Short Story: The Tap That Wouldn't Turn

The man next door

This is an original short story. The characters, the street and the events are invented.

I always thought Mr. Lindqvist was the grumpiest person on Maple Crescent. He never waved. He kept the curtains closed. Once, when my soccer ball rolled onto his lawn, he picked it up, looked at it for a long time and set it on the sidewalk without saying a word. My brother Ali said he was probably a spy. I said he was probably just mean.

So on Saturday morning, when I heard banging and a loud "Come ON!" from his side yard, I knew exactly what was happening. Mr. Lindqvist was being grumpy again.^[1]

What I saw over the fence

I was supposed to be raking leaves. Instead, I stood on the recycling bin and peeked over the fence.

Mr. Lindqvist was kneeling beside his house, next to the outdoor tap. A green garden hose was still screwed onto it. He was twisting the small round handle with both hands, and his face was red. The handle did not move at all.

"Is everything okay?" I called. I said it in my most polite voice, in case he was about to yell.

He looked up, surprised. "The weather says minus eight on Tuesday," he said. "I have to get the water out of this pipe before then. My hands are not as strong as they used to be."

I did not know what water in a pipe had to do with minus eight. But I did know that his voice did not sound mean. It sounded tired.^[1]

A trip to the basement

My mom came out when I told her, and she knew right away. "If water freezes in that pipe, it can crack it," she said. "Then you get a flood inside the wall when it thaws." She explained that you have to shut off the valve inside the house first, then open the outdoor tap so the last water can drain out.

Mr. Lindqvist let us into his basement. It smelled like cedar and old books. The inside valve was on a pipe near the ceiling. Its little round handle was even smaller than the one outside, and it was stiff with rust. Mom tried. I tried. It would not budge.

Then I noticed something on his workbench: an old wooden steering wheel from a toy go-kart, with a square hole in the middle. In science class, we had just read about the wheel and axle. A big wheel fixed to a thin rod turns it with more force, because your hands travel around a bigger circle.^[1]

The bigger circle

"Could we put a bigger handle on it?" I asked. "Like a wheel?"

Mr. Lindqvist looked at me for a long time, the same way he had looked at my soccer ball. Then he smiled. It was the first time I had ever seen him smile. "My grandson made that wheel with me," he said. "Let's see if it still has a job."

The square hole did not fit the valve. But Mr. Lindqvist found a wider metal handle in a coffee can full of spare parts, and Mom helped him fit it onto the valve stem. I pushed on the edge of the big handle. My hands went a long way around, and the valve turned, one slow quarter turn after another, until the water was off.

Outside, I unscrewed the hose and opened the tap. A little stream of water trickled out and then stopped. The pipe was empty.^[2]

What I know now

Later, Mr. Lindqvist brought over a tin of cardamom buns. He told Mom that his wife used to do the winter jobs, and that this was his first fall doing them alone. He said the curtains stayed closed because the sun hurt his eyes. He said he had kept my soccer ball for a minute because his grandson used to have one just like it.

I had been sure I knew what kind of person he was. But I only knew what I could see from my side of the fence.

Now, when I walk past his house, he waves. I wave back. And when Ali says Mr. Lindqvist is a spy, I tell him he is wrong, and that I know, because I was there.^[1]