A Different Approach (Duh)

They spent the rest of the evening working on the presentations for the morning meeting at school.

Colin redeemed himself by finding a “Smart Snacks Product Calculator,” which quickly told them if the snacks met the criteria or not, simply by entering the item, which saved a lot of time. He worked on his laptop on his bed, while Dewey and Seraphina worked at his desk.

“Throw in some whole-grain Sun Chips, and I think we’ve rebuilt the vending machine with what even our own Department of Agriculture would call—Dewey. No, wait. No, no, Dewey. I think we read this wrong,” Seraphina’s eyes darted across the screen.

“What do you mean?” Dewey felt his face get hot with panic again. He thought they had almost finished. They still needed to go home and organize their findings into a presentation. His whole body ached with exhaustion.

“The requirements say ‘also.’ See? ‘Foods must also meet several nutritional requirements.’”

“What else do they want?”

“Um, they want the first ingredient to be a fruit, vegetable, dairy, or protein.”

“Ugh, Pop-Tarts won’t work. But the potato chips still do! Right? Potatoes are a vegetable, right? Right? RIGHT?!”

“Yes, I think so,” Seraphina nodded and started to look it up.

“Here, let me sit down.”

“Wait. Let me just see first. Okay, yes. They are botanically considered vegetables.”

“Good! Okay, so move over,” he said sliding his bottom into her seat. “Let’s see. Put it in the calculator. It’s looking good. Sugar is less than 1%. Fat is low, I think? 10 grams which is just 16%. They have 10% potassium. That’s got to be a good thing.”

“Do they work?” she asked, holding her breath.

“Hang on . . . No! The calories from fat exceeds 35%! Oh, this is terrible.” Dewey slumped down in Colin’s desk chair.

“I don’t think apples and green bean casserole in the vending machines are going to be all that popular,” she rolled her eyes.

“I’m good with apples. I like the apples. Save the apples!”

“Dewey, you’re getting preposterous.”

“I’m getting overtired,” he moaned.

“Move.” With her bottom, Seraphina shoved Dewey out of the seat again so she could sit at the computer. She sat up tall. “Okay, so the snacks in the vending machine are clearly not going to cut the mustard,” she said.

“Ha! Mustard! Mustard is not a food group,” Dewey bounced back.

“Colin? How you doing?”

“I can’t believe it, but toilet paper waste is a HUGE problem. We use like fifty-seven sheets a day which they say adds up to about fifty pounds a year. I can see why they’re trying to get us to stop using so much.”

“So you want to give up the t-issue?” asked Dewey.

“No, I can’t do my business at school with one little sheet at a time. I just sit there forever pulling off sheets, anyway. I’m not saving paper, I’m wasting time.”

“We need to figure out how to get that message across,” said Dewey.

“Right,” Seraphina nodded. “I think that’s the right thinking.”

“Why does my business have to be everyone’s?” Colin objected.

“You don’t have to share the primary source details! We just have to get them to understand that their attempt to save paper probably isn’t working the way they planned.”

“What do you think the expression ‘doesn’t cut the mustard’ means?” asked Dewey.

“Huh?” asked Colin.

“I know it means that something isn’t good enough, but why do they say ‘cut the mustard’? How can you cut mustard?”

“Why are we talking about this?” inquired Colin.

“I better ask my mom if I can stay here and work more,” Seraphina suddenly remembered.

“Ugh. Me too,” Dewey checked the time on his phone.

They still had a lot of work to do. Seraphina’s mom agreed to pick her up at 8:30 and give Dewey a ride home. They grabbed slices of cold pizza and kept working.

🍕

Hours after Seraphina and Dewey had left, Colin texted them a link showing that he’d put mustard into the Smart Snacks Product Calculator. “Mustard doesn’t cut the mustard,” he joked.

No matter how they worked it, the bottom line seemed to be that the committee had it rigged to make their snacks all fail.

It was now well after ten, and they Facetimed from their respective bedrooms.

“I’m so tired,” groaned Seraphina. “This isn’t working. We need a different approach.”

“Maybe we should all just be working together again and doing it the same way.”

“Yeah,” chuckled Dewey. “Toilet paper in the vending machines and Pop-Tarts in the bathrooms.”

“No,” continued Colin, yawning as he spoke. “I mean they,” another yawn, “don’t know what they’re doing. They want to save paper for the right reasons, but they’re doing it all,” yawn “wrong.”

“And?” Seraphina asked.

“And they want us to eat healthy, but they’re doing that wrong too. ‘Smart Snacks,’ my asparagus!”

Dewey and Seraphina laughed, perking up a bit.

“They didn’t even talk to us, they just snip our toilet paper rolls and swipe our vending machines. We can still eat junk if we bring it from home, right?” said Dewey.

“It’s a crime to deny us our royal rolls and Tootsie Rolls! We’ll approach it like a crime scene!” laughed Colin. “Let’s use the WikiHow steps we used to find my retainer. Room by room, problem by problem. You know, in levels.”

Dewey and Seraphina laughed again. Colin had begun to rant.

“Well, I’m just saying.”

“Yes!” nodded Seraphina with enthusiasm. “We just need to approach it from the ground up.”

“Now, you’re doing something to help us!” ribbed Dewey. But it made sense, and he felt grateful for some solid thinking right about now.

“Alright, then. Step 1 again. We stay calm. Then we can do the levels and concentric circles. Breathe and cover each of our bases,” Seraphina instructed.

Seraphina started looking around more online and found proof that denying kids sweets actually causes them to pig out more.

“It’s true. Whenever Aiden comes over, he’s on the chips and cookies like a fly on garbage,” laughed Dewey. “I don’t think his parents ever let him have any.”

“Well, I’m finding good data we can use!” Seraphina had the keyboard in her lap, and her feet back up on the desk as she worked.

She also found a couple of articles that talked about how involving students in decision-making led to much better results.

“Oh! This is going to work!” she let out a big sigh and pulled the scrunchy out of her hair, letting her long brown hair tumble down.

Colin found what he needed to prove it was better to show kids how to use toilet paper properly and economically, rather than using that gizmo. They all jumped up and down. Colin’s dad came up to come up to see if they’d “let in a herd of elephants.”

Then they had their biggest breakthrough.

Dewey read on the toaster pastry site, wishfully thinking that the strawberry ones might have real strawberries as their first ingredient, when he discovered a golden nugget: “Your favorite low fat toaster pastries have just gotten even better—now they have half a serving of whole grain and a good source of fiber!”

“No way!” said Dewey. “That can’t be a coincidence. I think they’re making special ones that work for the Smart Snack Rules!”

“I’ll bet you’re right. What about the other snacks?”

It was true. All their favorite kind of snacks had versions with lower sodium, lower sugar, and lower calories from fat.

“Whoa! That’s amazing,” said Dewey.

“I’ll tell you what that is,” croaked Colin, his voice sleepy but his mind now wide awake. “That’s big business using us kids as pawns. They want to sell us their goods, so the government tries to stop them, and then they just, just, mutate it to meet the new standards.

“It’s an outrage. I, for one, am outraged!” He put up his pointer finger in outrage, but just a little tardily, as his sleepy arm didn’t quite keep pace with his passionate mouth.

Seraphina laughed. “Wow, ‘transmogrify!’ I don’t disagree. But it’s pretty hilarious to hear you getting yourself in a dither over Ding Dongs! You’re not exactly opposed to eating that kind of stuff.”

“I’m not. I just don’t like everyone telling us what to do. It’s what my dad always says—”

“You have to laugh at your own jokes because if you don’t no one else is going to?” laughed Dewey.

“That’s not how it goes. And no. ‘Everything in moderation.’”

“That’s true. I agree with that. Clara has baked probably like 4,000 cookies for us over the years. Colin’s only eaten half of them. They should give us some credit. Have some faith!”

“No wonder they got rid of the vending machines. Between these crazy standards and the fact that, even after you do follow them, you still end up with a bunch of junk, they can’t figure out how to regulate it,” Seraphina said pointing to the computer screen.

“Right,” said Dewey. “Obviously, we need to learn to control ourselves. There won’t always be little gizmos parceling out the toilet paper of life!”

“Oh, that’s beautiful, Dewey,” Colin nodded, sniffing and wiping a pretend tear.

Seraphina laughed.

“Okay,” said Dewey. “That’s our presentation! Healthy choices. Some grub food. Toilet paper that rolls. Teach us to make good decisions. Don’t roll too much. Don’t eat too much. Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal. Water your garden, and viva Las Vegas.”

They stayed up most of the night gathering their data and getting ready for the meeting.

At four in the morning, they finally went to sleep. With three hours bolstering their heavy eyelids, they headed off to school feeling ready for what was ahead.