Sauerkraut

by Kelly Jones

  Remove the motherboard from the case.

  Install the CPU in the socket on the motherboard.

  Attach the CPU fan on top of the CPU.

  Push the memory down into the slot on the motherboard.

  Install the power supply in the case.

  Attach the motherboard to the case.

  Connect the CPU fan, the case fan, the power supply, the speaker, and the power button to the motherboard.

  Unclip your wristband.

  Connect the power cord to the power supply.

  Connect the monitor to the computer.

  Plug the computer and monitor into the electrical outlets.

  Power everything on to see if it lights up.

  Unplug everything from the electrical outlets.

  Clip your wristband again.

  Install the solid-state drive.

  Connect everything else to the motherboard.

  Manage your cables.

  Put the sides back on the case, and screw them in.

  Unclip your wristband again.

  Connect the keyboard and mouse.

  Plug the computer and monitor back into the electrical outlets.

  Power it all up.

  Have fun with your BRAND-NEW COMPUTER!!!

  First I got the anti-static wristband out of Mr. Z.’s tool kit, and I put it on. Mr. Z. helped me fasten it, and I figured out where I could clip it to one of the metal parts of the case. Even a tiny, tiny bit of static electricity can fry your delicate computer components, way smaller than you could feel. But this way, it would go into the case, instead of the components. (Besides, it looks pretty cool and maker-like.)

  I let Eli blow the dust out of the keyboard with Mr. Z.’s can of compressed air, because he was a big help, with all that calculating. Besides, I’ve used the compressed air lots of times.

  “It’s still kind of dirty,” Eli said.

  So Mr. Z. got a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some cotton swabs, and an old toothbrush out of his supplies box. I said it was fine if Eli cleaned up the keyboard and the mouse while I worked on my computer build, if he wanted to. Eli said sure, he’d never brushed anything but teeth with a toothbrush before, but he’d give it a try.

  Then he gave me the can, and, very carefully, I used the compressed air on the motherboard, in case there was any microscopic dust on there. It still looked fine to me. But it wasn’t like I’d seen a lot of motherboards in real life, out of their packages.

  I got out the largest Phillips screwdriver from Mr. Z.’s tool kit, and I unscrewed all the screws on the back of the case. Then I lifted one side off, just like Grace had. Then the other. I checked that step off the list.

  Then I unscrewed all the screws holding the motherboard in place, and lined them up on the table.

  “You can set it down on this, to protect it while you work on it,” Mr. Z. said, handing me a square of black foam, just like the one that comes with brand-new motherboards in the computer-build videos I’d watched.

  “Thanks,” I told him, setting the foam next to the screws. Carefully I lifted the motherboard up by the edges, not touching all those delicate circuits, and put it down on the foam.

  For the CPU, I turned to the diagrams Harry had found for me. One of them matched my CPU socket exactly, so that’s what I followed. I lifted the little wire arm all the way up, out of the way. Then I held my breath; carefully, carefully, carefully lifted up the CPU by the edges; lined up the triangle on the corner with the mark on the socket, and lowered it down. I gave it just a little push, to make sure it was settled right. Then I lowered the little wire arm again, and it sucked the CPU into the socket and locked it in.

  Mr. Z. gave me a high five after that one, even though that’s not usually his thing. CPUs are expensive, so if you mess that part up, well…let’s just say he knew I was nervous about it.

  The fan that came with the CPU already had special paste on it, and it came with screws too. So all I had to do was align the underside of the fan with the CPU, like it showed in the diagram, then stick it on and screw it down. I know how to assemble things carefully, and obviously I know how to use a screwdriver.

  The memory was trickier. It had a little clip thing on one side of the motherboard slot that I had to unlatch and open. Then I had to match up the notch on the memory stick to the bump in the slot, to put it in the right way. I had to push the stick down into the side of the slot without the clip, and then the other side. The edge of the stick is really narrow, and if you bend it, the whole thing’s ruined, so I was nervous. It took me a few tries to push it down hard enough to snap it in so that the clip would close again. I had to take a deep breath and shake out my hands after that. But Mr. Z. said I did great.

  The first time I tried to put the power supply into the case, I put it in upside down. But it was pretty obvious that wasn’t going to work, since the screw holes on the power supply didn’t align with the holes on the case. So I took it out, turned it around, and tried again, without Mr. Z. having to say anything about it. That way worked just fine. I tucked that big octopus nest of cables out of the way so I could see what I was doing.

  I knew how to install the motherboard, because I’d just taken it out of the case. My case already had the little brass standoffs screwed into the side of the case wall, so all I had to do was match up the screw holes on the motherboard with those brass standoffs and screw it in again.

  I didn’t have a diagram or anything for the next part, because every motherboard and every power supply and every case is a little bit different. Instead, I read the tiny, tiny writing near the pins and plugs on the motherboard, and matched it up to the tiny, tiny writing on the cables. Then I had to turn the connectors around, or sometimes pick from two connectors on the same cable, and see which one had the round and square combination that matched the socket, kind of like a puzzle. There were a couple of mysterious parts I had to ask Mr. Z. about—like, who knew that “ATX12V1” matched “pwr”? But he said that’s what he was there for, and I was doing great.

  I connected the power cord. That was easy. And I already knew how to connect the monitor, and how to unclip my wristband, and plug everything in for the first test.

  Mr. Z. grinned. “Ready?”

  Eli came over so he could see too.

  I grinned, reached out, and pushed the power buttons on the computer and the monitor.

  The monitor’s power light came on. But not my computer. No case fan, no CPU fan, no beeps, no lights. Nothing.

  “Why isn’t it doing anything?” Eli asked me.

  It took me a minute to make the words come out past the lump in my throat. “I guess it’s fried.”

  “No, we cannot say that yet,” Mr. Z. said. “First you must double-check everything you’ve done so far.”

  “You mean, maybe it was fine until I broke it?” I asked. That really didn’t make me feel any better.

  “No, I meant that it may not be broken,” Mr. Z. said. “A connection might not be pushed in far enough, or a plug might not be seated correctly.”

  “Okay,” I said, even though I didn’t think this was going to help at all.

  Mr. Z. looked at my face. “But first, I think we will have a snack break. Troubleshooting on an empty stomach is not very effective.”

  I didn’t think I was going to be able to eat anything. Not with my computer all busted like that. But Mr. Z. said he needed some more coffee to get his brain going, so after I unplugged everything again, we went down to the Maple Falls cafeteria for a snack.

  Mr. Z. got his coffee, and Gladys decided Eli and I needed to try her special cinnamon rolls. They were almost as big as our heads. Since she was watching us, I took a bite, just to be polite. It was pretty good. Somehow I ended up eating the whole thing while Mr. Z. and I went over the list of steps, what I’d do
ne so far, how to double-check them, and what it would look like if something was busted.

  * * *

  After that, we washed our hands again and dried them off really well, and went back to the project room to try again.

  First I sniffed the case. Nothing smelled like smoke or electricity gone wrong. Mr. Z. said that was a very good sign that I hadn’t fried anything.

  Then I started from the beginning of my instructions, double-checking each step. I pushed down gently on the CPU fan, and the memory card, and everywhere the power supply was connected.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Z. walked around the table, checking my work from all angles. Suddenly he stopped, and smiled. “HD, I think I see the problem. Come, stand right here, and tell me what you observe.”

  I went around the table to where he was standing, looking at the back of my case. “I see all the ports that the keyboard and stuff plug into, only they’re not plugged in right now. I can kind of see the case fan through the air holes, but it isn’t moving. I see the power cord plugged into the power supply—oh!” I grinned at Mr. Z. “And the power switch on the power supply is in the ‘off’ position!”

  So I plugged everything back in again, and switched on the power supply.

  And this time—it lit up! The fans whirred to life, and the computer beeped!

  “It’s alive!” Eli yelled, pretending to be Dr. Frankenstein.

  “It sure is,” I said. “But we’re not done yet, Eli.”

  So Eli got back to work cleaning up the keyboard and the mouse, and I went back to my checklist.

  Time to power it back down and unplug everything, and to clip my wristband on again so I could install my solid-state drive. I lined it up in the bracket and screwed the sides into the case. Then I had to check the tiny, tiny writing so I could get it hooked up to a data port on the motherboard, and then to the power supply.

  Then…more tiny, tiny writing, and more connectors! It was time to hook everything else up too—the LED indicators on the case, the USB port, all of that stuff. Mr. Z. said that even back when his eyes were better, that part took him the longest.

  Next was the part Mr. Z. said took him the second longest: cable management. All that stuff I had to hook up had cables running all over the place, and you can’t just leave them lying around where they might get in the way of the fans. Besides, it looks like a rat’s nest, and that’s no good. So I used some cable ties and some plastic twist ties to get everything organized.

  I unclipped my wristband and checked out the keyboard and mouse that Eli had cleaned up for me. They looked really good—almost brand-new. “Nice,” I told him. “Thanks, man.” I hooked them up, then put the sides back on the case and screwed them in.

  Now there were check marks next to every single step, except for two.

  Power it all up.

  Have fun with your BRAND-NEW COMPUTER!!!

  I couldn’t stop smiling. It was sitting right there, just like I’d imagined: my own computer.

  “Go ahead and plug it in,” Mr. Z. told me.

  So I unclipped my anti-static wrist strap, took a deep breath, and plugged in the computer I built. And then I came around, and I pushed the power button on the computer and on the monitor.

  The indicator lights came on. I held my breath.

  The computer made a little noise, and then another…And then words appeared on my computer monitor! The BIOS screen appeared, exactly like it was supposed to! Everything worked!

  Eli and I pumped our fists and jumped around for a minute while Mr. Z. pressed the intercom and asked Gladys to bring us some ginger ale in fancy plastic glasses so we could have a toast. Then he walked down the halls inviting everyone around to come see what we built. He introduced us as his friends HD, the maker, and Eli, the scientist. I tried to play it cool, kind of. But everyone was so impressed that I had built a whole computer from parts I bought myself that I couldn’t help but grin.

  “Imagine what it’s going to be like at the fair!” Eli said happily.

  I pictured myself in front of everyone I knew, explaining they could build one too, as long as they were careful and double-checked everything, and wore an anti-static wrist strap so they didn’t accidentally electrocute their components. Harry would give me the nod, and maybe do another special handshake, and Grace and Rose and Mei would cheer, and Ms. Stevermer might make a note in her notebook, and my parents would be prouder than they’d ever been. And I was pretty sure that by the time I walked into middle school next year, everyone was going to know who I was, and what I could do.

  I smiled.

  * * *

  When Dad came to pick us and the computer up, he said we were going straight to Frank’s Diner to celebrate. Mr. Z. had a pool tournament, though, and couldn’t join us.

  “Thanks, Mr. Z.,” I told him. “This was pretty much the best project ever.”

  “Oh, I am sure the next one you dream up will be twice as exciting,” Mr. Z. said, smiling. “And I will be twice as happy to help.”

  At the diner, Frank made me and Eli wear paper birthday crowns, even though it wasn’t our birthdays, and took a picture of us with my computer on the table. “For the wall,” he said, nodding seriously.

  Frank’s wall is covered in photos of everyone who comes to the diner: Little League teams in uniform waving hot dogs, and the girls’ karate team pretending to chop the diner tables in half with their hands, and the cast of The Music Man hovering around the biggest ice cream cake Frank ever made, still in their costumes. Not to mention photos to show that Frank’s two-foot-long sub sandwich is longer than a new baby, and people pretending to feed burgers to their prize-winning giant cabbages, and all that. I liked knowing my computer would be up there too.

  After we finished the grilled cheese–BLT hybrid that I invented, and Eli’s plain grilled cheese on sourdough, with mayonnaise instead of ketchup for his fries, Eli looked at me. “You know what sounds really good right now?”

  I grinned. “A brownie.”

  Dad laughed, and got up to go talk to Frank. “Just don’t let your oma hear you say that.”

  * * *

  I was feeling good about things when we pulled into our garage and lugged everything inside. But as soon as we came in, before Mom could even tell me congratulations, the ghost said, “Hans Dieter, we have a problem.” She floated over and dropped a piece of paper right into my hands.

  “Marietta, please let HD in the door first,” Mom said, sighing.

  But Oma just kept floating right in front of my face.

  I read it silently. I guess Mom and Oma had had a conversation while we were at the diner.

  Oma: When will the Pickle Parade happen?

  Mom: I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of the Pickle Parade. There’s the Veterans Day Parade—Hans Peter and I usually drive some of the older veterans in that.

  Oma: Do you never attend the fair?

  Mom: Of course we attend the fair. Hans Peter enters a car every year, and I enter vegetables I’ve grown. I’ve got a giant kohlrabi that’s coming along really well this year, as long as we keep those goats away from it.

  Oma: But you don’t watch the winners drive through town in the Pickle Parade?

  Mom: I’ll need to check, but I don’t think they do that anymore.

  Oma: But how does the town honor the winners?

  Mom: Well, they award a blue ribbon to the winning entries—I’ve got one for last year’s giant cabbage, and Hans Peter won his three years ago for the restored Volkswagen Beetle.

  Oma: But what about the Pickle Prize?

  Mom: I’m not familiar with the Pickle Prize.

  Oma: It’s a golden trophy with a marble base, etched with the past winners of the pickling contest. The winner and her family ride through town in the mayor’s car. The winner wears the Pickle Queen’s corsage and her best hat
, and carries the Pickle Prize.

  Mom: I’m afraid I’ve never heard of that happening.

  Oma: I must win the Pickle Prize.

  Mom: Well, HD is doing everything he can to help you with that. But not everything is about winning, right?

  Oma: I must win.

  I sighed. Mom had already told her that things had changed, but she wasn’t exactly taking it well. What was I supposed to do—tell the mayor she had to have a Pickle Parade and drive my great-great-grandma the ghost around if she won? And tell everyone they were supposed to wave back and cheer, even though they couldn’t see her?

  Mom walked right through the ghost and gave me a big hug. “Never mind that right now—this is your time to celebrate! Now show us what you built.”

  Mom doesn’t love computers the way I do, but I appreciated her changing the subject. So I set up the computer and all the peripherals in the family room. The ghost fell silent as the computer booted up.

  I’d done it a few times already, but I still held my breath as the computer beeped and hummed to life, and I still smiled when the BIOS screen came up.

  But before I could explain what was going on, or how I put it all together, the ghost wanted to know where her sauerkraut application was for the fair.

  “We got that too, Mrs. S.,” Eli told her.

  But it was hard to hear her answer, because Mom was explaining to Asad that no, we couldn’t watch TV right now, we were right in the middle of something very important to his brother, and didn’t he want to see what the computer did? And Asad was asking whether he could play Minecraft on my computer, so I had to tell him no, it wasn’t really set up to play games, or anything yet, since I’d just built it this afternoon.

  “Then what’s it good for?” Asad asked.

  I sighed, and turned the computer off again.

  Mom tried to stop me, but then Asad knocked his water all over her, and Dad went for paper towels, and Eli was trying to answer Oma’s questions about the Pickle Parade. They didn’t even notice when I unplugged it all, put it back in the box, and took it downstairs to my room.