“Tata, will you fix this for me?” She has in her hand two walkie-talkies that she got for Christmas or a birthday. “I think the battery is dead.”

“Will you fix this?” Words that at the time warm and terrify. It’s my job, in a way, this “fixing.” Most fixing is nothing more than re-stringing a toy guitar or gluing a broken bit of plastic. But it’s fixing, and that makes me a bit of a hero to L. Yet I can’t fix everything for her all the time. She will have to learn to fix things for herself.

“No, but I’ll help you.” She hands me the walkie-talkie. “You’ll have to open this. Do you know what you’ll use?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Śrubokręt.”

“And what’s that in English?”

“I don’t know.”

We head to the basement, and I show her the screwdrivers, teaching her the word in English.

“Which one do you think you’ll use?” She looks at the screw and points to a Phillips screwdriver.

“What’s this called?” I tell her. “And this one?” she continues, indicating a small straight slot screwdriver. I tell her.

Through a short bit of trial-and-error experimentation, we find the appropriate screwdriver and open the battery compartment to find a nine-volt battery. I show her how to pop off the connectors, then replace them so she can do it.

“I’ll go check to see if we have this type of battery,” she informs me, returning with two AA batteries.

“We don’t have this type of battery, but maybe these will work.”

Of course they won’t. Only throught some very serious scheming could we get this to work. There’s simply no easy way, perhaps — I don’t know much about batteries and electronics — no way at all.

Still, it’s better for her to figure it out on her own.

She squeezes, pushes, grunts — it’s no use.

“Maybe when we go to the store today, we can get one of these batteries,” she finally concludes, as does the lesson.