Footsteps started through the house, but they didn’t belong to her mother—too heavy, too measured. It sounded kind of like a robot. Made sense, since she called him the Tin Man. The little girl didn’t know if he was missing his heart, too, like the real Tin Man from the story, but her mother called him heartless once, so she thought it might be possible. She wondered if he rusted in the rain, since it was storming. Maybe that’ll keep him from finding me.
