“We can still make this work,” Eli said. “Somehow.”
Eight entries before Oma’s. Nine before mine. There wouldn’t be time to do one, then the other.
“I could, uh, create a distraction!” Eli said. “Like, maybe a musical number?”
I’d spent so long getting ready for this day, picturing it in my mind. My computer was waiting for me, right across the gym. All I had to do was turn it on and tell everyone how I built it. For just a minute, I let myself imagine once more how it would be, me explaining how I built my computer, and my parents, Eli, Mr. Z., Harry, Grace, Rose, Mei, and Ms. Stevermer, all nodding along, appreciating what I had done.
But all those people know it’s important to help someone out when they need it. Every one of them had helped me out, one time or another.
I imagined myself looking up over all those people’s smiles and seeing Oma disappear, without saying goodbye.
I wanted to show everyone I was a maker. But those people already knew that, really. Now I needed to be someone who helps people out too.
I turned my back on the computer that I built, and I told Oma, “Okay. Let’s get ready for the judges.”
“Ready!” she said, clutching her pencil. She watched the pickling judges coming slowly down the line.
“Wait, what? Are you sure, HD?” Eli asked. “You don’t have to do this. I could help her for you, instead.”
“Thanks,” I told him. “But she’s my oma, and I want to be here, in case it’s time to say goodbye. Just—would you keep an eye out for my parents and Mr. Z., and let them know what’s going on?”
“Sure thing.” Eli hesitated. “I’m really sorry, HD.”
I shrugged. It was okay, kind of. But I didn’t feel like talking about it anymore. Not when I could see my mom walking up to my computer, looking around for me.
Eli headed across the gym, and I glanced at Oma. She was staring over at my computer.
Slowly she set her pencil down on the entry table. “HD, you do not have to help me,” she said, her voice quiet. “You belong there, with the project you worked so hard on, and with your family, and your friends.”
“It’s okay, Oma,” I said. I wiped my hands on my jeans, and watched the judges come closer. “You’ve waited a long time for this, and you’re my family too. I don’t want you to be by yourself when it’s time for you to move on. I guess I can wait another year.”
“Thank you,” she said, and her voice was very small, even for a ghost.
And then the judges with the canning-jar buttons were there. “Mrs. Schenk?” one asked, looking around.
I straightened my shoulders. “I’m doing the oral presentation for Mrs. Schenk,” I told them. “As an accommodation. We have a note, from Ms. Stevermer.” I handed over the note, and they crowded around to read it.
“This is highly irregular,” one of the judges hissed.
Another nodded thoughtfully. “It’s never happened before, but everything seems to be in order. On what grounds would you disqualify the entry?”
“On the grounds that it’s obviously a ridiculous hoax!” the first judge answered.
Oma didn’t like that. Hans Dieter is my accommodation, and I am not a hoax, she wrote on a spare card. She held it up before I could stop her.
That was it for the first judge; she took three steps back, then walk-ran out of the gym, muttering.
The second judge snorted. “Would anyone else like to disqualify themselves from their duties as judge?” She raised her pencil up above her clipboard, like it was a race, or a dare.
The other two judges stopped staring, and shook their heads. One kept glancing around, though, like he was trying to figure out if he was on camera, or how the special effects worked.
Then Oma started talking, so I told them what she said while she held up her cards.
“Sauerkraut is made from cabbages,” I told them. “It’s a traditional German food that means ‘sour cabbage,’ and that is exactly what it is. Sauerkraut gets its sour flavor when it’s fermented, not from vinegar, so it takes time to make. Mrs. Schenk made this sauerkraut from her special recipe, using her pickling crock.”
But I sliced the cabbage in the food processor, not with the kraut cutter, the ghost wrote in big letters. That is a very good invention.
Across the gym, I caught a glimpse of the other judges asking questions about the crystal radio two entries before my computer. But I didn’t stop talking.
“In this country, as in Germany, sauerkraut helped people survive over the winter, and not get sick from not having any vegetables. Like scurvy. You could get scurvy even if you weren’t a pirate, if you didn’t have any vegetables.”
“Young man—er, Mrs. Schenk’s representative—please provide more details about her recipe,” one of the judges said.
The STEM judges moved on to the Lego robot right before my computer. I saw my dad run in, stop, look around, and say something to my mom.
I took a deep breath, and I focused on what I was doing.
“For this sauerkraut, we used five heads of cabbage, sprinkled with salt,” Oma told the judges, so I told them too.
“How much salt?” asked the judge taking notes.
“Enough,” Oma said.
“Come on, Oma, you remember—we weighed it and wrote it down!” I whispered.
The ghost sighed. “Very well, but the weight is not as important as whether there is enough brine after you pound the cabbage. We used five and one quarter ounces of salt, young lady. And for my special ingredient, three tablespoons of juniper berries.”
I told the judge what Oma said.
She nodded, and the rest of the judges examined the jar and made notes.
“Is there anything else we should know about your recipe, to conclude your presentation?” a different judge asked.
I looked up to see if Oma wanted to add anything else.
She wasn’t there.
For a minute, I just stared at the space where she’d been. Had she leveled up before I even finished the presentation? She wouldn’t disappear without saying goodbye when I was right there helping her out, would she?
Then I realized the pickling crock lid was missing.
And then I heard Eli’s voice over the crowd. “You have to push the monitor button too, Mrs. S.”
I looked up, and caught a glimpse of the ghost floating over my keyboard in front of a group of judges. She handed the pickling crock lid to Eli, and pushed the monitor button.
“Mrs. Schenk?” the judge asked again.
I pulled myself together. “Uh, no, that’s all she wants to say about her sauerkraut, thanks,” I told the judge.
“Then you are free to go enjoy the fair, young man,” the judge said, and went back to examining Oma’s sauerkraut and making notes with the others.
So I tore across the gym to my computer. A document was open on my screen, and Oma was typing.
YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE: I AM PROVIDING AN ACCOMMODATION FOR HANS DIETER SCHENK, WHO WILL BE HERE AS SOON AS HE FINISHES HELPING HIS GRANDMOTHER. THIS IS THE COMPUTER HE BUILT. HE IS A FINE YOUNG MAN, AND SHOULD NOT BE PENALIZED FOR HELPING PEOPLE.
“I’m here now,” I told the judges, breathing hard. “Thanks, Oma.” I took the lid from Eli. Maybe everyone would just decide they hadn’t seen the keyboard moving all by itself.
“Did you program that script too?” one of the judges asked, staring at the screen.
“Uh…I had some help,” I told her, and she made a note.
The other judges seemed to relax after that. I guess they were more comfortable with technology than they were with ghosts.
“Was the CPU preinstalled on the motherboard when you bought it?” another judge asked.
“Nah, I bought them separately and installed it myself,” I told the judge. “I installed the CPU fan too, and the memory, and everything. And the case, the motherboard, the monitor, the keyboard, and the mouse were all used, so this demonstrates how you shouldn’t just throw useful stuff away.”
Rose and Mei and Grace were nodding.
“Is there anything else we should know about your computer?” one of the judges asked.
“As a former engineer, I consulted on this project, and I feel you should know that this young man earned the money himself and did the entire build on his own,” Mr. Z. told the judges.
“And as a former information technology specialist for the US Army, I’d like to say he researched his options carefully, modified his plan as necessary, and did an outstanding job of it,” Grace added.
I felt the smile on my face grow bigger and bigger.
“This is a far more complex project than any we teach in the library’s makerspace,” Harry added. “I hope you’re taking that into consideration.”
“Yes, we will keep all of that in mind as we make our decision,” one of the judges said.
Mrs. Alvarez gave him a look. “As the winner of fourteen blue ribbons for baking, I do not want to hear about anyone losing any points because he was helping his grandmother. Is this fair about the community, or not?”
HEAR, HEAR, Oma typed.
The judge who’d asked me about programming gave the screen a hard look, and made a note. Then they all moved on to the next entry.
My mom gave me a big hug. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered.
Dad was grinning. “Seems like you’ve impressed a lot of people, whether you win or not, buddy.”
When Mom let me go, I had to look at my shoes for a minute. Not from being sad, though. From being happy, and proud, and feeling kind of like I might cry from all those feelings wanting to get out any way they could. Which was not what I wanted to do while everybody was looking at me. “Thanks,” I said.
“One of the judges said they should disqualify you for not being present, but I told them all about how it was a reasonable accommodation,” Eli told me. “And then I kept arguing until you got here. I bet Mom will give me a Top Family Negotiator bonus when she hears about it!”
“Thanks, Eli,” I said. It kind of felt like all the butterflies in my stomach were exploding at once. Or maybe that’s what it feels like when caterpillars come out of cocoons. I looked up at my great-great-grandma, who was just floating there, letting me have my moment without saying a word. “Thanks, Oma.”
Before we moved on, I asked the kid with the Lego robot to take a picture for us. She had to back way up across the room so she could fit us all in: Mom and Dad, Mr. Z. and Mrs. Alvarez and Ms. Stevermer, Grace and Harry, Rose and Mei, and at the middle of it all, me and Eli, and my computer.
If you look carefully, you can see a badge on a shoelace floating above my dad’s shoulder, and above my head too.
Yeah, I know exactly what my first photo on the wall is going to be. Just as soon as I draw the rest of Oma in.
I don’t really remember the rest of the fair. I know we watched the goat obstacle course competition and made some notes for what to build next, and went on the Tilt-A-Whirl (except not Oma, who didn’t like whirling), and the Ferris wheel (except not Mr. Z., who knows too much about possible points of failure to get on one of those things), and Eli won a cake in the cakewalk, and we all ate it with some forks Mrs. Alvarez had in her purse, along with Harry’s extra coconut shortbread. We had our picture taken with Mom’s giant kohlrabi, and in Dad’s Impala, and in the back of Frank’s daughter’s cool old Dodge truck.
Eli’s mom got back from her trip in time for his recital, and it went great. He got to do both his solos twice, because one of the other skyscrapers ran into the dancer next to her, who fell over and hit the one next to her, and they all went down like dominos. Eli was the only one still standing, because he was paying attention to his surroundings for once and got out of the way in time. So Ms. Izdebski shouted, “Take it away, Eli!” and went to help everyone else get up, and he did. He said all that practice avoiding sneak attacks from Rodgers and Hammerstein and Asad really helped. And Asad got to yell “GO, ELI! YOU’RE KILLING IT, MAN!” as loud as he possibly could and no one told him to be quiet for once.
Eli loved the squirting flower I made him. Now Asad wants one too.
Oma volunteered me to bring her crock over to Ms. Stevermer’s house sometime so she could take a look at another crock Ms. Stevermer had, and try to help her figure out if anybody was home. Harry offered to teach me how to make his coconut shortbread, and Oma asked if I’d teach her, then, too. And when Grace asked me what I was thinking about for my entry next year, I told her my plan—after I swore her to secrecy.
She thought it was a great idea. She even asked if she could be my project consultant.
I can’t wait to get started.
And then it was time for the awards ceremony.