Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment

by Sundee T. Frazier

  Oscar’s mom came in then, carrying Oscar’s baby brother, William. I don’t care what people say. Babies are not really that cute. The kid reminded me of a cooked raisin—plump and wrinkled at the same time. His black hair went in all directions, including a patch on top that stood straight up. I wasn’t sure yet what I thought about us getting a baby at our house. Sometime around my birthday, Mom and Dad had started discussing the idea of adopting one. I’d found out this past summer that Mom can’t have any more babies, and that she’d almost died having me.

  “Hello, boys,” Mrs. Hernandez said. “Oscar, no te olvides de nuestro acuerdo. ¿Tu cuarto?”

  “I know. I’ll clean it up as soon as my friends leave.” He looked at us. “My room.” I could never keep my room the way Oscar did—not in Detective Buckley’s house. Not that I wanted to, anyway. I liked being able to find things.

  William started to squirm in Mrs. Hernandez’s arms. The corners of his lips turned down and his face turned red. I braced myself for some loud crying, but the squishy, juicy sound that came out didn’t erupt from his mouth.

  “Ewww!” Khal and I said at once.

  “You stinker!” Oscar’s mom said.

  Stinker was right. I could smell the results of William’s efforts from where I sat at the table.

  “Acabo de cambiar tu pañal.”

  “She just changed his diaper,” Oscar whispered.

  Mrs. Hernandez shook her head. “If only your poops were made of gold!”

  “My brother is like a poop machine,” Oscar said when his mom had left the kitchen. “I don’t know how a little baby can make so much of the stuff.”

  That was when it hit me. An idea for the science competition! A big idea! Possibly even a national science competition award–winning idea!

  I had read about how scientists are looking into more and more efficient ways to use cow manure as fuel. It’s a completely renewable resource, and burning the methane it produces puts a whole lot less junk into the atmosphere than coal.

  But what about human waste? Wasn’t that a renewable resource, as well? And as William could demonstrate, a superabundant one at that!

  I turned to Oscar. “Can I get on the Internet?”

  “Sure.” We went back to his room. Oscar pushed the pile of magic-trick paraphernalia from his chair and plucked off the dirty underwear hanging over the back. “Here you go.”

  I removed the soccer shirt covering the computer screen, opened his web browser, and typed in “poop and energy.”

  “Poop and energy?” Khal said. I didn’t have to turn around to know he was making a disgusted face.

  One million two hundred thirty thousand results came back. I was definitely on to something.

  “I think I’ve got an idea for the science contest,” I said.

  Khal crossed his arms. “You think I’m going to be your partner if you’re messing around with poop? Forget that!”

  “What kind of an experiment would you do on poop?” Oscar asked.

  “More importantly, why would you do an experiment on poop?” Khal asked.

  I scanned the list for science fair ideas, ignoring Khal. “I don’t know exactly, but I know burning cow dung creates energy. What about other forms of waste? What about human waste? There’s got to be some kind of experiment in that.”

  “Uh-uh,” Khal said. “No one’s going to catch me making energy logs out of doo-doo.”

  I read some of the article titles out loud. “Listen to this: ‘Poop Power: Sewage Turned into Electricity.’ … ‘Pet Poop: The Energy of Tomorrow?’ ” I pointed to the screen. “Look, this one’s on a website called Poop Report.com!”

  We all laughed at that. Even Khal.

  There was one article called “The Biogas Machine: Turning Poop (Yes, Poop) into Energy.” I clicked on it.

  I read about a “biodigester”—a way to trap methane from manure and use it as fuel. There was even a YouTube video showing a guy cooking hash browns over a flame created with the methane from his digester. “Check that out!” I said. “Come on, Khal. We could make one of those digester things. It’d be so cool.”

  “It’d be so nasty, is what it’d be. My stepmom made me empty Dori’s diaper pail once. I thought I was going to puke! My nostrils were traumatized, man.”

  “How old is Dori now? Four?” I said. “Get over it already!”

  “Baby poop is pretty gross,” Oscar said.

  “I thought we agreed,” I said. “Partners, no matter what.”

  “I didn’t know you were going to be grilling food over poop.”

  “You don’t grill it over the poop. The poop just provides the gas to make the flame over which you could grill food if you wanted to.”

  “Whatever. Maybe if I was playing a joke on my sister, but not for homework. No way. Do you realize the kinds of names we’d get called?” Khal picked up Oscar’s football and spun it in the air. “Now I know where they get the mad in mad scientist.”

  I could tell the conversation was closed as far as Khal was concerned, but I was no less determined to pursue my idea.

  “How about you, Oscar?” I looked at my other friend.

  “You want to join me in some serious scientific research that could help save the planet?”

  “Uh …” Oscar glanced at Khal. “I was kind of thinking about doing something with Pop Rocks.”

  “Your choice. But this is going to be good. I can feel it.” I stuffed my wet clothes into my backpack. “I’ll see you guys later. I’ve got a proposal to write.”

  Log Entry—Thursday, September 13

  Went to my first official rock club meeting as a member tonight. Morgan showed off her amethyst-tinged crystal cluster. She asked what I’m proposing for the science competition. No way was I going to share that top-secret information! Told her I wasn’t sure, even though I knew I wasn’t practicing complete yom chi, integrity. But she shouldn’t be so nosy.

  As far as sixth grade goes, so far, so good. Science, of course, is my favorite class. The other day, we popped balloons with just magnifying glasses and the sun’s rays! I know Mr. H is really going to like my proposal, since it deals with a totally underused energy source: biomass. In class, we’ve been talking about energy from heat, light, and motion.

  Speaking of motion, that kid Dwight David never stops moving. He’s like a toy with no Off switch. He’s really distracting. He dropped a rubber band onto Morgan’s desk in World Civilizations and yelled, “Dead worm!” Morgan giggled and handed it back to him. Mrs. Simmons didn’t think it was so funny. Neither did I.

  A week and a half after I got my idea at Oscar’s house, we sat in science class waiting to hear who our partners would be for the competition. Khal had proposed something related to projectiles, so it was unlikely we’d get put together, even though I’d dropped lots of hints to Mr. Hammond that Khal and I would make a super team. I was 99.9 percent sure I’d get paired with Aadesh. Clearly, Mr. H wanted to win the money. He knew Aadesh was a brain. Together, we’d be unstoppable!

  “Khalfani Jones and Dwight David Del Santos,” Mr. Hammond announced.

  “Dang,” Khal said under his breath. “That kid’s a complete knucklehead.”

  “Too bad,” I whispered, “but you had your chance to work with a serious scientist.”

  Khal crossed his arms and sank lower in his chair.

  “Brendan Buckley …”

  My ears perked up.

  “And Morgan Belcher.”

  Khal sputtered like a waterlogged engine.

  Morgan scowled in our direction.

  I shook my head quickly and hitched my thumb toward Khal to let her know it wasn’t me who’d made the sound.

  Mr. Hammond continued. “You both had great ideas for alternative energy projects and I know together you’ll come up with something stellar.”

  Morgan grinned at Mr. H.

  I slumped back in my seat. How could my favorite teacher do this to me?

  After class, Morgan accosted Khal
and me like a cop going after a couple of criminals. Was I still a criminal in Morgan’s eyes? After the first day of school, she hadn’t seemed to want to talk to me as much, just hi and bye if we ran into each other at our lockers. I’d avoided her at the rock club meeting by sitting between Grandpa Ed and one of his buddies.

  My conscience poked me every once in a while, trying to get me to do something about it, but really, what was there to do? Anyway, I’d seen her talking to some girls here and there—Shyla-Ann Thompson and Lauren Dweck, among others.

  “Hey, Liver,” Khal said.

  Morgan’s nose wrinkled and her eyebrows scrunched together.

  “As in organ?” Khal said. “Get it? Morgan. Organ.” Khal laughed. I rolled my eyes.

  “Oh.” Morgan let out a little laugh.

  “Have fun playing with your cow doo-doo,” he said.

  Morgan’s nose wrinkled again.

  “You coming?” Khal asked, starting toward the cafeteria.

  I glanced back and forth between him and Morgan, who hadn’t moved and seemed intent on talking to me. “Uh … I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Dwight David zoomed by and held up his hand to slap Khal a high five. Khal didn’t leave him hanging, but I could tell he wasn’t exactly fired up.

  “Okay, so you acted like a protozoa toward me on the first day of school,” Morgan said.

  I stood there feeling dumb. I could try to apologize, but I’d probably just make things worse. Let her believe what she wanted. I knew I wasn’t as awful as she seemed to think I was. I cleared my throat.

  “And you haven’t treated me much better since then, not even at the club meeting, even though you said you wanted to be my friend when we were on the dig.”

  My ears got warm. I looked at my shoelaces. Morgan seemed like an okay girl. But that was the problem. She was a girl. None of my buddies hung out with girls. And her mouth just never stopped moving! Yes, Morgan and I had some common interests. But did that mean I had to like her?

  No. But you said you would be her friend.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  Morgan shrugged. “It’s all right.”

  I stood there silently, but my brain was screaming Run! and my muscles twitched like they might actually do it.

  “We could have a do-over,” Morgan suggested. “That’s what we call it in my family. You know, a fresh start. Whatever you did to mess up, it can’t be held against you.” She held out her hand. “So, what do you say? Do-over?”

  I wanted to say I hadn’t messed up. Didn’t she know it wasn’t cool for a guy to hang around with a smart, nerdy girl? I glanced around. Only a few other kids were in the hall, and they weren’t paying attention to us. I shook her hand quickly and let go.

  Morgan grabbed the crook of my arm. “Isn’t it fantastic that we get to be partners for this incredible competition?”

  I pulled away and started toward my locker. She caught up with me.

  “We’re going to win, Brendan! We’ll be the Dynamic Duo!”

  I wasn’t so sure. Maybe I could still go to Mr. Hammond and ask him to switch me and Lauren Dweck, Aadesh’s partner. Aadesh had proposed a cool-sounding project on artificial intelligence. And Morgan and Lauren seemed to like each other all right. Mr. H could just say he’d rethought the assignments.

  “Do you want to come to my house after school to talk about our experiment? What’s your interest in alternative fuels? And what was Khalfani talking about back there, anyway? Cow doo-doo? Oh! I know. You want to do something with biomass.” Morgan “Mile a Minute” Belcher opened her locker.

  I flubbed the combination and had to try again. I couldn’t focus with Miss Energy Ball asking so many questions. How would I ever be able to complete the detailed measurements and observations required for my experiment with her talking in my ear?

  I dropped my books into my locker and grabbed my red gym bag. As soon as I shut the door, she grabbed my arm again and started walking. “We have so much to discuss. This is going to be great. Great!”

  She didn’t even know what my idea was. “What about what you proposed?” I stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall.

  Her hand—thankfully no longer on my arm—waved away my question. “Watching algae grow? Bo-ring! It was my mom’s idea, anyway.”

  I’d come across several articles on algae farmers and harvesters while doing my research on alternative fuels. “Algae has a lot of potential as a future energy source.”

  “Believe me, I know. My mom’s a marine biologist, remember?”

  I started walking. Of course I remembered. How could I forget that both of her parents were scientists?

  Morgan caught up with me again. She was as sticky as a housefly. “Personally, I think cow poop sounds like much more fun.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement.

  I stopped. Apparently, she was like a fly in more ways than one. “You do?”

  She nodded like one of the bobbleheads in Oscar’s bedroom window. I pulled my chin into my neck. What kind of girl thought cow poop sounded like fun? “You’re not grossed out by the idea?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m a scientist! Nothing grosses out scientists. Not good ones, anyway.” She smiled.

  Morgan thought of herself as a scientist, too. We started to walk again, but now my scalp felt tingly, as if I’d been plugged in.

  “What are all those patches on your duffel bag?”

  I was bringing my gym clothes home for Mom to wash. There might have been some algae growing in the sweaty pair of socks I’d left in my bag all week. “They’re from Tae Kwon Do tournaments. Khal and I are purple belts.”

  “You do Tae Kwon Do? Wow!” Morgan looked at me as if I were wearing a red cape and had a big BB on my chest.

  Maybe Morgan Belcher would make an okay partner. I could at least give her a chance.

  Log Entry—Tuesday, September 25

  Mom and Dad are moving forward with adopting. Today Mom was working on a scrapbook to give to the adoption agency—pictures of our family and descriptions of what we’re all like. I asked her to put in a picture of Grampa Clem. He might not be here anymore, but whatever child we get needs to know about him. He’s still a part of our family. She agreed.

  Mom and Dad say we have to make some decisions about what kind of child we want. They said their only request is that he or she be African American or some mixture that includes African American. That sounds good to me. Mom really wants a girl and she’d like to have a baby, but Dad wants to stay open to a boy and to getting an older child—any age up to seven or eight. Hearing that made me get the Jitters. Why would he want to get an older boy when he’s already got me? And what if the kid has all sorts of problems? What if he thinks it’s okay to get into my stuff and he breaks my microscope or messes with Einstein? Maybe getting a baby wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  The big state fair in Puyallup happens at the end of September, and we go every year. This year, Master Rickman had selected Khal and me, along with some others, to represent our dojang on one of the stages.

  Dad pulled our car into the dusty parking lot. Gladys kept pointing and shouting, “There’s a space!” which I could see in the rearview mirror was really getting under Dad’s skin.

  “I can see the spaces, Mama. The parking lot’s practically empty.” The gates hadn’t been open that long.

  “Then why have you passed up a dozen perfectly fine ones?” Gladys patted the large, multicolored straw purse she always brought to the fair. For now, the bag was empty. “I want to get inside and get me some freebies.”

  Dad parked. My stiff white do bok crinkled as I climbed out. The uniform was brand-new—from my parents for my birthday. I walked around to the other side to help Gladys out, even though she always shoos me away when I do that.

  “Just take his arm, Mama.”

  “I’m a senior, not a corpse. The only time I plan to need help getting in or out of someplace is the day you put me in the ground.”

  “So you’ll climb in
to your own coffin?” Dad smirked.

  Mom spoke smoothly from outside the passenger door. “Miss Gladys, I know you want your grandson to be a gentleman.”

  “Yeah, Gladys. Give me a chance to show you Tae Kwon Do’s first tenet.” Gladys knows the five tenets as well as I do. She likes to remind me of them now and then. Tenet number one is courtesy.

  Gladys scowled. “Oh, all right.” She gripped my forearm and stepped out onto the packed dirt ground. “I suppose it’s good for you to get some practice, since any day now you’ll be bringing home the girls.”

  “What? No, I won’t!” Jeez. First Grandpa Ed and now Gladys. Why was everyone obsessed with girlfriends all of a sudden?

  Gladys patted my cheek. “My milk chocolate’s so handsome. And getting so tall!” She raised one eyebrow. “But don’t forget, it’s your mom you passed up. I’ve still got a half inch on you.”

  I had a feeling I’d be hearing that a lot, at least until I outgrew her, too. “Not for long, you won’t.” I gave her a smile and we walked toward the entrance.

  Only ten feet inside the fairgrounds, Gladys stopped at a booth selling spa tubs with whirlpool jets. “Mama, what are you doing?” Dad asked. “You’re not going to buy one of those things.”

  “You know that and I know that.” Gladys held up her straw bag. “But I smell a freebie.”

  We kept walking while Gladys pretended to be interested in Jacuzzis.

  A few minutes later, Gladys strode toward us with a new plastic visor on her head. “How’s this for a first score?” She tipped her head so we could read the print on the visor: BENNY’S SPAS AND JETS. “No sun in my eyes today, thank you very much!”

  “Great, Mama. Let’s go.” Dad turned and kept walking.

  “You’re not impressed now, but just wait. In a few hours, when you’ve got yourself a tension headache from squinting, you’ll be wishing you had one.”

  Dad pulled out his cop sunglasses and put them on. “I’m good.”

  We continued down the wide paved road lined with vendor booths on either side and a row of food stands down the center. “Breakfast time!” Gladys shouted. She made a beeline for the little house on wheels that sold Cow Chip Cookies—“a fair favorite since 1935”—and Alienade, a radioactive-yellow drink that looked like Gladys’s favorite pop, Mountain Dew.