BREAD PROJECT: DAY 1

ELIOT

I slouched into my seat, smack in the front-center of the auditorium. In the middle of all the kindergartners and first graders. Toby and the rest of the sixth grade sat on the back row, but I had to run the computer for Marj’s presentation on the screen up front.

A kid poked my back. I jerked around, hitting my elbow on the wooden armrest. I gasped and shifted in the hard seat to glare at the kids behind me. “What?”

“Why are we here?” asked a girl with a high-pitch voice.

“It’s an assembly.”

Her eyes were wide. “What’s that?”

Kindergartners. I shook my head. They didn’t know anything about anything yet. “Just watch,” I said.

The house lights darkened. Bright stage lights washed out the red velvet curtains. Swish, the curtains opened.

“Oh! Look!” The little kids squealed and jabbed fingers, pointing.

For a change, they were right; it was a wonder. I sat forward. All along the edge of the stage, almost on top of blue or red floor lights, marched quart jars. They didn’t gleam or twinkle. Instead, they glowed. ‘Course it was a glow borrowed from the lights, but still a sight to see.

Then I saw a splash of white hit one of the jars. A spitball.

No! They couldn’t do that to the bread jars. I half rose–then stopped.

Careful, I told myself. Don’t get involved in the Bread Project, I reminded myself. Even this computer thing, it was just to help Marj, not the Project.

I dropped back into my seat. And it squeaked.

And I remembered what Griff always said: when you’re about to do something crazy, try to distract yourself. Maybe I could distract the others and still stay out of it.

With both hands, I grabbed my seat’s edge and rocked. There. Now that was a satisfying, annoying creaky rhythm. “Hey, kids. Listen.”

“Huh?’

“Listen,” I whispered loudly. Creak-a-creak-creak.

“Like this?” It was the girl with the high voice. Her seat squeaked better than mine. I smiled at her, then grinned, as the creak spread in arcs through the kids seated behind her.

It worked. More and more seats took up the joy of creaking until I was sure no one was interested in throwing spitballs at the bread jars. And such a great sound.

Mr. Benton strode across the stage and behind him was Marj. Into the microphone, Mr. Benton said, “Welcome to the first assembly of the year.”

I didn’t listen to his introduction. I just stared at the 512 quart jars which I had just saved from a spit ball war. They were the beginning of the Bread Project.

 

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“Good morning,” Marj said into the microphone. “This assembly is the kick-off for the First Annual Bread Project, a community project that was planned by my late husband, Griff Winston.”

The projector’s fan blew warm air at me, and I shifted in my seat to avoid it. The first time Griff brought Marj to meet me, on that hopeful day last year, her voice had been warm. Like milk chocolate was melting in her mouth. Today, talking about the Bread Project, it had changed. It was deeper, fuller, like she had been eating dark chocolate. Last night, she had been scared to meet people, yet here she was talking to the auditorium full of kids. It had been a huge, slow effort last night to put together this presentation; she had stayed up until 1 or 2 a.m. But the presentation would keep her on track, make sure she didn’t get too emotional.

Mr. Benton walked off the side of the stage, leaving Marj alone.

I held the remote control tightly, making sure I was ready.

“Today,” Marj said, “one person will take home one of these quart jars with sourdough starter.” She didn’t use her hands to explain things like Griff had always done; instead, she raised an eyebrow, or frowned, or smiled. Now, she smiled, as if to say, “I know this Bread Project sounds strange, but give me a minute and I’ll explain.”

I started the first slide showing an empty quart jar, a quart jar with sourdough starter, and a loaf of bread.

Marj continued: “Sourdough starter is just wild yeast. Yeast is the stuff that helps make bread rise and be light and fluffy. Without it, bread would be as hard as a rock.”

Next slide: flat bread and bread that had risen.

“This particular sourdough starter has been in the Winston family for over a hundred and fifty years.” The next slide showed an old black and white picture of Griff’s family, including his aunt wearing an apron and holding out a loaf of bread.

I knew most kids wouldn’t understand the importance of that. Yeast– if they ever thought about it at all–was just stuff that came out of a package. But a yeast culture could live for years and years. Griff had been proud of the 150-year-old starter. “One of the oldest cultures in the United States,” he said.

Marj continued, explaining that each jar with its starter would come with instructions (click to next slide) and recipes (click to next slide). The starter had to be fed with flour and water each week (click to next slide), which would let the yeast grow.

So far, I thought Marj was doing great. The Kindergartners were quiet and the only sound was a few chairs creaking. But Marj better hurry, ‘cause the kids would get restless fast. For the next set of slides, I anticipated when she would get there and clicked early. It worked, speeding her up.

“Next week, the first person will pass one cup of starter on to the next person. Then two people will have the sourdough starter. They will feed it and let it grow a week and then, the next week, those two will give to two more, so there will be four jars of starter. Double that the next week for eight jars of starter.”

My slides flickered–quickly–on the cracked screen behind Marj. Quickly. Explaining how each week the number of jars of sourdough starter would double. By Thanksgiving, ten weeks from now–1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512–there would be 512 jars. Enough for each student to take home a jar of starter.

The kindergarten kid on my left side was kicking his legs, and the girl on my right had pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged. She studied a scab on her knee, and then leaned close and whispered, “What’s a Ress-uh-Pee?”

I rolled my eyes and hoped the older kids understood better. For these little kids, Mrs. Lopez and the PTA had better send letters to the parents.

“On Sunday of Thanksgiving week,” Marj said, “you’ll start your bread. You can make anything you want with the sourdough, any recipe you want. Sometime on Monday night, you’ll bake that bread. On Tuesday, the last day of school before Thanksgiving break, you’ll bring your loaf of bread to school for the PTA Thanksgiving Dinner. We’ll eat a turkey dinner (click: slide of a party, with a big turkey on a platter) and then auction (click: slide of an auctioneer banging down a gavel. Sold!) the bread as a fundraiser. The PTA will use the money to buy playground equipment.”

Marj’s eyes widened and she smiled, obviously expecting the audience to do something. Clap or cheer, maybe?

Creak-a-creak creak. The little kids were at it again. Annoying, but better than spitballs on the glass jars.

Marj frowned. She spoke louder, like louder would make it easier to understand. “We’ll sell the bread. With that money, we’ll buy monkey bars. Swings. Slides and tunnels. Would you like a new playground?”

Silence.

“Hurrah!” I called weakly.

Marj waved her hands overhead: “A new playground! Hurrah!”

Behind me, another kid yelled, “Hurrah!”

“Let’s all cheer for a new playground. Ready?” Marj raised her arm, and then dropped it. “Hurrah!”

A weak cheer dribbled from the crowd.

“One more time!”

“Hurrah!” Louder, this time. The kids sensed a reason to pay attention again: a chance to make noise.

“Hurrah!” Marj called.

“Hurrah!” Finally, the sound was louder. Still not enthusiastic. Still not real cheering. But noise, anyway.

While they yelled and called, I thought about the Project. Griff had worried about it, because this was a Pyramid Scheme.

The Internet explained a Pyramid Scheme just like Marj had described. One person passes on something to a second. Those two pass on to two more, which makes four; those four pass on to four more, which makes eight; and so on, until you get the 512 people participating. Mostly, the Pyramid Scheme was used by shady salesmen. When it worked, it could make lots of money. But it almost always failed. ‘Cause somewhere, someone would fail to pass it on, or fail to sell it to the next person.

Say, for example, that on the fourth week, half the eight kids didn’t bring the sourdough starter to pass on. Then, instead of having 512 loaves at ten weeks, there would only be 256. On any given week, if even one kid forgot to bring the sourdough starter, it would mess up the final count.

And then there’s the question of who would buy the bread at an auction. Griff said, “It’s like an old-fashioned pie supper. Wives will ask their husbands to buy their bread. Friends will buy friend’s bread. It’s a community thing.”

Yes, the Bread Project was a failure just waiting to happen.

Well, at least Marj had made it through the assembly without any major problems. Just a few more minutes and we’d be done.

Mr. Benton was back on stage now, trying to quiet the kids. “Time to listen.” After several tries, the noise went back to a slight creak-a-creak.

He held out a paper bag, “This bag has the names of all the sixth graders, and we’ll start there. The lower grades will get their sourdough starter just a few weeks before Thanksgiving.”

Marj reached in and pulled out a folded yellow slip of paper. She shook it open. She smoothed it out on the podium. She looked at the paper, looked up at the students, looked down, then up again. “Okay. The first person to receive the sourdough starter is an important person.”

I held my breath. I had tried to get Marj to pick Toby first. Mrs. Zane would make sure the project got off to a good start. But Marj had insisted on the luck of the draw.

Marj cleared her throat. “I need this student to come up to the stage. Alli Flynn.”

Oh, no. Porter’s foster kid. Could it get any worse?