Owen Foote, Mighty Scientist

by Stephanie Greene

  "You can work on the report and the chart," Owen told him. "You're better at writing than I am."

  "Okay." Joseph opened the book they had found on amphibians and took out his box of colored pencils. "How are we going to show the kinds of things that could happen?" he asked, hunching over his paper.

  Owen stared at the top of Joseph's head. He couldn't show Joseph the pictures right now. Knowing Joseph, he'd grab the dish and run back to the swamp with it.

  Even if Owen convinced him not to, Joseph would feel like a murderer for the entire week. It would ruin their whole project.

  Owen needed to stall for time.

  Joseph looked up at him. "How are we going to show it?" he asked again.

  "We don't have to worry about that right now," Owen said. "We'll look around for something."

  "I bet there are lots of pictures," Joseph said.

  When Joseph went back to writing, Owen got up and pretended to look for something in his desk. He still wasn't lying. He was protecting Joseph. He was protecting their experiment, too.

  He'd wait for a few days and see if anything happened. Then he'd show Joseph the pictures.

  It sounded like a good plan.

  But Joseph beat him to it.

  7. A Catastrophe of Major Proportions

  There was a photograph of a frog with one leg. Another of a frog with three legs. One photograph showed a skeleton of a frog with five legs.

  In another one, the frog had a leg growing out of its stomach.

  The photographs Joseph was putting on the table in front of Owen were even weirder than the ones Owen had found. He was so amazed by how calm Joseph was being about them, all he could do was stare.

  "Where did you get them?" he said when Joseph was through.

  "They're everywhere." Joseph closed his pack and put it on the floor. "Once I started looking for information to put in our report, they were easy to find."

  "I saw some like these, but I was afraid to show them to you," Owen said. "I thought you'd freak out."

  "I kind of did when I first saw them," said Joseph. "Then I realized we have to show people these. It's not just a science project—it's important. Your dad needs to stop using fertilizer, Owen."

  The minute Joseph said it, Owen knew he was right. With all the thought he'd given to their experiment, he'd never once considered using it to change anything. He'd only thought of it as science.

  "And I think you're right," Joseph was saying. "We're not keeping ours in that water long enough to deform them. If I thought we were, I'd probably want to throw them back."

  "Yeah," Owen said uneasily. It was weird seeing the pictures lined up this way. What if their tadpoles really did grow two tails? Or two heads? Now that he really thought about it, Owen wasn't sure he'd like that. Especially not in his own bedroom.

  "I'm still a little worried they're going to die, though," said Joseph.

  "Don't worry, they won't." Owen pushed the pictures into one pile. "We'd better put these on cardboard. I think there's some down in the family room."

  At least the problem of the pictures was over, Owen thought with relief as they headed downstairs. All they had to do now was set up their project in the gym on Monday morning.

  Then wait till Monday night to see what prize they'd won.

  ***

  "Morning, Owen," Mr. Foote said as he came into the kitchen. He put his hand on the top of Owen's head. "How was your week?"

  "Great," said Owen. "How was your trip?"

  "Very interesting," said Mr. Foote. He had been at a conference in Arizona for a week. Owen had tried to wait up for him last night, but he fell asleep.

  "Where's Mom?" his dad said, pouring a cup of coffee.

  "She went to the grocery store," said Owen. "You know her. She likes to get there early on Saturdays, before it gets too crowded."

  Mr. Foote took a brown plastic bag off the counter and put it on the table in front of Owen. "I got this for you at a nature museum in Tucson. I didn't have time to wrap it."

  "Thanks," Owen said. He pulled out a large green plastic iguana. It had lifelike scales, a long tail, and a pointy head. "This is cool. It looks really real."

  "Really real, huh?" Mr. Foote sat down across from him and smiled. "How's your science project going? Monday's the big day, right?"

  "We have the two dishes of tadpoles, a few charts, our daily observation notebook, and a report," said Owen. "Joseph wrote most of it. He found some amazing photographs, too."

  "What about your fertilizer group? No extra legs or anything?"

  "Nope. They're just a little bit smaller than the other ones." Owen held his cereal bowl up to his mouth and drained what was left of the milk. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  "By the way, Dad," he said, "I need to talk to you about your fertilizer."

  "I was afraid this was coming."

  "I mean it," Owen said. "You've got to stop. You might make the animals in our yard deformed."

  "Why'd you have to be a scientist, Owen?" His dad groaned. "Why couldn't you just play video games like other kids?"

  "It's not funny," said Owen. "Wait till you see our pictures."

  "Could I finish my coffee before you destroy my career as a gardener?"

  "Okay. But I'm warning you." Owen put his bowl and spoon in the dishwasher and headed for the stairs.

  The three-paneled presentation board was propped up in one corner of his room, THE EFFECTS OF PESTICIDES ON FROG DEVELOPMENT was Written in big green letters across the top. Their hypothesis and daily observations were on the left-hand panel. The report and charts were in the middle.

  The right-hand panel was covered with their photographs.

  Owen had built a small wooden shelf for the dishes. He put it right in the center so everybody would see the tadpoles. They were the one thing that was going to make their project stand out.

  Living proof of their whole experiment.

  The dish marked FERTILIZER was on the windowsill next to his bed. Owen sprinkled a pinch of frog food over the surface of the water. The fertilized tadpoles nibbled at it frantically.

  He headed for the second bowl. It was on the sill next to his desk. And there were the normal tadpoles ... dead.

  Owen blinked.

  There wasn't a sign of life in the dish.

  Maybe they're sleeping, Owen thought. He blew on the water. No fluttering tails. No darting movements.

  Nothing.

  He swished the water around with his finger.

  The tadpoles bobbed against one another like driftwood.

  "They're dead!" Owen shouted. He stared at the lifeless tadpoles in disbelief. How could it be? he thought wildly. What could have happened?

  The project was ruined.

  "They're dead!" he shouted again. "I can't believe it! All of them! Dead!"

  His dad came running up the stairs. Lydia rushed into his room in her nightgown.

  "Do you have any idea what time it is?" she said. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

  His dad came into the room and stood next to him. "What happened?"

  "The tadpoles are dead," Owen said.

  Lydia peered over Owen's shoulder. "You must have put in too much fertilizer," she said.

  "These are the normal ones," said Owen. "The fertilized ones are fine."

  "Oh. Well, at least some of them are alive."

  "The wrong ones, you idiot," said Owen. "That's the whole point. This makes it look like it's healthier to live in poisoned water than in clean water."

  "Don't get mad at me," Lydia said. "I'm not the murderer."

  "Both of you, calm down," said Mr. Foote. He put his hand on Owen's shoulder. "Scientific experiments are supposed to fail sometimes, Owen. When they do, you have to try something else. That's how things get proven. By trial and error."

  "We don't have time for trial and error," Owen said through clenched teeth. His dad obviously didn't understand. What they were looking at was a catastrophe of major proportions.r />
  Owen started pacing back and forth.

  "The fair's the day after tomorrow.... The control group's dead.... The fertilized group looks normal...."

  He stopped and stared at Lydia and Mr. Foote dramatically. "We have no science project," he said. "We're dead."

  "You still have the rest of your project," said his dad.

  "All it is is a report and some pictures," said Owen. "It'll never win a prize."

  "I don't think the fair is about winning," said Mr. Foote. "It's about working on something you're interested in. And learning from it."

  "I hate it when you say things like that," said Owen.

  "Get real, Dad," Lydia said. "No kid does something just because he's interested in it. Everyone wants to win a prize."

  Owen wished they would both go away. He didn't want kind words. He didn't want lame consolation.

  What he wanted was to be alone.

  The ringing of the doorbell was the final blow.

  "It's Joseph." Owen's shoulders slumped as he looked at his dad. "He's coming over so we can put on the finishing touches."

  "Maybe you should make little headstones,"

  said Lydia. "They're the ultimate finishing touch."

  "Out." Mr. Foote turned Lydia around by her shoulders and ushered her toward the door. "Owen and Joseph are perfectly capable of handling this on their own," he said.

  Owen sank down in front of his project. What was he going to tell Joseph?

  The thing Joseph had been dreading all along had happened. He was going to blame Owen and he'd be right. It was Owen's fault. Everything he had touched lately had either gotten sick or died.

  First Chuck. Now the tadpoles. Their project was ruined, and it was all his fault.

  Owen Foote, mighty scientist.

  For the rest of the year he was going to have to listen to Anthony brag about winning another prize. Next year when Anthony talked at Critter Island, Owen was going to have to stand there with all the other losers and listen.

  Owen, who loved science more than anything.

  The minute Joseph appeared in his doorway, Owen knew it was going to be bad. Joseph looked like he was about to cry, and he hadn't even seen the corpses yet.

  Owen took a deep breath. "The control tadpoles are dead," he said.

  "I know." Joseph sat down on Owen's bed. "Your dad told me."

  "I don't know what happened," said Owen. "They looked fine last night. I must have done something wrong."

  "You didn't do anything," Joseph said. "I think it was me."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I fed them."

  "You did?" Owen stared at him in disbelief.

  "I thought about what happened with Chuck," Joseph said. "I didn't want them to starve. So whenever you weren't in the room, I gave them food."

  "Just the control tadpoles?"

  Joseph nodded. "I didn't want to prolong the misery of the fertilized ones."

  "Prolong the misery?" Owen repeated.

  "You know what I mean." Joseph's shoulder twitched nervously. "I must have overfed them."

  "That's one of the biggest reasons fish and things die," said Owen.

  "I know it is. I'm really sorry, Owen."

  "I'm the one who's sorry," said Owen. His body sagged as the tension of the past few weeks drained out of it.

  "I ruined your sneakers," Owen said. "I didn't show you the pictures.... I lied about what the fertilizer would do...." The more he confessed, the better he felt. "You never wanted to do this project in the first place, Joseph. I forced you."

  "Well, yeah," said Joseph. "But you had to. I'm a wimp about some things."

  "Not as much as you used to be, that's for sure," said Owen.

  "Thanks."

  The air in the room was suddenly clear. It wasn't his fault. Joseph wasn't mad at him. The worst thing that could happen had just happened. Their project might be ruined, but their friendship wasn't.

  Because of some dead tadpoles, they were best friends again.

  "What are we going to do?" said Joseph.

  "I don't know." Owen gazed at their project. "It looks kind of boring without the tadpoles."

  They looked at the presentation for a few minutes without talking.

  Finally, Joseph said, "I think I know how we can fix it."

  "You do?"

  "It's kind of weird."

  "That's okay. Tell me."

  So Joseph talked and Owen listened.

  And then they went to work.

  8. Outside the Box

  "Are you Owen?"

  A girl with long brown hair was waiting for him at the gym door. Owen had seen her in the media center with Mr. Wozniak's class.

  "Mr. Wozniak wants to see you," she said.

  "Go on," his mom said behind him. "Dad and I will wait here for the Trents and catch up to you."

  "Tell Joseph to come find me, okay?" Owen said.

  The girl had disappeared into the maze of tables and projects lined up inside the gym. Owen spotted the top of her head at the end of a row. He hurried past a mobile of the planets made with colored Ping-Pong balls, a project with beakers and water and dirt, a model airplane with pictures of the Wright brothers, and a volcano.

  The volcano had a yellow ribbon on it.

  Owen stopped. There was a village made out of clay at its base. The huts and people and animals were covered with white foam. It had to be Ben's.

  "Pompeii, Italy, A.D. 76" was written on a label on the front.

  Cool, Owen thought. Ben had won third prize.

  "Owen! Over here!" a voice called.

  It was Mr. Wozniak. He was standing in front of a small table with only one project on it. He was waving.

  Owen's stomach did a flip-flop. It was his and Joseph's project, he could tell. He saw the tall green letters. The red arrows pointing to the photographs they had scattered throughout the report.

  The purple ribbon at the top.

  Purple ribbon? thought Owen as he moved slowly toward it. He had never seen a purple ribbon at the science fair before. Blue was first prize, red was second, and yellow was third.

  But purple?

  Any ribbon was good, right? But what if purple was for "Worst Project of the Fair"?

  Or "Better Luck Next Time"?

  Owen came to a stop. And where the heck was Joseph?

  Before he could turn around to look, Mr. Wozniak came up to him and grabbed his hand.

  "Owen Foote, right?" he said. "Great job, Owen."

  Mr. Wozniak kept pumping Owen's hand as he said what a fine job Owen and Joseph had done. That he'd never seen a project like it.

  "We had to create a 'Special Merit' ribbon, it's such a unique idea," said Mr. Wozniak. "How'd you come up with it?"

  A small crowd of kids had clustered around their project. There were a few parents, too. Some of the kids were pointing at the pictures of the frogs and squealing.

  Mr. Wozniak finally stopped shaking Owen's hand and stood there, waiting.

  "It was really Joseph's idea," said Owen.

  Joseph appeared at Owen's side like a miracle. "At the beginning, it was," said Joseph. "Then it was both of ours."

  Mr. Wozniak shook Joseph's hand in the same enthusiastic way Then Owen and Joseph started to explain. Owen told Mr. Wozniak about the

  magazine. About remembering his dad's fertilizer. And the swamp.

  About the horrible moment he saw the dead tadpoles.

  "Then I told him I had fed them," Joseph said.

  "And I thought the whole project was ruined," said Owen.

  "So I said maybe we should show what had gone wrong."

  "Right." Owen gestured toward their presentation board. "So we changed the name to 'The Effects of Interference on a Science Project.'"

  "And I posed for some pictures," said Joseph.

  He led Owen and Mr. Wozniak closer to the table. In one of the photographs Joseph was tiptoeing in an exaggerated way into Owen's room. In another one he was scatterin
g food over a bowl.

  The third photograph was of Mrs. Foote.

  It turned out that she had fed the tadpoles, too.

  "I'm sorry, Owen," she had confessed guiltily. "I couldn't help myself."

  "I know, I know," said Owen. "Joseph said the same thing."

  She agreed to pose for the photograph as punishment. In it, she was holding her finger up to her lips like she was asking the audience not to tell on her.

  Owen wrote a pledge declaring she would never interfere with a project again and made her sign it. He pasted it to the bottom of the report. There was a red arrow pointing to it.

  I, Helen S. Foote, hereby promise never to touch a science project of my son's again. Or else, it said.

  "I love the picture of your mom," Mr. Wozniak said with a laugh. "The pledge is a great touch, too."

  "Thanks."

  "And I hope every person at the fair reads this," said Mr. Wozniak. He pointed to a piece of yellow paper they had added at the last minute.

  THE RULES OF WORKING AS A TEAM

  • Each member has an equal vote.

  • No team member can do anything behind the other member's back.

  • Team members should agree to all steps before a project is started.

  • Failure to follow these rules could lead to disaster!

  "That was Owen's idea," said Joseph.

  "Well, it was a good one." Mr. Wozniak put a hand on each of their shoulders. "You boys really thought outside the box," he said. "There are a lot of valuable lessons in this, for kids and parents alike."

  Joseph jabbed Owen in the ribs. "Tell him about your uromastyx," he said.

  "You have a uromastyx?" said Mr. Wozniak. "I had one of those. He was wild."

  "Chuck's a little high strung," said Owen.

  "The only way to calm him down is to spend a lot of time with him," Mr. Wozniak said.

  "Actually, I haven't been paying that much attention to him since he had a ... kind of ... accident in my hand." Owen felt himself blushing.

  "That's not a lot of fun, is it?" said Mr. Wozniak. "Makes you nervous about picking them up again."

  "And how," Owen said. The relief of knowing that Mr. Wozniak understood the way he felt was enormous.

  "Try wearing gloves until Chuck gets used to you," said Mr. Wozniak. "And bring him in to school sometime. I'd love to see him."