“Kids can pay their parents back with lunch money,” Jaesang says. “Who wouldn’t eat one less bag of chips to stop homework?”
“Kettle chips or ordinary Lay’s?”
We look at Alistair like, Really? He shrugs.
“We’ll need a catchy name,” Sean says, and we toss around ideas.
“Stop homework dot com?”
“Homework sucks dot com?”
But it’s Catalina who comes up with the perfect name. She swings her braid around and grabs it with her left hand. It’s her microphone now as she says, “Save our childhood dot com. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
“Dot org,” Sean says. “It’ll be better for the movement.”
We break into teams of two and brainstorm more ways to raise money. I end up with Alistair, who has a hard time focusing.
“Can we sit in the kitchen?” he says. “It’ll be quieter there.”
Everything about Mr. Kalman’s house—including the owner—is original from the 1930s.
His oven clock has hands. The kitchen floors are vinyl and curl up at the corners as if they’re trying to get the old man’s attention. The wallpaper’s curling too—faded yellow sunflowers with tiny pieces of Scotch tape keeping them down.
At the table, I flip the page on my legal pad. The oilcloth is sticky with jam.
“So,” I say, “any ideas on how we can raise money?”
Alistair is standing in front of the open fridge. He peels back the plastic wrap on a bowl. “Tuna salad.” He leans in for a sniff. “With relish and a hard-boiled egg. Think I can taste some?”
“I think we should be getting to work, Alistair.”
“I won’t be able to concentrate now that I’ve sniffed the tuna. Sorry, Sam, but once it’s in my nose, it’s on my mind. And once on my mind . . .”
He finds a loaf of bread, makes himself a sandwich, and takes a bite.
“Oh, man! When it comes to tuna, the old guy kills it.”
This is the problem with partner work. One person wants to work. The other’s busy eating a sandwich. And what’s he going to want after he’s done eating?
I look up, and sure enough, he’s got his nose in the milk carton to see if it’s fresh.
Gulp, gulp, gulp. Burp. “Ahhhhhhhhh.”
Alistair sets down the empty glass. Then he looks at me and says, “Reduce, reuse, recycle.”
Reduce, reuse, recycle was our elementary school’s Earth Day slogan. Last year everyone had to make conservation posters with those words blazed across the front. The idea was to make the whole community more aware of all the paper and plastic and metal that winds up in the landfill, and all the electricity and food that goes to waste.
On the day after Earth Day, the Dumpster was overflowing with posters.
“What does reduce, reuse, recycle have to do with homework?”
“You’ll see. Just stick with me, Sam. And keep me well-fed.”
8
We Raise a Small Fortune
The following week, we get started on Alistair’s tuna salad inspiration. When he said “Reduce, reuse, recycle,” he meant we’d be reducing the piles of old school projects in people’s closets, reusing them for a higher purpose, and recycling them into cash.
We start with every California third-grader’s worst nightmare. Outside the gate of Oakdale Elementary, a private school we can walk to, we ask the key question: “Have you done your California Missions Project yet?”
“I wish,” one girl says. “That thing’s about to ruin my weekend.”
The California Missions Project has been known to cause anxiety attacks, hot glue gun injuries, irritable bowel syndrome, and insomnia—and that’s just what it does to parents. Kids have suffered from anxiety attacks, hot glue gun injuries, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, and chronic lower back pain from lugging those things to school.
Here’s the rubric that Mrs. Klatchett gave us back in third grade:
You like how size matters more than creativity?
Jaesang got a ninety-eight on his mission. Mrs. Klatchett took off two points because, while he was walking through the classroom door, he tripped and smashed one corner of his model into the wall. It left a quarter-inch dent in the base. “Out of compliance,” Mrs. Klatchett said, “with the sixteen-by-sixteen rule.”
Still, it’s a really nice model of the Santa Barbara Mission. It’s even got aqueducts and miniature Chumash Indians. Jaesang had help from his mom. She’s a set designer for the movies.
We show his model to the third-grader outside Oakdale.
“How much you want for it?” she asks.
“Fifty bucks,” Catalina says. The girl hesitates. She glances around, sees that no teacher is watching, then opens her pink duct tape wallet.
A crowd gathers. I tell them we’ve got more like it for sale on saveourchildhood.org.
“No credit card required. Cash on delivery.”
On Saturday we pound on doors. We ask our neighbors if there are any California Missions Projects lying around, and if so could we collect them for the Museum of Childhood that will be opening next summer in Exposition Park.
Dear Parents:
The California Missions Project is underway! What better way to learn about how the Spanish Missionaries transformed the state than to build a model of one of their 21 missions? Due to limited space in the classroom, models must be TO SCALE on a base foam board of 16" x 16". NO EXCEPTIONS. Any model more than 16 inches square will lose 20 points. Students will need your help to plan the projects and obtain materials, but they do not need your help in constructing the models. Models should be their original work. ABSOLUTELY NO KITS ALLOWED!!!!!
NOTE: ALL WORK ON THIS PROJECT MUST BE DONE AT HOME. DO NOT SEND YOUR STUDENT WITH MATERIALS TO CLASS.
RUBRIC
CHURCH
/20 POINTS
COURTYARD/other buildings
/15 POINTS
SIZE REQUIREMENT
/20 POINTS
MATERIALS
/10 POINTS
ACCURACY
/10 POINTS
LABEL
/10 POINTS
CREATIVITY
/15 POINTS
There’s no such thing, of course, but nobody asks. They’re thrilled to be emptying out garages, closets, and in some cases, the trunks of cars.
My old Radio Flyer fills up fast. Back at Mr. Kalman’s, we sort through all the missions, do a few upgrades on the ones that got
