Step Four Is a Lie: The Night the Supper Table Stood

The Rattle in the Box

Wendell knew the parcel by its sound before he read the label. It rattled like a small, well-organized hailstorm. Twenty bits, he guessed, in a case with some discipline. He said nothing, which is the whole of his profession, and handed it to Mags, who signed for it like a woman whose motion had just been seconded.

"A Fanttik S2 Pro," she told Gus. "Cordless."

Gus looked at it the way he looks at every tool he did not make. He owns a drill with its own zip code. "I could build that," he said. Nobody argued, because the argument takes forty minutes and he generally has a tool he is not lending.

Then he tried the drill on the tabletop's edge, which crumbled like a cracker, and the drill went back in the truck without comment.

Gus turned the dial down to the lowest of the seven settings, and the screw went in like a thought.

Seven Ways to Say Gently

The Fanttik weighs 2.3 pounds, which Gus noted with the suspicion he reserves for light things. The storage case opened with a click, and the bits sat in it held by magnets, so that when he knocked it against the grass not one of them went anywhere. Wendell, who has watched a great many small things roll under a great many porches, found this moving.

Then there was the dial. The S2 Pro has seven torque settings, from 0.5 up to 6N·m, and a lit bar on the handle shows which one you are on and whether the motor is going forward or back. Gus turned the dial down to the lowest of the seven settings, and the screw went in like a thought.

"Huh," said Gus, which for him is a standing ovation.

Doris Kowalczyk, arriving with a casserole and a clipboard, asked whether it might also do the rotted beam in the old treehouse. Gus said no, with real regret. The thing tops out at 6N·m and is meant for furniture and electronics, and a beam wants his drill, which was sulking in the truck.

A Forecast and a Corner

ORACLE, which Mags had installed on a tablet at the head of the lawn, forecast that the table would hold for 41.96 minutes, after which it would "seek the sea." It addressed Wendell throughout as Mr. Pickle. Mags, who treats ORACLE as a colleague, did not argue with the number. She moved dessert to the front of the program.

The fourth leg was the real trial. Its bolt sat in a corner under the tabletop where no straight driver could go, and the light was fading. Gus fitted the 90° angle adapter, and the small LED lit the dark underside like a porch light in a cellar. The bolt went in on the second try. For the last leg he added the extension rod, out of what looked like pride.

When the charging ring blinked low, Mags plugged the Fanttik into a phone cord from her kitchen drawer. The Type-C port took it without ceremony. Doris entered the screwdriver in the Lending Ledger as on loan to the lane, which is how everything on the lane is entered.

Seating by Order of the Caucus

The table stood. Neighbors came with their dishes, and Pepper the beagle inspected the legs with cheerful approval and then the crumbs, which was her real concern. Mags laid out place cards. At the far end stood a twelfth chair with a place card reading Brenda, set a respectful six feet back from the table, where a domesticated bear could dine without being crowded, and Doris logged the chair as occupied in spirit.

Then Admiral Biscuit, a large orange cat and chairman of the Cat-Owners' Caucus, climbed onto the center of the table and lay down on the runner. The Caucus, whose members hold that living with a cat is the highest form of human existence, ruled that the Admiral's nap on the runner was a binding structural inspection, and Mags entered it in the minutes before he had finished turning around. The supper was declared lawful. ORACLE's 41.96 minutes were allowed to lapse unobserved.

Mags began a speech. Gus did not stay for it. He was under the table with the Fanttik, giving every bolt a last gentle quarter turn, because the lowest setting was right there and he had decided it would be rude not to use it.

Wendell took his tray and went on up the lane. Behind him a fork rang against a plate, and the table did not move.

"Step six says enjoy," Gus announced from underneath. "Another lie. I'll be the judge."