Fix-it Volunteers Junior
FIX-IT VOLUNTEERS JUNIOR – May 3, 2025 – Dyersburg, Tennessee, USA
The refrigerator was broken at the Morrell house. It was broken so badly the milk inside turned sour, the ice cream melted, and the vegetables wilted. Someone had to be called to fix it.
Early in the morning a repairman arrived. He wore a blue shirt with his name, Jasper, printed above one of the pockets. He had tools hanging from the belt around his waist and he carried even more tools in two boxes in his hands. Jasper opened up the refrigerator for a complete inspection. Seven-year-old Jackson and his little sister, Jessica, joined in. They explained to Jasper how all the different trays and shelves in the refrigerator worked.
Jasper pulled a screwdriver from his tool belt and unfastened one of the plastic panels at the back of the refrigerator. Jackson and Jessica dug into Jasper’s toolboxes to find more screwdrivers and wrenches just in case.
“We’ll hand you whatever you need,” Jackson said helpfully. “Just tell us and we’ll find it.”
Jasper looked his volunteer helpers over skeptically, “Thanks, but don’t you two have something more fun to do than watching me? It might be faster if I do this on my own.”
“We like helping you and taking things apart. We know all about screwdrivers and stuff,” Jackson answered while shining a flashlight into Jasper’s eyes.
Jasper muttered to himself and went back to inspecting the refrigerator with Jackson and Jessica peeking over his shoulders.
“Looks like a problem with the fan,” Jasper concluded. “I’m going out to my truck to get a new one. Don’t touch anything while I’m gone.”
When Jasper disappeared, Jackson and Jessica tried to resist loosening the screws on another panel in the refrigerator. But whatever was on the other side of the panel seemed to call to them. They had all but two screws removed when Jasper returned.
“Hey, I told you not to touch anything!” Jasper cried. “Now get out of there and let me finish this up.”
Jackson and Jessica backed out of the refrigerator and returned to their spots behind Jasper as he replaced the fan. Jasper put all the panels back in place, turned on the refrigerator, and listened with a satisfied smile.
“Good as new.”
“Wow!” cried Jackson and Jessica together. They looked at Jasper in awe as he packed up his tools and said goodbye.
“I want to fix things like Jasper,” Jackson said after watching Jasper leave the house.
“Me too,” said Jessica, who liked to imitate her big brother.
“We should start our own repair business.”
“Okay.”
“Fixing things is easy,” Jackson concluded. “You just have to unscrew a bunch of stuff and then put it back together. The most important thing is wearing uniforms and tools.”
Jackson and Jessica went to their rooms and looked through all of their shirts. They picked out ones that most resembled the shirt Jasper wore. Then using a magic marker, they wrote their names on their shirt in the same spot where Jasper’s name had been printed.
“Now we need tool belts,” Jackson said.
He and Jessica went to their garage in hopes of finding belts already equipped with the tools they might need. They looked on shelves and in boxes but found no belts. But they did find some rope.
“We’ll make our own belts using the rope,” Jackson said excitedly. He strung a piece of the rope through his belt loops and then tied it off in a granny knot. Then he stuffed screwdrivers and wrenches in the space between the rope and his pants.
“You do the same thing,” Jackson said to his sister. “But try to pick different wrenches than the ones I’ve got.”
Jessica made her own rope belt and Jackson helped tie it in place. She stuffed tools between the rope and her pants. “It’s hard to walk with screwdrivers poking into my legs.”
“I know, but we need the belts so people will trust us. Time to find a customer.”
“Where do we find customers?”
“We’ll knock on people’s doors. We’re sure to find something that’s broken.”
The kids knew who lived in all the houses on their quiet street. They walked gingerly to a nearby house with yellow shutters where Lula Holliday lived. When they knocked on the door, Lula answered.
“Do you have anything that needs repaired?” Jackson asked.
“Our dishwasher’s broken,” Lula replied. “My mom called someone to fix it.”
“Here we are,” Jackson said, pointing to the tools around his waist.
“My mom called you?”
“We’ve got lots of experience.”
Lula shrugged her shoulders. “If you really know how to fix it, it’s in the kitchen.”
Jackson and Jessica eagerly followed Lula to the kitchen.
“What’s the problem with it?” Jackson asked as he pulled open the dishwasher.
“It makes a loud noise when it’s running,” Lula replied. “Like GRRR, GRRR, GRRR.”
Jackson pressed the ON button and the dishwasher gurgled to life. After a few seconds the grinding noise started.
“That sounds bad,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, we need to get inside and take a look,” Jackson added. He pulled open the front of the dishwasher and whispered to Jessica, “Find where all the screws are.”
The young repair experts removed the racks used for stacking dishes and located all the visible screws. Then they removed them one at a time. Lula brought them a cup for collecting the screws and then she lost interest in what they were doing and said, “I’m going to our backyard to help my mom with her flowers.”
Jackson pulled off a panel on the bottom of the dishwasher revealing pipes, blades, and motors.
“What do those things do?” Jessica asked.
“Clean the dishes.”
“Can you see anything that’s broken?”
Jackson poked his screwdriver at some of the parts. “Nothing obvious.”
“So now what do we do?”
Jackson squinted into the dishwasher as he tried to decide. “I see more screws. Let’s take those out too.”
Brother and sister added screws to the collection cup. More and more parts came loose and were shoved to the back of the dishwasher.
“You see the problem yet?” Jessica asked.
“I’m not sure. Could be a lot of things. Lots of times all it takes is to blow on all the parts and then put the whole thing back together.”
Jackson and Jessica each took a turn blowing on each of the pieces removed from the dishwasher. Jessica blew so hard she almost turned blue and collapsed on the floor.
“That’s got to do it,” Jackson concluded. “Now we’ll just stick everything back where they came from. What should go in first?”
“Maybe that fan looking thing.”
“I was thinking this round piece of plastic that looks like a bottle cap.”
The repair partners tried to jam parts together but nothing seemed to fit the right way.
“Maybe some of these things weren’t supposed to be in here at all,” Jackson said. “Maybe that’s why it sounded broken.”
“Maybe we should have remembered better how they fit together when we were taking them out.”
“Let’s just put the panels back on. That should be easy and maybe Lula won’t notice those other parts are gone.”
“Until she tries to use the dishwasher.”
“We could ask her to pay us before she tries it.”
Jackson stared at the confusing parts scattered around the inside of the dishwasher and his confidence dropped. “Or maybe we should sneak away. If Lula gets mad, we can tell her that we were just going out to our truck for a part.”
Before they could shove everything into the dishwasher and find the door, they heard voices coming from the front of the house. The voices got louder and louder and all of a sudden Lula’s mom was standing in the kitchen. Right behind her was Jasper. Lula’s mom had met Jasper when he arrived in his truck because she had moved from the backyard to the front yard to work on flowers.
“What are you two doing here?” an open-mouthed Jasper asked after looking over the kids’ shirts and belts.
Jackson mumbled something about wanting to fix things.
Jasper pulled open the dishwasher. “Oh no! Don’t tell me you two have been messing around in there.”
Jackson looked innocently up at the ceiling but Jessica panicked. “We were trying to be like you,” she blurted out. “We made shirts and tool belts and everything.”
Jasper’s angry frown melted into a half-grin. “I’ve never had anyone want to imitate me before. Well, let’s take a look and see what you discovered.”
Jasper dug through the pile of parts one by one, muttering to himself, “Why in the world did you take this off?” He looked carefully at one of the removed parts and stuck a screwdriver into it. “Here’s the problem. This thing is full of junk. It’s clogging everything up.”
“Yeah, that’s what we thought too,” Jackson said.
Jasper blew out the clogged part and painfully put everything back into the dishwasher while Jackson and Jessica handed him tools. After Jasper sealed up the last panel and flipped the ON button, the dishwasher purred quietly.
“Just like new.”
Luna’s mom gave Jasper money for the repair and then Jackson and Jessica followed him outside to his truck.
“Do we get our half of the money now?” Jackson asked.
“Your half? For what?” Jasper asked with a laugh.
“We did half the work,” Jackson replied. “We took everything apart. You just had to put it back together.”
Jasper shook his head. “Maybe someday.” He reached into his truck and retrieved a broken ice maker from a refrigerator. He handed it to Jackson and said, “For now, go practice on this.”
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