Some Stories Are Not Seen by Mindy Hardwick

Author:Mindy Hardwick [Hardwick, Mindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eagle Bay Press

10

Sea Star Survey

On Wednesday, Mr. Carson gathered us into the morning meeting and flipped the class schedule to Clubs Day. Everyone cheered and I yelled just as loud. Mr. Carson told us to use our inside voices, but he was smiling so we knew it was okay to be excited about Clubs Day. I couldn’t wait to show Autumn and Devon the sea star data collecting sheet. Clubs met every two weeks, so it had given me a lot of time to practice setting up a sea star spreadsheet for our trip to the beach to count them. I created rows and columns with space for a current count, sizes of each, and the location. I marked a picture of Sea Rock into four sections and labeled each of the quadrants with a number that corresponded with the chart. According to my research, most of the sea stars were in the left bottom quadrant. I couldn’t wait to go to the beach with Autumn and Devon and count the sea stars today!

At 2:00 p.m., Mr. Carson finally told us to pack it up and head to our clubs meeting areas. I was the first person out of the classroom. I ran up the ramp to the portable and threw open the door. Devon sat at a small circular table and worked on his laptop. His wheelchair made him tall and his knees hit the bottom of the table. There weren’t any chairs placed around the table, so I grabbed one from a small stack of four leaning against the back wall.

“What are you doing?” I leaned on my elbows and peered at his screen.

“Editing pictures that I took last night of my family.” He didn’t take his eyes off the screen. It looked like he was using a photo program to adjust the coloring of each person in each photo. Another screen was open to a chat box. In the box, conversations about using the photo program moved as people posted. Occasionally, Devon typed a quick emoji or comment in response to something in the chat box.

In Devon’s photo, Kyra and her parents gathered around a table with a board game that looked like Monopoly. A fireplace glowed in the background and small lamps lit the room. I couldn’t remember the last time Mom and I played a game together. Mom was taking online business classes at the community college and worked late into the night. Sometimes I found a National Geographic movie to watch on TV. Other times I worked in my room on my science experiments. I knew Mom’s classes were important to her. But sometimes I wished she had more time to play a game with me. My chest felt funny and I turned away from Devon’s pictures.

Devon didn’t take his eyes from his screen but said, “We don’t really have a fireplace. We used to, but we moved to a house without stairs and there isn’t a fireplace in our house now.”

I looked back at the photo.

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