The past two summers, I challenged some of my students to help me with some columns over the break. They gave me the first and last lines of a potential fictional short story. My task was to take those lines and write the middle. It was a lot of fun, so I’ve asked my students to help me again. This week’s inspiration was provided by my own son, Anton Domeier.
I love being in kindergarten. In fact, I love it so much that I tried it twice. There are times I wish I could go back to those fun times when life seemed very simple. We talked about letters and numbers and read fun books and had recess twice a day and even took naps. Ah, naps.
Now that I’m in fifth grade, life is much more difficult. We only get one recess a day without any naps. Okay, so maybe I squeeze in some time to study the inside of my eyelids each afternoon, but that’s only when my teacher, Mrs. Bobble, is sitting at her desk while we work on our math. Nothing knocks me out like math!
I don’t mind reading so much, as long as it’s something I really enjoy. I like working on things in the garage with my dad, so anything about science or mechanical items is right up my alley. Dragons and magic and aliens and outer space? Not so much.
I helped Dad build a go-cart, and every other kid in our neighborhood is pretty jealous. But I give everyone a chance to ride it. They get to do that only after they’ve gone through the safety course I designed, based on what my dad taught me. They need to know about wearing a helmet, putting on a seat belt, and how to use the accelerator and the brake. My teaching takes about five minutes, but that’s important because my dad always says that safety is important.
And it is, but sometimes I get dinged up anyway. I took the corner a little too fast one time and tipped all the way over. But that’s why I wear a helmet; I would have been in a lot of trouble if I had banged my head on the street without the helmet on. As it was, I had a headache for a day and then was back at it.
So Mrs. Bobble announced last week that we’d have a science fair coming up. We had to take something from the small amount of science we learn and come up with a project to present in the cafegymatorium.
Mom and Dad said it would be okay if I brought my go-cart in for the science fair. I would take apart a section of the engine and show how it worked. We didn’t really talk about mechanical things, but after all the other kids told Mrs. Bobble what they were doing, she must have had enough of the solar systems and volcanoes and said my idea would be a nice change of pace.
The day of the science fair I got to drive my go-cart to school! I only live about six blocks away, so my parents said that would be okay. The custodian helped me tip it up to get it through the doors and then into the cafegymatorium. I had packed my poster board on the back, so now I took that off and set it up on a table nearby.
I went to work taking apart my engine. All around me, other kids were setting up their projects. I didn’t pay much attention to them, but I knew a lot of eyes traveled to my go-cart; it was bigger than most everything in there, after all.
When everyone was set up, different people from the community came in to ask us questions and judge the projects. I spent the morning talking to people about engines and showing how they work. It was like a dream! No reading or math! Hooray!
After lunch, we were able to walk around and look at other people’s projects. We were told not to touch anything though. I didn’t really like being too far away from my go-cart, but I was intrigued by Betsy’s solar system. She had set up something that was close to scale. In other words, she had this giant ball that was as big as us that was supposed to be the sun. She had painted it with paint that glowed in the dark, so she was back in a corner where it shone a little. The planets were much smaller; you could barely see some of them except they were on little boxes.
Suddenly, I heard a roar. I whirled around – oh no! That idiot, Michael, had started up my go-cart! He didn’t ever get to ride in it because he didn’t want to go through my safety course. I had put my engine back together after lunch because I didn’t want pieces sitting around when I wasn’t there.
The teachers were all in a corner and slow to react. I rushed over as he started moving down the aisle. I could immediately see he didn’t have much control. While a Dunkirk was occurring all around me, I jumped toward the moving go-cart. Michael had a look of fear on his face since he didn’t know what to do, but his foot remained on the accelerator.
I was hanging on the side and needed to steer the go-cart out of the way. I cranked the wheel to the left so it would head toward the corner. Unfortunately, that was where Betsy’s project was, but there was no way to avoid disaster at this point. I needed something soft to crash into. Michael finally let off the accelerator, but not before hitting Betsy’s sun.
The impact, along with the heat from the go-cart, caused the yellow sun to pop. Everyone was safe, but that’s how I accidentally blew up the sun.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is Dunkirk, which means a desperate evacuation or retreat, as in, “The Dunkirk at the fair when all the pigs got out of the show ring was a sight to see.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!