Chapter Thirty - Bundle of Worry

Maple was a bundle of worry as she watched Steffie slip into her new legs.

The legs were a design that Maple had come up with well over a week ago, and one that she'd refined and improved (in her head) at length. It was most likely the most complex project Maple had taken on to date. Nearly all of her school papers had doodles on the corners of servos and braces and notes about the control mechanism for the legs.

Now she was seeing a fifth of her life's work being put to use and it made her even more nervous than she usually was.

"Oh, this is tight," Steffie said. She was frowning as she wiggled her unresponsive legs into the braces. Maple was there to help, but at the same time, she didn't want to just... grab Steffie's feet and stuff them into the right spots. That would feel way too intrusive and rude.

So she held onto the legs she'd built as Steffie squeezed into them, then Maple showed Steffie how to hook the legs into place.

The legs were kind of like pants.

Kind of. If pants were really large, and made of wood and metal and had joints and servos and a few trailing wires.

So, less like pants and more like... something that wasn't pants. They were worn around Steffie's normal legs, with a pair of large boots on the bottom for her to fit her feet into. Those were connected by a shaft (a cut-up hockey stick) to the first set of servos around the knees. Then there was a brace made of coat hangers and some utensils that connected from the top of the knees all the way to the waist.

The topmost part of the legs was a thick worker's belt, one of those with some pouches for tools worked into it. Those had been handy since she had a bunch of parts that needed to be put somewhere. Batteries, a remote, some things that she'd built but couldn't quite recall what she'd done to make them. Normal stuff, basically.

"Okay," Steffie said as she tightened the belt. "Now what?"

Maple swallowed. There was a lot of attention on her, but even more expectation and that was so, so much worse. "Now you can use the remote to move," Maple said. She grabbed a special controller from one of the belt pockets.

"Hey, that's from our Laystation," Trinity said.

"You broke the second controller?" Teddy asked.

"It's a spare," Maple defended. Honestly, she couldn't remember taking it, but they did have two.

"But we need it to play multiplayer," Trinity complained.

"Girls," Emily said, her voice a warning. "Enough. It's just a controller. Not a big deal. Maple, go on."

"Thank you," Maple muttered. She gave the controller to Steffie. "Forward goes forward, back goes back, and X kicks. Y is to jump, and B makes you sit and unsit. O is for crouch. Now, there's a hat too! But it's going to take some time for the hat to read your brain and know what you're thinking when you want to move, so it'll take some time!" The hat was just an old baseball cap with some wires coiling in and out of it.

"Got it," Steffie said.

Maple nodded, then flicked the legs on from a small switch at the side of the belt. The legs twitched, and some of her sisters jumped back, spooked by the sudden motion.

The lot of them were outside, on the terrace behind Steffie's place. She was still on her wheelchair, though she was bent at an awkward angle to fit the legs on. If it wasn't for Sam standing behind the chair and keeping it steady, she might have slipped off.

"Okay," Steffie said. She pressed B, and the legs moved. They folded, planted the boots down, then stood.

Steffie squealed in panic as she was raised up then thrown forwards, her legs moving on their own without her upper body coordinating with them. Her arms cartwheeled, but it didn't take long for her to keep steady. "Whoa," she said. "I'm so tall!"

"Careful," Miss Headerson said. She looked like she wanted to grab onto Steffie, but was holding herself back.

Maple ran a few last-second checks while Steffie was standing. Her friend was actually a bit taller than Maple standing up, which was interesting. Though some of that height came from the thick boots and the legs she'd built; they gave her a bit more height than she'd have naturally. The batteries were still over 80%, the wires were all connected at the right places, none of the strings or gum had come apart, and everything looked like it was working. "Okay," Maple said. "Um, try walking?"

Steffie snorted, then laughed. "Try walking. Thanks!" She pushed the controller forwards, and the legs took a big, slow step in that direction. It was a little clumsy, and Steffie had her arms out to balance the whole time, but it worked. "I'm walking!" she said.

Maple expected Steffie to be happy, maybe to start running around with her sisters and playing ball or something. She didn't expect Steffie to start crying.

Maple swallowed, looking around for help. Had the legs pinched her? Was something wrong? But then Miss Headerson was there, hugging Steffie, and everything was okay, and then Emily was hugging Maple too and telling her that she did good, so things were alright.

She liked the warm feeling in her tummy. It was like pouring cool water on the burning inferno of anxiety always threatening to spill out of her.

She could get used to this, she decided.

Steffie was soon released from her mom's hug and was quick to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. Maple understood not wanting to look like you were crying in front of your friends. Then she was off, tottering across the backyard with big awkward steps, laughing all the while.

They started an impromptu game of soccer, Athena and Trinity on one team, and Teddy, Steffie, and Trinity (but with a bandana) on the other. Steffie was... not good at it, and Maple wasn't sure how much of that was her new leg's awkwardness and how much was Steffie just not being great at sports.

Maple hung back to watch. She didn't like sports much either, and she wanted to keep an eye on her new invention, in case it broke or she needed to make some changes to it.

"That's impressive," Sam said.

"It's incredible," Miss Headerson said. "But I'm worried... oh, I shouldn't be, but I'm worried it'll get to her head."

"How's that?" Emily asked.

"What if she wants to go to school next? I mean... maybe she can? Though... the legs don't look very, ah, professional."

Maple pretended not to hear that last part, and she pretended even harder not to feel the slight sting at the criticism. She supposed it was even true, her legs looked a bit messy. She'd seen cartoons and shows and stuff where there were heroes like her (in the power sense, not in the personality sense, she wasn't one of those yucky heroes). Her inventions were a lot simpler, made of stuff she found around the house.

The heroes had cool high-tech looking gadgets, with stainless steel and hard plastics and little LED lights.

She could do the lights, but the rest was tricky, and she wasn't sure if her stuff would even work with those kinds of materials.

"I think Maple could make something more... streamlined," Emily said. "But it might take a lot longer, and it might not be easy for her."

Emily placed a hand on Maple's head, then started to run her fingers through her hair. It was very nice.

"I think I could," Maple said.

"I'll pay you," Miss Headerson said over the sounds of Steffie and the others laughing.

"You've done a ton for us already," Emily said. "I couldn't ask for money. But... maybe Maple could?"

Maple blinked. Ask for money, from Miss Headerson? That felt... hard. Especially with Miss Headerson looking at her right then. "Um," she said.

Sam laughed. "How about a compromise? Maple will need some materials. Usually her stuff's pretty inexpensive to make, but if we want legs two-point-oh to be nicer, then she might need nicer gear to make it. Gadget makers are like that, you know? So if you covered the material cost, within a reasonable budget..."

"That's more than acceptable," Miss Headerson said. "Besides, I spend more than you'd imagine on medical supplies already. A lot of it is covered, but it's the basic stuff that's not really worth much."

"That seems fair," Emily said. She gave one of Maple's beaver ears a soft squeeze. "Is that okay with you, Maple?"

"It is," Maple said. It would be nice to have a big project to focus on. "Um... I also have some points to spend?"

"Oh, right," Emily said. "Well, maybe when we get home. I'm sure you might find something that'll help you improve as a gadgeteer."

Maple wanted to nod, but she didn't want the ear scritches to stop. It was hard, sometimes, deciding what to do, but she felt like she'd done the right thing today.

***