Read Source A, an original account.

On Saturday morning, I pushed my bicycle into the community repair workshop with its chain hanging beside the back wheel like a strand of cooked spaghetti. I had been cycling to the park when the pedals had suddenly stopped cooperating. The bicycle and I had reached what I described to the volunteer at the desk as “artistic differences”.

“So you know what the problem is?” she asked.

“Completely,” I said. “The problem is that it’s broken.”

The volunteer introduced herself as Mira and handed me a pair of gloves. I had expected her to take the bicycle away and return it ten minutes later, cured. Instead, she pointed towards a work stand.

“You’re going to fix it,” she said.

I laughed. Mira did not. This was worrying.

Until then, my repair experience had been limited to replacing batteries and hitting the television remote against my palm. I was also the youngest person in the workshop and the only girl. Around me, people were examining cables and wheels with calm, serious expressions. I examined the gloves.

An older customer looked over from the next stand. “Did your dad send you to collect a spanner?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. “He sent me to collect a working bicycle. Mine.”

Mira hid a smile and showed me how to place the bicycle on the stand. She explained each stage, but she made me turn the tools. At first, every movement felt wrong. The spanner slipped. A metal washer rolled under a cupboard. When I bent down to find it, I knocked my head on the workbench.

You may imagine that this was the lowest point. It was not.

After twenty minutes, the chain was back in place. I turned the pedals proudly. The wheel moved. The chain moved. For three magnificent seconds, I believed I possessed a natural gift for engineering.

It fell off again.

Mira asked me to look closely rather than starting again immediately. One section of the chain was not sitting properly on the smallest wheel. This time, I noticed what I had missed. I adjusted it, tested the pedals and watched the chain travel smoothly.

“That’s it,” Mira said.

The older customer had stopped working. His own chain was twisted between two metal parts. “Could you have a look at this?” he asked me.

I nearly checked behind me to see whether a qualified adult had arrived. Then I went over. I could not solve the whole problem, but I spotted that his wheel was not straight. Mira helped us finish the repair.

By lunchtime, my hands were streaked with black grease. At the start of the morning, I had tried not to touch anything. Now the marks felt like evidence. I resisted wiping them on my jeans, because confidence has limits and those jeans were new.

I rode home without the chain making a sound. Dad was waiting by the gate.

“Did they fix it?” he asked.

“We did,” I said.