Grandma covered her mouth. I couldn't tell whether she was smiling or afraid. The silence after the engine stopped seemed louder than any sound we'd heard that morning. Outside, a crow called from the fence line, as indifferent as the chickens had been to every stage of our project.
"It tried," I said.
Mr. Pittman gave me a sideways look. "Machines don't try, Noah. But that was useful. Now we find out why it didn't keep running."
There was one more round of checking, waiting, and cautious discussion. I watched Mr. Pittman and the other adults work through what they had observed, refusing to let our excitement turn into haste. Finally he put the checklist back in my hands. His voice was quiet enough that I leaned forward to hear him.
"One more controlled attempt. Everything is ready."
I sat down again, rested my hand on the wheel, and looked once at the empty space beside Grandma where Grandpa would have stood. Then I turned the key.
The engine rolled over, shuddered, caught, and kept going.
It was not the beautiful sound I'd imagined. There was an unevenness to it at first, a rough mechanical argument as parts that had been silent for two decades found a working rhythm again. Then the idle steadied, and the deep six-cylinder beat filled the shed like a voice returning after a very long absence. I felt it through the seat, the steering wheel, and the soles of my boots. The sound was so much bigger than my hope had been that for several seconds I forgot how to breathe.
Mr. Pittman watched the instruments and the engine with a professional's concentration, prepared to end the test if anything gave him cause for concern. The other adults remained in their positions. Nobody rushed toward the running machine or shouted over the noise. We let the controlled test continue only as long as the checks justified, and when the engine was shut down, silence settled gradually over the shed again.
The sudden quiet was almost painful. I looked down at the key, then at Mr. Pittman. He was smiling, not widely, but enough to make the lines around his eyes deepen.
"It ran," I said.
"It ran," he agreed. "Now we keep testing until we know whether it'll work."
Grandma walked slowly across the shed and put both hands on the green hood. She stood there without speaking, feeling the warmth that remained in the metal. Her eyes were wet, but her shoulders were no longer held as tightly as they'd been since the funeral. I climbed down, afraid to make a sound that might break whatever she was thinking.
"Your grandpa would have loved hearing that," she said.
"I wish he had."
"He did, in a way," she answered. "Every time he taught you to be patient instead of pretending, he was helping bring it here."