Grandpa's shed smelled of solder and dust, and Noor loved it. On its shelves sat radios of every age: bakelite boxes, silver dials, a headset from a warship. Most still worked, because Grandpa could not leave a broken thing alone.

One rainy Saturday, Noor was scanning frequencies on the oldest set when a rhythm surfaced through the static , three short pips, three long, three short.

"Grandpa!" she called. "It's a pattern!"

He listened, and his eyebrows climbed. "That's SOS. But nobody sends SOS on this band anymore." They traced the signal all afternoon, triangulating with a map and two aerials, until the dot on the map landed on the marina. Grandpa phoned the coastguard, feeling slightly foolish.

He needn't have. A sailor's radio had jammed in test mode while he was away buying paint, and the coastguard had been fielding confused reports all day , but only Noor and Grandpa had thought to locate the source. "Sharp ears, young lady," the officer said over the phone. Noor beamed. The shed's radios suddenly seemed less like antiques, and more like a superpower.