"Has anyone shown you the evidence supporting the diagnosis?"
"No."
She nodded.
"Then you have uncertainty."
The boy frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you don't know whether the engine is repairable."
He looked down.
She continued.
"That doesn't automatically mean your classmates are right."
The boy considered.
"But what if it really is broken?"
The teacher smiled gently.
"Then you'll learn something about difficult problems."
She leaned forward.
"Engineering isn't about always being right."
The boy looked toward her.
"It's about asking good questions, testing your ideas, and changing your mind when the evidence requires it."
He nodded slowly.
The teacher continued.
"You can care about your grandfather's tractor and still be realistic about its condition."
The boy looked thoughtful.
She smiled.
"Those aren't opposites."
For a moment, he felt relieved.
Then he asked.
"Do you think I should bid?"
The teacher considered.
"That's a decision for you and your mother."
She paused.
"But I would encourage you to understand the risks before you spend your savings."
The boy nodded.
"Okay."
Then she asked something unexpected.
"Would you like to bring the wiring diagram to the engineering club?"
His eyes widened.
"Really?"
"Of course."
She smiled.
"We study electrical circuits every semester. An old ignition system might be a useful example."
The boy looked down at his hands.
Then smiled.
For the first time in days, he felt something other than embarrassment when he thought about the tractor.
Maybe the machine was not just a broken object.
Maybe it was a problem worth understanding.
The grandfather's notebook became the center of his evenings.
It was thick.
Black.
Worn around the edges.
The cover was stained with oil and faded fingerprints.
Inside were decades of maintenance records.
Dates.
Part numbers.
Measurements.
Hand-drawn diagrams.
Notes about weather.
Descriptions of unusual sounds.
And little reminders written in the grandfather's careful block lettering.
One page described a charging-system modification completed many years earlier.
Another showed the routing of replacement wiring around the engine.
Several pages contained troubleshooting notes from recent months.
The boy studied them carefully.
He did not understand everything.
Some terms required research.
Others depended upon equipment he had never examined.
But the general pattern was clear.
Before sending the tractor to the dealer, his grandfather had been investigating an intermittent ignition problem.
The engine still turned.