Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment Read Online Free PDF Page A

personal attention.
    I sat on the love seat and zipped open my backpack’s front pocket. I dug around for the largest quartz specimen. I held it up, hoping it would gleam impressively in the sunshine coming through the front window. It looked better than it had back at the campsite.
    â€œThat’s the biggest diamond I’ve ever seen in my life!” Gladys exclaimed.
    â€œIt’s not a diamond. It’s a quartz crystal,” I said. My family needed some serious education in the field of petrology.
    â€œOh. Well, it’s the largest one of those I’ve ever seen in my life.”
    Mom reached for the crystal, and I handed it to her. She turned it in her hands, looking at its surfaces. “This is beautiful, Bren. Sam, did you see?”
    Dad looked away from the TV and squinted at my find. He nodded. “Hmm.” It was a short sound. The sound Gladys sometimes made when she fell asleep sitting up. “Is there more?”
    The ground collapsed inside me. All the work I’d done—first to find the crystal, and then to convince myself it was a good one—vanished into the sinkhole.
    I reached into my pack. “I’ve got a few more in—”
    Dad jumped up and hollered at the screen. “Run it! Run it! Run it! Yesssss!”
    But nothing worth getting too excited about
, I thought, leaving the fragments where they were.
    Mom handed me the crystal. “It’s beautiful, honey.” I dropped the mineral back into the pouch and zipped it shut.
    Grandpa Ed came back inside without P.J. “When’s lunch? I’m starving!” He slapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Fresh mountain air makes a man hungry, eh, Brendan?”
    Lately, it seemed I’d been famished every moment of the day, but suddenly I had no appetite. My heart felt like a big dirt clod. And it had just been smashed to smithereens.

The first day of school, I was up and ready to go an hour early, which gave me time to do some online research. I wanted to make sure I knew what botryoidal meant before I saw Morgan again. I quickly discovered that a habit, when referring to minerals, just means the shape a mineral takes as a result of its crystalline structure. A botryoidal habit is one that looks like bunches of grapes, which
does
accurately describe my piece of kidney ore.
    I’d put my newest acquisition on the shelf with my Ellensburg Blue, where I kept my entire collection of fourteen specimens. Morgan might have been a little too excited, but still, it had been cool of her to give me the hematite. I’d tossed all the quartz pieces into my garbage can the night we’d returned from the dig. Theywere like the fish Grampa Clem and I would throw back into the bay. Too puny to keep.
    I checked and recorded Einstein’s tank temperatures and misted the tank. “See you after school, boy.” I grabbed my backpack, turned out my bedroom light, and went to find my parents. They were in the kitchen. Dad was gathering up the garbage to take it to the curb, and Mom was on the phone.
    â€œYou sure you don’t want me to take you on my way to work?” Dad had suggested that he walk me into school wearing his uniform. “Be a sure way to keep the older kids from pushing you around.”
    Be a sure way to get a whole lot of the wrong kind of attention
, I thought. “Nah. I’ll be all right. Thanks, though.”
    Mom hung up the phone. “Ready to see how much you’ve grown, Boo?”
    I nodded. It was our first-day-of-school tradition. I’d stand against the inside of the kitchen doorjamb and Mom would mark my height.
    â€œI’m not sure
I’m
ready,” Mom said, smiling.
    I backed up against the wall and looked straight ahead. Mom’s eyes were no longer level with mine. They were a little lower. The pencil scraped back and forth across my head. I stepped away and Dad measured. “Five-five and a half,” he