Page 14 of Give Me a Shot

Refreshed from the previous evening after sleeping in quite late, Maddie hopped off the stool on the other side of the bay where she’d been doing her homework and started over to him, then stopped.

“Gloves?” she asked.

“Yep.”

She bounced over to the workbench and grabbed a pair of purple nitrile gloves from the box he’d purchased specifically for her.

“Okay, Daddy, serpentine belt. Let’s get crackin’,” she said, snapping the second glove at her wrist and smiling at him.

He chuckled.

“First, let’s set the stage,” he said. “The belt’s job is to transfer energy from the engine’s crankshaft to other components that need energy to function. If the belt breaks while driving, it’s not a crisis situation, but it can become very dangerous. The goal is to change the belt before it breaks. They’re usually good for a minimum of fifty thousand miles.”

“Fifty thousand miles. Got it,” she said, standing beside him, close enough to look at the engine but still keep her pink-and-purple outfit clean.

“If it needs to be changed before that, you might hear a squeaking noise while you’re driving. If it has cracks, or tears, you definitely need to change it.”

“Squeaks, cracks, tears. Got it.”

He grinned.

“So let’s dive in. Can you find the belt?” he asked.

She leaned forward a little more, resting her hands on the frame as he was. She tilted her head to one side, leaned a little closer, then leaned back again. He noticed that her bottom lip was a little tucked in on one side, a focusing habit she’d had since she’d started reading. A wisp of dark hair from her slipping ponytail fell across her forehead and she pushed it out of the way with the back of her gloved hand.

“Is that it, Daddy?” she asked, pointing.

He followed her gesture and smiled.

“Great eye, sugar plum. Now, it won’t look exactly the same on each engine, but the path is similar. You see how it goes over a couple of different pulleys? We have to look from underneath to see everything.”

She nodded.

He drew her attention to a diagram on the inside of the hood.

“Here’s the path the belt takes. Keep this in mind as we work to remove it and as we get the new one on.”

She frowned, looked at the engine, then back at the diagram.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Um, okay, but…Can I take a picture instead?”

Why hadn’t I ever thought of that?

“Uh…of course.” He fished his phone out of the pocket of his work pants. She leaned in, slipping her glove off to take a few shots and zoom in and out on one. She nodded her approval.

“Okay, let’s get underneath,” she said, smiling.

They grabbed creepers and slid under the car together, Mo picking up a slim light and switching it on. Before he pointed out the pulleys that the belt wove over, Madison had taken two more photos and slid back out from under the car to judge them in the sunlight coming through the open garage door.

“Looks good,” she said, sliding back underneath and handing him the phone.

Dropping the phone on his chest, he began to explain the process. As always, Madison was attentive and anticipated the right questions to ask. When it was time to loosen the tensioner, Mo got it started but let her do the rest. She wound the belt off with ease, and as they slid out from under the car, she took a closer look at it.

“I need to line up the grooves on the new belt with the grooves on the pulleys, don’t I?” she asked.

Mo smiled. Observant twelve-year-old.

---