Prologue -- Meet the Tinkers

The bright blue sky over Bluewater Village had given way to a canopy of stars overhead. Stephen Tinker wiped sweat off his brow after he'd spent hours at his bench, working on fire trucks for his backyard toy shop. He was the more process-oriented of the toymaker couple, enjoying the whittling away of the wood and the actual birth of a new toy. He and his partner, playmate, and soul mate, Wanda, shared a dream to spread their love of toys and fun and good cheer to all the children of Sim City and its surrounding area. They seemed to be in a perpetual state of arrested development. There was nothing they enjoyed more than making toys -- except, maybe, playing with each other. Their other dream was to have a house full of little playmates to share their joie de vivre with. But for a couple who loved children and who seemingly never grew up themselves, they only had one child -- a girl who seemed to be grown up the moment she was born. They could not have imagined their offspring being this way.
The first clue the Tinkers got that their darling little girl was a different kettle of fish happened when she was a toddler. Crawling around her parents' workshop, she took a jack-in-the-box from off one of the shelves. After winding it up, the jack popped up, scaring her out of her wits. She'd avoided toys ever since that fateful day. No matter what the Tinkers tried, they could not convince their daughter to play with toys, even the ones they made themselves especially for her. She ran away from them in fright, and they couldn't figure out why. This caused them a great deal of pain, for they took pride in their ability to make kids all over Sim City smile with their creations. Their own daughter, however, was the toughest nut to crack.
"What's wrong with her?" Wanda wondered one day over dinner. "I walked into her room today and found the dollhouse I bought for her in tatters. That beautiful hand-crafted dollhouse! I used to love dollhouses when I was her age --"
"Wanda, calm down," Stephen pleaded. "Maybe she doesn't want a dollhouse. Have you tried asking her what she wants?"
"Stephen, she doesn't talk to anybody, and she doesn't play with toys. She just sits in her room. The only times she comes out of her room are to use the bathroom and to get something to eat." "I realize she's -- a bit -- different, than what we're used to, but please, give her time." Stephen sighed, wanting nothing more than to make his daughter happy.
Just then, little Melody, a slight girl with brown braids neatly tied back, descended the staircase. "Hey, sweetheart," Stephen smiled, "we were just about to call you to get your supper."
"Daddy," she announced rather confidently, "I want an easel and a set of paints."
A deafening silence fell over the Tinker dining room. Neither Stephen nor Wanda could believe what they'd just heard. Their eight-year-old daughter, notorious for being afraid of toys to the point of not playing with any, had just asked for -- an artist's easel. "What's an easel?" Stephen asked his wife.
Melody responded, matter-of-factly, "It's a wooden thing that people place papers on to paint stuff."Wanda was especially perplexed by this request, which, at least to her, sounded more like a demand than a plea. "Dear, an easel?" she asked in disbelief. "Are you sure that's what you want?"
All Melody did was shake her head yes.
"If it's an easel you want," Stephen said, "it's an easel you shall get."
The Tinkers had no choice but to comply with their daughter's unusual wish, and her stunned parents could only watch in amazement as not only didn't she destroy the easel like she'd done to just about everything else they'd made and bought for her save the bookcase in her bedroom, but she took to it like a fish to water. Painting became her favorite thing to do after school. In fact, Melody painted to the exclusion of almost everything (and everyone) else. As the years passed, she became proficient enough to paint simple portraits and still life images. Her parents were mystified, for neither of them painted or even had the desire to paint anything but color on fire trucks and eyes on toy bricks.
Meanwhile, throughout this time the Tinkers tried desperately to have another child, but had no success. They secretly hoped a second child in the house would not only help Melody get out of her self-imposed shell, but also be a potential heir to the family business. They even got to the point where considered adoption. "No, no, absolutely no," Stephen protested when Wanda approached the subject. "I can't see myself adopting a child."
Then, just before Melody became a teenager, she shocked her parents again. This time, she wanted a telescope. Not just any telescope, but a top-of-the-line, FarStar e3 super telescope. And more than once, she expressed the desire to get abducted.
"Impossible!" Wanda complained, shaking her head in astonishment. "She needs to get her head out of the clouds and face reality!"
"She will, in time," Stephen, ever the voice of reason, reassured his wife. And, of course, Stephen purchased the telescope.