by Sara van Dyck

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Will tore open the box Grandma brought him and pulled out a handful of parts. There were blocks and rods and round pieces and wheels, in yellow and red and blue. And they were all for building things.

"That's great!" he said. "Thanks a lot, Grandma. Can you help me build something?"

"Sure," Grandma said. She picked up a wheel and spun it around. "I used to love construction toys when I was little, too." She pointed to the pictures on the box. "Which one do you want to make?"

Will studied the pictures. He could build a dragster, or a tall tower. He could build a robot, or a space ship. "This one!" he said. He pointed to a jet plane.

"Let's go!" Grandma said. She sat on the rug next to Will and handed him some parts. Will built two wide wings. Then he built a long body. Then he tried to fit them together. But something went wrong. The blue part wouldn't fit in the yellow part, and the wings wouldn't stay on.

"Can you put these together?" Will asked Grandma.

She stuck the blue and yellow parts together and held them out. "Oops!" she said, as they fell apart. Then she put the wings on the other way. Now the whole wing fell apart. The wheels were even worse. They weren't level, so the plane kept diving into the ground. "Try moving one wheel up a little," Grandma said.

Will tried. This time both wheels fell off. The plane was in little bits all over the rug. Will was starting to feel frustrated, and he wasn't sure he liked this toy any more. He looked at Grandma's face. Her eyes were scrunched up in a squint, the way they did when things bothered her.

"I think I need to rest a little, Will," Grandma said. She sat in the easy chair and closed her eyes. Will stared at the parts of the plane on the floor. He thought. And thought. And then he reached for a part. After a while Grandma opened her eyes. She blinked and looked at the floor in surprise. "Don't tell me you finished that plane all by yourself!"

"Well, sort of," Will said. His plane didn't look anything like the picture on the box. But it was a super plane. It had three wheels instead of two. One wing went forward and one wing went back. A rod stuck out from one side, and an antenna flopped from the top.

"Which picture is that?" Grandma asked.

"It's my own picture," Will said proudly. "This isn't just an ordinary jet plane. This is a Mars robot plane. It sends signals and it shoots and it does everything!"

Grandma rolled it across the rug. "That's pretty exciting," she said.

"Thanks for the present, Grandma," Will said. He gave her his brightest smile. "And thanks for all the help."