Unforeseen Events: Day 7

Word Count: 42,228

Summary of Events:

Sheldon felt sick from eating all that sugar, which got him fussed over by his aunts; one of his aunts postulated that it might be food poisoning instead, which made Sheldon nervous, even though no one else seemed concerned. Emil bid his family farewell before getting started extracting the engine from the car; he was mostly done that task when he saw it was lunchtime, and so went in to eat, as well as  to get Sheldon outside per the challenge. Sheldon heard something in the garage and came to see what Emil was doing, he was soon helping Emil take apart the engine while learning from Emil how engines functioned. 

Excerpt of the Day:

"Tossing the berries gently in the strainer as he rinsed them, Emil thought about the change. It had been somewhat sudden, and he couldn't say that he really understood it.

He shut off the water and tossed the berries until the worst of the dripping was done, he then poured the berries into a bowl and set it by the stove.

In the last three days Sheldon had come out to the garage as soon as he was awake and gotten involved in taking the engine apart. He seemed genuinely fascinated by the whole thing and raptly listened to Emil's every explanation about the different functions of an engine.

Emil poured the sugar, flour, and lemon juice over the berries and set the timer for fifteen minutes before turning his attention to the plastic bag holding a wedge of pie crust dough he'd brought out of the freezer.

He hadn't even seen Sheldon's phone since Sunday, when Sheldon had lain miserable and ill on the couch after all the sugar he'd eaten on Saturday. Sheldon had quite fully immersed himself in learning how an engine worked.

As he pre-flattened the dough on the floured counter with the heels of his hands, Emil wondered if he didn't have a budding mechanic on his hands.

All of his grandsons had helped in the garage at one point or another, and they'd all found his explanations interesting, but there seemed to be something different about Sheldon's rapt attention, it was almost as if Sheldon couldn't get enough of it.

He smiled at the memory of when Patricia had brought Ben and David over for two weeks back when they'd been about Sheldon's age to study science through vehicles as part of their homeschooling curriculum.

It had been fun, and Ben and David had been interested and decently eager, but Sheldon seemed doubly so, even if he didn't ask as many questions as Ben and David had, and even though Patricia — who had always loved science — wasn't there to give all sorts of complex explanations regarding the physics and chemistry behind it all.

That was one thing that none of his children or grandchildren had ever pursued was mechanics. Sure, Charlie and Matthew were in the army, but Charlie was a chaplain and Matthew was a pilot.

Pretty much every son and grandson had studied mechanics in school, but none of them had gone beyond that. Emil wondered if Sheldon would turn out to be the mechanic of the family.

The dough was thin enough that Emil could see where the flour had gathered into clusters and where the countertop was bare of flour. Mom had told him that was when the dough was suitable for putting into the pie plate — as if she'd known someday he'd be an active widower who'd need to bake his own pies."