Grandma's birthday was tomorrow, and Grandma had been stuck in her chair all week with a poorly ankle. Mia sat at the kitchen table with the whole tin of coloured paper tipped out, thinking hard.
"A pinwheel," Mia said at last. "One that really spins. She can watch it from her chair."
Dad looked up from the sock he was darning. "Good plan," she heard him say, in the quiet way Dad says things when he is doing something clever. "Which colour?"
Mia held up the blue, then the green, then a square of orange the exact colour of Grandma's kitchen curtains. "This one."
The first try flopped. Mia folded corner to corner, snipped the cuts too long, and when the four points came in to the middle they slumped over like wet leaves. Mia went very quiet and pressed both palms flat on the table.
"Hmm," said Dad. "Shorter snips, maybe."
"Maybe." Mia took a fresh square. Fold. Unfold. Four small cuts, stopping well before the middle. Then one corner in, hold it. The next corner in, hold it. The paper wanted to spring back, so Mia pinched harder and breathed out slowly through her nose, and the four points stayed put, all crowded together in the centre like a little orange flower.
The pin was the tricky part. It was sharp, and it had to go through five layers of paper and into a wooden stick, and Mia's hands felt small for that job.
"Dad? Could you hold the stick still?"
"I can do that," said Dad. He held it steady with both thumbs. Mia pushed. The pin went through with a tiny crunch, right into the wood.
Out in the garden the wind was busy, shoving the washing line about. Mia held the pinwheel up high.
Nothing. The blades trembled and stopped.
"Too tight," said Dad, from the doorstep.
"Too tight," agreed Mia, and eased the pin back the smallest whisker, hardly anything at all.
This time the wind caught it. The orange blades went round and round and round, whirring softly, blurring at the edges the way bicycle spokes do.
"There it is," said Dad.
Mia came back inside with pink cheeks and picked up the first floppy attempt from the table. "You can have this one. It's a rubbish pinwheel, but it's quite a good flower."
Dad put it on the shelf above the kettle, where he could see it. "Best thing on that shelf," he said.
At dusk they walked round to Grandma's, and Mia carried the pinwheel with two hands so the wind wouldn't get it before she did.
"I made you this," Mia said. "It took two goes."
Grandma turned it slowly in her fingers. "Two goes," she said. "Then it's a proper one."
They stood it in a jam jar on the windowsill and opened the window a crack. The last of the evening breeze came in and the blades turned, slow and soft, round and round, while Grandma watched from her chair and Mia leaned sleepily against the arm of it, counting the turns until the counting went fuzzy and stopped.