Winry's parents had just left for Ishval the first time someone came to Pinako concerned about the girl's interests. That first time, it was Winry's teacher, Ellen Kitchener.
"Mrs. Rockbell," she said, with the air of someone trying to phrase things delicately, "I'm just concerned about your granddaughter's well-being."
"How's that?" Pinako asked, dragging on her pipe.
"Well," Ellen said, "I just don't think it's healthy for Winry to be so obsessed with biology and mathematics. She's so young still! I'm also worried that it's not good for her to only socialize with those poor Elric boys. She should have more girlfriends."
"She's just interested in the family business," Pinako pointed out, forcing herself to keep a smile on her face. Her hand itched for a wrench.
"Still, it might be best if we encouraged her to broaden her interests," the teacher said.
Then she said the one thing that guaranteed that Pinako would refuse to listen to her any longer. She leaned in, lowering her voice. "I mean, it would be one thing if she were a boy, but-"
Pinako relaxed. "You're an idiot," she said, smiling. "And I won't have you teaching my granddaughter any longer."
Ellen Kitchener spluttered, confused. "What?" she said.
"Get out of my house," Pinako said, standing up. She tapped her pipe over the ash tray, and looked hard at the other woman. "Before I throw you out on your pink, round ass."
The speed with which the teacher ran from the house was truly pleasurable to behold, and Pinako didn't mind beholding it in the least. Winry didn't go back to school until the next year, when a new teacher came from Central to take over the school. Pinako spent that time teaching her about metal and nerves. Winry thrived, and Pinako was damned if she'd let the school board tell her what was best for her granddaughter.
Winry was about seven years old when Pinako realized that idiot teachers weren't Winry's only problem. Pinako'd gone to town to do the shopping that day, and she'd figured she'd stop by the school on her way back and keep her granddaughter company on the walk home.
She wasn't worried when she didn't find Winry in the schoolyard; she'd probably left for home already, and Pinako would just catch up to her. She wasn't worried when she saw a group of girls gathered around a tree, just across the river. She only started to worry when she realized that Winry wasn't in that group, but was up in the tree and crying.
"What's the matter, Winry?" one of the girls said, nastily. "What're you doing up there?"
Winry sniffed, her face blotchy and red. "Leave me alone!" she cried.
Pinako paused. None of the girls had noticed her presence yet. She scowled. She wanted to run in and save her granddaughter, but she suspected that she'd be doing Winry no favors if she didn't figure out what was going on before she intervened.
"Whatcha reading, Winry?" the same girl said, her voice heavy with menace.
"She's so weird," another one of the girls put in.
Winry's face grew dark. "Leave me alone!" she repeated.
"Why can't you just be normal, Winry?" a girl asked. "What's wrong with you?"
"I said," Winry shouted, standing up on the branch, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" Her arm flashed out. One of the girls fell over, screaming and clutching her head.
Pinako fought down a grin. She stepped forward. "Hello, girls," she said, mildly. "Oh, Winry," she said, as if she'd just noticed her granddaughter. "I was out doing the shopping. Would you like to walk home with me?"
Winry looked down at her, blinking away her tears. "Yes, Granny," she said, sniffling.
"Come on then," Pinako told her, impatiently. She looked down at the injured girl, and took note of the big green horse chestnut on the ground next to her. "You should be careful about playing around the chestnut trees in this season," she advised the girl. "The nuts are falling now; you could get hurt." The girl glared at her. Pinako smiled, and took Winry's hand as she climbed down from the tree.
"Why are they so mean to me?" Winry asked her later, as they walked up the long road to the house.
Pinako considered. "Because you frighten them," she told her granddaughter, honestly.
Winry looked confused. "Why would they be frightened of me?" she asked, looking up at Pinako.
Pinako smiled. "Aside from your throwing arm? By the way, Winry, don't let me catch you doing that again. They may be mean to you, but that's no excuse for you to start attacking your classmates."
"I'm sorry, Granny," and she had the grace to look ashamed as she stared at her shoes.
Pinako sighed. "They don't know what to do with you," she said. "Do you know the bins we have, where we keep all our parts?"
Winry nodded. "We have different ones for all the different sizes and kinds," she said. Correctly sorting all the nuts and screws and wires was her main job in the workshop.
"Exactly," Pinako said. "Well, it's like those girls have bins in their heads, and they put people in them. But they don't have a bin for someone like you, so it makes them angry."
Winry thought about that. "What should I do, Granny?" she said, her voice full of concern.
"Ignore 'em!" Pinako said, fiercely. "Why would you want to be stuck in a bin? That would be boring!"
"Okay," Winry said, uncertainly.
"Now," Pinako said, opening the door to their house. "Put your things down, and then run over and tell Ed and Al when dinner will be."
"Yes, Granny," Winry said, and ran upstairs. Pinako sighed. Idiot children, she thought. Some things never change.
Winry was just twelve when she pierced her ears. She did it just after Ed left for his exam, and between one thing and another, it took Pinako a little while to notice. When she did, she had scolded her granddaughter. "Idiot girl," she snapped at her. "If you wanted your ears pierced, you should have told me, and I would have done it." She handed Winry some ointment, and told her she'd better take care of her ears, "and if they rot off, it's your own fault!"
Winry, bright pink with embarrassment, had taken the ointment and run off. Pinako sniffed. She knew the girl would do what she needed to. She was a reliable child. Pinako got up and set about tidying the kitchen- again- trying not to think about Ed in the middle of the viper's nest that was Central.
"Granny sounded mad." Pinako heard Alphonse's hollow voice drift in from the front porch. Pinako stopped her work, listening.
"Yeah," Winry said, and sighed. Pinako could hear her kicking her booted feet against the stoop.
"Why did you do it?" Alphonse asked.
"I don't know," Winry said. They were quiet for a long moment. "Do you remember the soldier who came to talk to Ed?" she asked. "Not the colonel, the woman soldier. Riza Hawkeye."
"I guess," Alphonse said. "She stayed outside the room most of the time that Brother was talking to Colonel Mustang."
"Yeah," Winry said, pausing again. "She had earrings," she said, as if in explanation. "I thought they looked... pretty." She kicked against the stoop. "She was brave, and strong, and pretty. I bet no one ever told her she should start acting more like a girl."
They were quiet again for a little while. "I think your earrings look pretty, too," Alphonse said.
Pinako smiled, and went back to working on the kitchen.
Winry was fourteen when Pinako knew for certain that she'd be fine. They were in town picking up packages when they ran into some of Winry's classmates. They started talking about whatever it was that fourteen-year-old girls cared about, and Pinako wandered off for a little while.
It wasn't until one of the girls said, "Winry, what's wrong with you?" that Pinako's attention- filled with the memory of a crying girl hit with an unhulled horse chestnut- snapped back to Winry and the other girls.
"What," Winry said, "just because I don't care whether anyone asks me to the stupid dance?"
"Yeah," the girl said. "And the dance isn't stupid. Honestly, Winry- I don't understand you. You don't pay attention to your clothes, you don't wear makeup. No boy is ever going to notice you!"
Winry grinned, her teeth sharp, and her blue eyes full of fire. "Who cares whether some idiot boy notices me? I'm not some useless doll. I'm an automail mechanic!"
The other girls backed down in the face of her fury. "Winry," Pinako called. "Come help me with these packages! Don't forget, we've got Mr. Marsden's leg this afternoon."
Winry detached herself from the other girls and came over to Pinako, her head held high.
"Granny," she said, as they walked home together, "Do you think I might be good enough to go to Rush Valley someday?"
Pinako laughed. "You're my granddaughter, aren't you?" she said. "You're good enough to go to Rush Valley now, if you want!"
Winry looked thoughtful. "Maybe soon," she said, and smiled.
A/N: One of the reasons that I love FMA is the numerous awesome, strong female characters who are never reduced to the level of eye candy. While the world of FMA seems somewhat more gender-equal than ours (women are allowed in combat, for example, even if there don't seem to be all that many of them in the military), it still seems to hold to some of the same gender roles. I know from experience that it's hard to grow up as a girl interested in not-girly things, and I was thinking about whether Winry might have run into those attitudes too.