Rue Pickett had fixed the whole town by lunchtime, and still nobody wanted what she really had to give. Her wagon sat outside the general store, tools clinking as she dug for a screwdriver. She wanted one thing before her legs gave out and her traveling days ended: an apprentice. Someone young to teach every trick in that wagon. But she was sixty years too old and one spring too strange, and the children of Hickoryshade only stared at the odd tinker and kept walking. She patched a broken hinge on the store's front door. A boy watched from the porch steps. When she whistled and waved him over, he bolted. Rue sighed and wiped her hands. Fixing things was easy. Fixing her problem was not. Then she heard the rattle of a tool belt. A broad-shouldered girl crossed the road fast, denim overalls patched at both knees. Her belt hung past her thighs and jangled with wrenches. She carried a cracked lantern, a coil of wire, and a kettle with a wobbling handle, all at once. "You're the tinker," the girl said. "Clara Norby. The widow's gate, the baker's oven, the schoolhouse pump — I'm doing all of them today. And now this lantern." She dropped the pile at Rue's feet. "Can you show me the oven thing? I keep guessing." Rue studied her. This was the first young person in Hickoryshade who hadn't run. "You fix all this yourself?" "I can't say no." Clara shrugged, but her shoulders sagged under it. "Six jobs. Everybody asks. I say yes." Rue picked up the cracked lantern. "Watch my hands, don't watch my mouth." She twisted the base, tapped the wick holder loose, and reseated it in three moves. The flame would hold now. Clara leaned in, breathing through her mouth, eyes locked on every finger. "Do it again," Clara said. Rue did it slower. Clara copied her on the kettle handle. First try, she bent the pin wrong. Rue didn't speak. Clara frowned, straightened the pin, tried again. It held. The girl grinned like she'd lit a fire in the dark. "I've been guessing for two years," Clara said. "Nobody ever showed me." There it was. Rue felt it land in her chest. Not a customer. A student. "I'm not passing through this spring," Rue said. "I'm staying a while. I've got a wagon full of tricks and no one to leave them to." She held out the screwdriver, handle first. "You take on fewer jobs. You take on me instead. Deal?" Clara stared at the tool. She took it slowly, like it might burn. "I don't know how to say no to the town," she admitted. "Then that's your first lesson," Rue said. "We'll start tomorrow." Clara nodded. She left the kettle, the wire, and the lantern on the porch and walked off lighter than she came. Rue watched her go. She finally had an apprentice. Now she had to teach a girl who couldn't stop saying yes.