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 Bs and Cs, and then organize them according to name—Santa Barbaras over here, San Joses there, San Rafaels on the couch. By Saturday night we’ve got thirty-two missions ready to sell.
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 take. We all stare at the computer screen like it’s a treasure we dug up in our own backyard.
Our grand total: $6,550.00!
My friend Alistair plus Mr. Kalman’s tuna salad equals genius!
“Maybe homework’s not so bad,” Sean says. “We could get rich off this business.”
“What about all the poor kids who can’t pay?” I say.
“There are enough rich kids who can.”
“But that wouldn’t be fair,” Jaesang points out. “All kids get homework.”
“Most can’t afford tutors, though,” Sadie says.
“Or our educational products,” Alistair adds.
“And if both parents are working,” Catalina says, “there’s no one around to help.”
Mr. Kalman, who’s been sitting in his chair—sleeping or thinking, I’m not quite sure—suddenly opens his eyes.
“That’s it!” he says. “That’s an argument we can win. Homework violates the Equal Protection Clause. Kids, I think we have a case.”
I’m not sure what the Equal Protection Clause is, but when Mr. Kalman leaps out of his chair, I slide onto his piano bench and start playing jazz.
The piano’s out of tune, but my Sound Forest is full of dancing birds.
