Grace Hopper said that. She was born more than a hundred years ago, in 1906. Back then the world was way too prejudiced to allow women to be computer programmers, and computers hadn’t been invented yet anyway, but in spite of all that Grace Hopper became a computer programmer and wrote the world’s first software compiler. By the time she died, at the age of eighty-five, she was a rear admiral in the navy.

They named an aircraft carrier after her. Grace Hopper was something of a role model for Kate.

Two hours later all five of them—Kate, Tom, Mom, Dad, and Uncle Herbert—were in the backyard, staring at the steam engine. It stood on a length of track on the thin burnt-yellow grass with the tender behind it. Together the two cars took up most of the yard.

Even Kate’s mom and dad had to admit they were pretty impressive.

“We could charge people money to sit in it,” Tom said.

“No way,” Kate said. “I don’t want weird strangers sitting in my private train with their weird butts.”

“Don’t say butts,” said her father.

“Cigarette butts,” Kate said. “Ifs, ands, or buts.”

“Just don’t.”

“How old is it?” Tom asked.

“Don’t know,” Uncle Herbert said.

“How fast does it go?”

“Don’t know.”

“Could the strongest man in the world lift it?”

“Don’t—wait, no, I know the strongest man in the world, and he definitely couldn’t lift it. Want to get in?”

They sure did. It was a bit of a scramble—the train was, as previously mentioned, really big, and definitely not built for kids—but Kate and Tom were expert scramblers, and there were a couple of iron steps welded to the side of it, and a bar to grab on to.

What happened next was actually a tiny bit disappointing, if Kate was being completely honest. Being inside the cab of a steam engine isn’t like being in the driver’s seat of a car, or a truck, or an airplane. For starters there’s no windshield, because the giant barrel of the boiler is in the way, so you can’t see what’s in front of you. There are two little portholes on either side, but they’re not much help. It’s more like a little room—the engine room of a ship maybe, but a really old ship without any computers or radar or anything.

Brass and steel tubes ran everywhere like overgrown vines, sprouting valve handles and buttons and cranks and glassed-in dials and more tubes. None of them had labels. The cab smelled like old oil, like at a car mechanic’s. It was definitely real, but it was also completely incomprehensible.

There were two fold-down seats. Kate and Tom folded them down and sat.