Then we check our website. Small problem: we have orders for ninety-eight California Missions! Sean says we should just raise the price, but that doesn’t seem right to me. And Catalina agrees. “We told kids fifty dollars a mission,” she says. “We have to keep our word.”
“But we don’t have enough supply to meet the demand,” Jaesang protests.
Then Sean says the four words that hijack the rest of our weekend.
“We can make more.”
Which is crazy because then we’ll be doing a ton of homework to stop homework. Wait, is that an oxymoron? Or a paradox? Honestly I can’t tell.
Mr. Kalman fires up his 1977 Buick station wagon. Eight cylinders, whitewall tires, and a hideaway seat in the way, way back. “A hundred eighty thousand miles on her and she still purrs,” he announces as we pick up speed. You can tell he loves this car.
We’re loving it too. Catalina and Alistair are in the way, way back, Sadie and Sean in the middle, and Jaesang and me in the front with Mr. Kalman.
But Jaesang is having a hard time getting the music to play.
“What is this?” he says, holding a small plastic rectangle with two tiny wheels in it and a thin black tape stretched across the front.
“Tea for the Tillerman,” Mr. Kalman says. “One of Cat Stevens’s best albums.”
Jaesang flips it around and holds it up to the window for light.
“Where’s the ‘on’ switch?”
Mr. Kalman smiles. “It doesn’t have one. It’s a cassette. You slide it into the car stereo and press ‘play.’”
We all watch, fascinated, as Jaesang slides the thing called a cassette into a narrow slot in the Buick’s dashboard. He recognizes the arrow on one button and presses it, and we hear this long hissing sound through all six of the Buick’s speakers.
Then the hissing stops and a guitar starts, a D-major chord, and after that a man’s voice breaks in. He sings a song about all the progress humans have made in technology and space travel and skyscrapers, but that also asks, “Where do the children play?” And the more I listen to the words, the more I think we’ve found our anthem. An anthem for saveourchildhood.org.
Soon we’re all singing along. Even Mr. Kalman is singing!
On the way home from Home Depot, with the Buick packed to the max with building supplies and kids, he’s still singing.
And back at the house, with Cat Stevens on the stereo now and a fresh batch of Mr. Kalman’s tuna salad (“The chopped celery is a great touch,” Alistair tells him), we turn Mr. Kalman’s dining room into a California Missions factory.
It’s an assembly line, with Sean cutting foam core, me breaking balsa wood, and Jaesang painting. Alistair’s on the glue gun.
The only missing person is Sadie, who has a mock trial to prepare for.
Catalina calls out orders from our website. “We need three San Juan Capistranos. Five Santa Ineses. Three San Luis Reys.”
The funny thing is, nobody’s complaining. Maybe because there’s a point to what we’re doing. Most of the homework we get is just endless math exercises or stupid questions about boring chapters in a textbook. But our work today means something. It feels like we’re building more than just models.
Meanwhile, Jaesang and Mr. Kalman are discussing the Lakers.
“You a fan?” Mr. Kalman asks.
“I’ve loved them since I could lift a basketball, Mr. Kalman,” Jaesang says. “I even stuck with them when they won seventeen and lost sixty-five.”
“That’s pretty loyal. You collect any cards?”
“I got a few. You?”
“Got a few. Someday we’ll have to do a trade.”
Jaesang twirls his pad thai noodles, strategizing. “Got any from the seventies?”
“I’d have to look.”
Jaesang nods. His long-term goal might be to own the Lakers, but short-term it’s to own a set of trading cards from their heyday.
“I’m searching for the 1971–72 starting lineup. Especially the Wilt Chamberlain.”
“That’s a rare card.”
“I know. They won the finals that year.”
The following weekend, we switch to science projects. Catalina has a friend who goes to King Middle School. She remembers her saying that King’s science fair is going on right now.
I happen to really like science fairs. In theory, you walk around a classroom or a gym, and you learn so much from these projects that were made by kids for kids. But that’s not how it really happens. What really happens is the due date shows up like a shark’s fin, and as it gets closer and closer, kids get anxiety attacks. Then their parents or tutors or older siblings rush out to Staples for tri-fold boards, glue sticks, and Sharpies, and then they race home to do most of the work. I don’t get why we can’t just work on them in school. Instead of taking notes on a chapter, or worse, copying from the board, let us actually do the research and the science project in school.
On the Monday afternoon after King’s science fair, we hang around outside their campus.
Sure enough, at three thirty I see a mobile of the planets floating through the main gate. It’s made of painted Styrofoam attached to a curved rod. More projects drift out after it. Big display boards with titles like “How Do Ants Communicate?” “Is Nuclear Power Safe?” “Do Video Games Make You Smarter?”
Catalina and I stand on one corner, Sadie and Sean on another. We offer twenty bucks a project.
Mr. Kalman’s Buick fills up fast.
We go online to private schools’ websites, click on their calendars, and see when their science fairs are. There’s one at Creston Hall in less than a month.
Tuesday morning we target their drop-off line, asking if anyone wants to buy a science fair project. “Only fifty bucks.”
We sell out after fifty cars. One mom slips me a hundred-dollar bill and says, “Keep the change. We are so over these projects.”
Back at Command Central, Catalina adds up our
