yet nobody corrected him.

For the next two hours, she broke down every single command to teach him.

Owen couldn't remember them and complained she was moving too fast.

When she restarted from the beginning, he just stared down at his phone texting.

Finally, he pushed the keyboard away. "This is way too complicated. On Friday, you operate it from the side and I'll do the talking."

Nora whispered, "But what if the admissions counselor asks questions—"

"Then you write down the answers for me."

Before dinner, I found Nora still crouched on the floor trying to fix the sensor.

"Why do you keep letting him push you around?"

She made sure Grant wasn't nearby before whispering, "If Owen doesn't get into that prep school, Grant will be really disappointed."

"That is not your responsibility."

"But he's Grant's son."

She said it so matter-of-factly that a sudden chill ran down my spine.

That night, Grant knocked on Nora's bedroom door.

"Give Owen the login and password to the project backend. He needs to get familiar with the program."

Nora held her laptop tight against her chest. "We shouldn't mess with the source code."

"He's your brother, not a stranger."

She hesitated, not moving.

The warmth on Grant's face faded. "Nora, just last night you said you wanted us to be a family. Was that all just talk?"

A few seconds later, she lowered her head and wrote the password on a piece of paper.

When Owen took the paper, I caught Nora quietly hugging the robot close to her chest.

To me, she looked like a child watching someone walk away with the key to her room.