Roni Ray's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Roni Ray had beaten the check engine light twice already, and twice it had come back to laugh at him. He sat in the driver's seat of his silver Toyota, keys in hand, staring at the dashboard. The little orange light glowed steady. Then it blinked off. His heart jumped. Then it blinked back on. He slapped the wheel. "Camy, you little troublemaker. How am I supposed to know when I've actually won?" The light was his enemy. He had fought it for weeks. Clear the code, it returns. Tighten the gas cap, it returns. If the light could flicker like that, then even a dead code might be faking death. He could fix the engine, see the light go dark, and never trust it. A win he couldn't believe was no win at all. A knock on the passenger window made him flinch. His daughter pressed her face to the glass, grinning. She climbed in before he could unlock it, a chrome socket in one small fist. Paint speckled her pink dress. A bandage clung to her knee. "Roni, you're yelling at the car again," the Stinky Princess said. "It's cheating," Roni said. "The light turns off, then on. I can't tell if the problem's gone." She leaned over the dash and studied the flicker like a scientist. "That's not the engine talking. That's a loose wire." She tapped the panel. "When you hit a bump, it blinks. See?" She pushed the plastic trim with her thumb. The light flickered off, then on. She pushed again. Same blink. Roni stared. All this time he had hunted a ghost in the engine. The ghost was a bad connection behind the dash. "Pop the panel," she said. She was already digging in his toolbox. She passed over the socket and grabbed the black-and-yellow drill. "We need this to get the screws." They worked for twenty minutes. She held the flashlight; he ran the drill. Behind the panel they found it, a connector half pulled loose, its pin green with rust. Roni cleaned the pin with his shirt. He pressed the connector home until it clicked. "Start it," the Stinky Princess said. He turned the key. The dash lit up. Every light glowed, then went dark one by one. The check engine light faded last. It did not flicker. It stayed off. He revved the engine. He drove around the lot and rolled over a speed bump on purpose. The light stayed dark. Roni laughed. "It's really off. I can trust it now." He had his honest enemy back, no more fake blinking. The Stinky Princess wiped her hands on her dress and smiled. Then she pointed at the dash. A new light had appeared, small and red, shaped like an oil can. "Roni," she said. "What's that one?" Roni's smile dropped. He leaned closer. He had never seen that light before.