Jenna & Grandma Sandy

“Grandma Sandy!” Jenna yelled when she came home from school. Jenna ran up to her and was about to jump up into her arms. Sandy bent down before Jenna could jump on her, took the girl in her arms and gave her a hug. 

Miss Laurie smiled as she left the room. Sandy called after her, “Laurie, I found your book light.” Jenna’s heart leapt, and Grandma Sandy added, “I brought my own this time.”

Jenna tried to look innocent, but Sandy gave her one of her sly looks. Jenna thought about all those fairy tales, the ones where there was a clever fox who outwitted everybody. That was Grandma Sandy, the sneaky fox.

“I took the book light,” said Jenna. 

“I figured you did as soon as Laurie asked me where it was,” said Grandma Sandy as she reached into her bag. She had a bright canvas bag. It had too many things in it to be called a purse. She pulled out a book light, the same size as Miss Laurie’s but a different color. 

She handed it to Jenna. “You must really love reading. You may have this, but there is a secret rule, and you have to figure it out.”

“Am I in trouble!”

Grandma Sandy’s mouth crinkled up. It looked like a smile and a frown all at once. “Not this time,” she said. “But the next time you take something, let us know.”

Jenna felt her face turning red. She looked down at the ground and nodded her head yes before asking, “What is the rule?”

“I told you. You have to guess what the rule is.”

Ten minutes later, Grandma Sandy was reading a book to Jenna, but the girl’s mind was not on the story. She kept thinking about the book light. Finally, Jenna whispered in Grandma Sandy’s ear, “I figured out the secret rule. I have to ask Miss Laurie or Mr. Dan first before I use the booklight at night.”

Grandma Sandy nodded her head yes. 

Jenna wondered something. She looked up and asked, “How did you find it? I put it under my pillow.”

Grandma Sandy chuckled a little and said, “That was the easy part. I just thought about where I would have hidden it when I was your age.”

Later that afternoon, Mon-Unique came over. Jenna had told her where she lived, and it turned out that Mon-Unique only lived a block away. 

“Let’s look at that project,” said Mon-Unique. 

It was a good thing her new friend came over. Mon-Unique had seen her older brother and sister do science fair projects, and soon they were pasting things on the thick cardboard poster. Mon-Unique said Jenna could call her by her nicknames: Moni or Uni. Her grandma and older sister also called her Ke-ke, but they were the only ones who got to do that. 

“What does your Mom call you?” asked Jenna as they pasted a label that read: RESULTS on the board.

“I don’t remember my Mom,” said Moni. 

“Did she die?” asked Jenna. 

Mon-Unique’s face froze for a moment. Jenna wished she didn’t ask. 

“I don’t know. I don’t hear from my mother.”

Moni put some extra paste under the label and picked up another label and slathered the back of it with a thick layer of glue. 

“Are you in foster care?” asked Jenna. “Like me?”

Moni breathed out, teeth clenched shut. Her breath sounded like a rush of wind.

“She left the state,” said Mon-Unique. “She got in some kind of trouble.”

Jenna thought about that. She wondered for a moment what it would be like to live with Grandma Sandy. That would be okay. She liked living with Miss Laurie and Mr. Dan too. 

Then, she felt bad. She was supposed to only want to live with Mom and Dad. For a moment she blinked. She wondered what it would be like if she couldn’t remember what Mom’s face looked like. 

“Jenna!”

She looked up. Mon-Unique was handing her a label.

“Put it on!” ordered Moni. “Before the ‘sticky’ dries.”

Jenna felt like she woke up from a dream. She made a pretend smile to hide her embarrassment and pressed the label down on the cardboard, rubbing it hard so it would stay stuck to the board. This poster was going to look nice, she thought as her fake smile turned into a real one.

Jenna stood up in front of the class. She held up her poster so the class could see. Then, she realized that nobody could see her face so she lowered the cardboard a little. She noticed Colton’s empty desk and wondered how he was doing. 

Mon-Unique sat in the front row, nodding her head. It took Jenna a moment to realize that Mon-Unique was telling her to get started. 

Jenna grinned a little. This was great being up in front of the class. Even Miss Teak was sitting down (in Jenna’s seat—Jenna got a kick out of that). Valeria smiled at her, and Neva stared, looking serious, wearing that “this better be good” look. A few kids weren’t looking at all. One boy had a comic book held under his desk, reading it so the teacher would not see. 

Jenna said, “My science project is called Graffiti: What Works and What Doesn’t.” 

Miss Teak wouldn’t let her call it What Works and What Sucks. 

Jenna pointed at the poster, while she said, “I went through the steps of the scientific method…” She had a sudden thought and knew she had to say it. “I got some help from Miss Laurie and Mon-Unique.”

Miss Teak smiled. “Even the sixth graders get lots of help with their science fair projects. Go on.”

Jenna cleared her throat and kept talking, “I did research. I looked at what other people said about tagging, I mean graffiti. Uh… I got some good ideas.” She pointed at another section of the poster. “I made a hypothesis. I thought that ammonia would do a good job of cleaning. Next, I did an experiment. I painted four boards, and then I messed them up with a black marker.”

Jenna took a deep breath. Whew! What do I say next? She glanced down at the labels on the cardboard. She sure was glad she brought that up here. I tried four different cleaners. I used dish soap, ammonia, rubbing alcohol and bleach.”

She moved the poster up so she could point at the squares of wood on the bottom. Then, she leaned to the side of the poster so people could still see her face. “You can see the four boards I used in my experiment.”

Under each square was a word: DISH SOAP, AMMONIA, RUBBING ALCOHOL and BLEACH. 

What do I say now, she wondered.

Finally, she gathered her thoughts and said, “Which one worked the best? That’s where it gets tricky. Bleach took off more of the black marker writing than anything else, but it took off the paint too, so that didn’t work! Dish soap didn’t do much at all. That was part of my…” Jenna glanced around at all the faces in front of her. What was that word? She knew the word. She even said it a minute ago. Now she couldn’t think of it. Why now? 

Lucky for her, Mon-Unique sat in the front row, waving at Jenna as she mouthed the word: HYPOTHESIS.

Jenna smiled at her new friend and said, “Hypothesis! Part of my hypothesis was that dish soap wouldn’t work, and I was right. Part of my hypothesis was wrong. I thought ammonia would work the best. The cleaner that did the best job was the rubbing alcohol.”

The class started to clap, but Jenna interrupted them, “I would like to do the same experiment with bricks and glass to see what works best with them.”

Now the class could clap. Jenna felt good. She started to smile and immediately thought she should hide it. Then, she thought, why should I try and hide a smile when I’m glad, and why do I think I have to make a fake smile when I feel sad? She grinned big and let herself be happy.