Larry and the Kangaroo Hat

Chapter 1 — The Wrong Answer

The bridge worked perfectly until somebody tried to use it.

Larry Carter watched the little red car roll along the cardboard road, climb the raised seam, and stop in the middle of the span. For one excellent second, nothing happened. Then the left tower leaned toward the right tower, the thread slipped off its spool, and the car dropped nose-first into the river.

The river was blue paper. This did not improve the accident.

Beside him, Nico Reyes kept his hand on the crank.

“Don't turn it,” Larry whispered.

“I'm not turning it.”

Six people at the next table were watching. So was Ms. Bennett, who had come over with her clipboard to check whether their model was ready for the sixth-grade maker evening.

The right tower folded.

“Our bridge has a diving feature,” Larry said.

Someone laughed. He was grateful until he looked at Nico.

Nico had spent most of Wednesday afternoon cutting the towers. He had measured the second one against the first three times, because the instructions said matching heights mattered and because Nico generally believed instructions until they gave him a reason to stop.

“It wasn't supposed to do that,” Nico said.

“That's why it's a special feature.”

Ms. Bennett set down the clipboard. “Show me what happened.”

Larry could have done that very easily. Beneath the table, a strip of masking tape had unstuck from the crank axle. It dangled against the cardboard support, collecting dust. Larry knew exactly how it had got there.

He bent to retrieve the car instead.

Their classroom smelled of damp coats and the glue nobody ever quite screwed shut. October leaves were stuck to the outside of the windows. At the front, two girls were arguing about whether a volcano with a motor counted as engineering or just a more expensive volcano. Most of the room was doing ordinary, fixable things.

At their table, Nico pointed to the spool.

“The axle should have stayed still when I let go. I checked it yesterday.”

Ms. Bennett looked underneath. “What was holding it?”

“The stop pin.” Nico reached for the little container of parts. His fingers moved through rubber bands, washers, a bottle cap and three things Larry had brought because they looked useful. “There was a bent wire pin.”

Larry rubbed a blue paper river stain off the car's roof.

“It probably fell out,” he said.

Nico stopped searching. “It couldn't fall out. It went through both sides.”

“I mean before.”

Before was an excellent word. It could cover practically anything.

Before lunch, Larry had taken the pin out to get the bridge moving more smoothly. The crank had snagged on it, and he had wanted one perfect lift before Nico got back from returning library books. He had put the wire somewhere sensible. Unfortunately, somewhere sensible had disappeared.

Then Nico had returned. Then Ms. Bennett had come over. By then, Larry had wrapped tape around the axle and told himself it was temporary.

He had not told Nico.

Ms. Bennett lifted the loose tape. “This was taking the weight.”

Nico looked at it, then at Larry.

Larry could feel his ears getting hot. He glanced toward the group at the next table. They were still interested. A bridge that worked had not been interesting for nearly as long.

“We wanted to test different materials,” he said.

“We did?” Nico asked.

The question was quiet. That made it worse.

Ms. Bennett laid the model flat before anything else could fall off. “Testing materials is useful. But you need to know which material you're testing, and you need to tell your partner.”

She looked from one of them to the other. Larry stared at a tiny dried bead of glue on his thumb.

“I'm not grading a finished bridge today,” she continued. “I'm checking how you solve a problem. You have two weeks until maker evening. Write down what failed, decide on a repair, and test it before you decorate anything else.”

The blue flag on Nico's tower sagged into the river.

“Can we get another piece of cardboard?” Nico asked.

“From the scrap box. I'll come back after you've made a plan.”

She picked up her clipboard and moved to the volcano.

Larry set the red car on a dry corner of the table. “At least nobody drowned.”

Nico pulled the flag out of the river. “It's paper.”

“I know.”

“Then nobody could drown.”

Larry wished he had said nothing. That was happening more often lately, usually just after he had said something.

They worked without talking while the rest of the room grew louder. Larry held the tower straight; Nico peeled away a buckled support. When Larry offered a longer piece, Nico took it without looking up.

The part that bothered Larry most was that the bridge had nearly worked. He had seen the axle rubbing against the side, spotted the problem, and made the crank turn smoothly. He wasn't wrong about everything. He had simply reached the bit where somebody might say well done before finishing the bit where it was safe.

Now Nico would have to explain the failure on their planning sheet. Under both their names.

Larry opened his school planner, hoping to find the missing wire trapped in the fold. No wire. A pencil shaving fell out, followed by a reminder about returning a permission form that he had already returned and a much older reminder that he had not.

The planner flipped to December. On the nineteenth, he had written BIRTHDAY in a box slightly larger than the one provided.

Nico glanced over. “Planning something for your eightieth?”

“Twelve. But I'm getting an early start.”

“Try planning for tomorrow.”

It almost sounded normal. Larry reached for it.

“We could make the river a moat. Add a castle. Then the car falls in because of an enemy attack.”

Nico put down the glue stick. “I don't want a story about why it's supposed to break.”

Larry stopped smiling.

“I want it to work,” Nico said. “We said we'd make it work.”

Across the room, the volcano motor started with a grinding squeal. Someone cheered. Larry watched Ms. Bennett unplug it before the battery pack slid off the table.

He wanted to say that Nico was making a big deal out of a little cardboard bridge. He also wanted to be somewhere else when Nico asked about the tape again.

Instead, he picked up their planning sheet.

Under WHAT HAPPENED? he wrote, The axle turned when we needed it to stop.

“That part's true,” Nico said.

Larry pressed the pencil harder. Under NEXT STEP he wrote, Make a proper stop. Test with weight.

“I've got wire at home,” he said.

“You said that yesterday.”

“I know. I'll bring it tomorrow.”

“And the stronger thread?”

“That too.”

Nico considered him for a moment. He had a small streak of glue beside his nose. Larry nearly pointed it out, then decided that would be another wrong thing to say.

“Fine. I'll fix the tower tonight. We can test it at lunch.”

Larry nodded too quickly. “Definitely.”

The bell rang. Chairs scraped backward. At the windows, the wet leaves shivered in a gust of wind, stuck fast for another day.

Nico packed the damaged tower into a shoe box with care that made Larry feel worse than anger would have. Larry carried the rest of the bridge to the shelf. The blue river had a crease down its middle now, but it could be smoothed.

As he lifted his backpack, something scratched his wrist.

The missing wire pin was caught in the fabric beside the zipper.

He held it in his palm. It was such a small thing. He could take it to Nico right now and explain the whole afternoon in two sentences.

Nico was already at the classroom door.

Larry closed his hand.

Tomorrow, he thought. He would bring the supplies, fix the bridge, and tell him when it wouldn't ruin everything.

“Lunch tomorrow,” Nico called.

“I'll be there,” Larry said.