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Reconstructive Surgery
Workshop
calliaphone returns, and powers on the lights. She looks to the bench, where Cordy remains, still and silent as she left him. She hurries over to check him out.
calliaphone performs a careful inspection, and marks up the charts with her findings. The accordion is no better, but no worse. She nods. Okay, that's something.
calliaphone digs out her screwdriver again, and starts to go over the various damaged parts. Her eyes are narrowed in concentration, and she mutters to herself as she goes.
calliaphone says, “. . .bass reed block crushed beyond repair, gonna have to replace that. springs okay, oh, except for this lot. bellows gonna need rebuilding again on this side. grille's alright, thankfully..”
calliaphone sighs. this is going to take a fair old bit of work. starting with finding all the parts she needs. or the materials to make them. she frowns, and digs out her felt-pens.
calliaphone starts making a list, on the back of Cordy's chart. Her writing is slow, and more or less illegible. Just as well she'll never read it back. But it seems to help calm her, and order her thoughts.
calliaphone finishes making her “list”. It looks like a picture of a bowl of spaghetti. with sauce. but she seems satisifed. and very very tired.
calliaphone hits the lights, then curls up on the floor beside Cordy's bench, and settles down to sleep.
calliaphone is woken by daylight streaming through the skylights. She sits, winces, gingerly checks her skull and finds yesterday's bruise-of-the-day still tender, but going down.
calliaphone checks on Cordy next, and makes some more indecipherable marks on his chart. Then she flips it over and looks at the spaghetti-markings she made last night. It's not much help, really.
calliaphone doesn't need a list anyway. PAH. lists are for GIRLS. no, wait, that wasn't the problem. lists are for people who FORGET! be they boy or girl or any other persuasion.
calliaphone 's memory is selective, certainly. But that means some things do get retained. Accordion parts are something of a priority right now. She won't forget.
calliaphone departs. She has scavenging to do. It's a matter of life or death for a piano-squeezebox.
Improbable Cartographer Syd Lexic wanders through, noticing the accordion. “I hope you pull through, little guy. At least this place is better stocked than Dave's workshop on the beach. . . and that's saying something!”
Improbable Cartographer Syd Lexic takes a quick look in each of the rooms down here and heads back.
calliaphone returns to Cordy's bench-side, dragging Materials. Sheet metal and steel wire. It's not everything she needs, but it's definitely a start.
calliaphone sits down, stiffly on account of cuts and scrapes, and does a quick check of Cordy's vitals. All ok there. Then she starts work, measuring up and marking lines on the metal sheets, ready for cutting.
Accomplice Teh Dave steps into the workshop, humming to himself, he's glancing about for a nice bit of circuit board, and maybe some knobs and a switch.
Uncle Bernard salutes to Dave, “Hello there David, how are you? Still rushed off your feet, eh?”
calliaphone looks up. she didn't hear anything, she was so busy measuring! “Uncle B! Hullo there. And. . . Dave too!”
Uncle Bernard smiles at Callia, he'd forgive her anything, but not getting herself hurt. “What are you doing, eh?”
calliaphone isn't very badly hurt. Just the usual daily collection of scrapes and grazes. And a little rust. “I'm fixing Cordy. Trying to, anyways.”
Uncle Bernard nods. He hasn't quite grasped what happened, but he thinks he knows a thing or two about busted accordions (he once fixed a wheezy bellow), “I've had an idea, it may help. I may be a while..”
calliaphone looks quizzically at Bernard. But she knows better than to try and second-guess him. She smiles, and carries on measuring up metal, for cutting into new reeds.
calliaphone finishes measuring at last, and pauses for a chocomilk. then she digdigs in her backpack, until she finds a block of wood. she holds this against Cordy's stove-in bass reed-block, comparing sizes.
calliaphone whistles quietly as she works. measuring the wood now, marking it up in pencil. reassuring Cordy. pausing for a cigarette.
Accomplice Teh Dave is busy in another corner, fiddling with a recalcitrant circuitboard. “You. . .will. . .work!” The smell of burning solder rises from his workstation.
Accomplice Teh Dave finally manages to get the circuits to line up the way he wants them, and looks about for some metal to encase the thing with.
calliaphone sniffs happily, and smiles across at Dave. then she stretches, sets down her tools, and heads out for some fresh air and a nap.
Accomplice Teh Dave carefully builds the casing to the circuitry, leaving a spot for a dial and another spot for a switch
Accomplice Teh Dave works quietly for a few hours, then slips out, sliding the casing into a sleeve as he does, grin plastered on his face
Some time later . . .
calliaphone is back, with manilla card and gaffer tape and a craft knife from somewhere. more measuring commences. followed by deep thought, and finally . . . some cutting.
calliaphone cuts and folds the card, first. shaping it to reconstruct the damaged section of the bellows. when the piece are ready, she sets them aside. gonna need leather to finish it.
calliaphone tidies up the scraps of card scattered about the benchtops, and makes a space for some woodworking next. she fits the pencil-marked block into a vice, and studies it. Offcuts fall around Callia's bare feet as she cuts the woodblock to size. She doesn't seem to notice, being utterly transfixed by the task in hand. Or possibly just by the power-tool.
calliaphone finishes the cutting at last, and steps back, powering the saw down. She snifs, taking in the aroma of freshly-cut timber, and surveying her handiwork. Not bad, for an amateur.
calliaphone locates a sander from a box of stuff, and gets stuck in, rounding the corners and finishing the edges, and disappearing in a cloud of fine wood-dust.
calliaphone looks around as the dust-cloud settles. she has turned an interesting shade of dusty-brown all over. glancing back at her work. . .
calliaphone blinks. in her memory, it is quite clear that she used a circular saw for the cutting. she recalls quite clearly finding it, powering it up, grinning manically, etc etc. and yet. . .
calliaphone notes that there is no evidence now, of her having done such a thing. how strange. she muses on this for a while, and eventually. . .
calliaphone concludes that one of G's gremlins must've nipped in while she was sanding, and borrowed the saw for some project of their own. accidentally taking a bunch of text with them.
calliaphone smiles and shrugs. share and share alike. the main thing is, she's got a reedblock now. all that remains is to fit the reeds, and install it in the accordion.
calliaphone hops out of a window, for a quiet smoke and a bit of fresh air. she'll be back later, to continue the work.
calliaphone clambers back in through the window, a little less dusty and more chocolatey than before. sitting down at a clean workbench, she gets a pair of shears, and starts cutting metal sheets into reeds.
calliaphone cuts, and rubs down edges with a file, and blows away fine metallic dust, and cuts some more. At intervals, she checks on Cordy, then returns to her work.
calliaphone keeps working until she's cut out all the reeds she needs - two strips for each, one of steel, one of aluminium. And then she sits back, rubbing dust out of her eyes, and blinking hard.
calliaphone lines the reeds up against the block, marking their positions in pencil, and drilling little holes into the metal. And finally, she stops.
calliaphone has done all she can do, with the materials currently to hand. What she needs now is to get hold of some decent quality leather.
calliaphone makes some “notes” on Cordy's chart, then heads out, leaving a trail of wood-and-metal dust in her wake.
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