Short Story: Forty Cans and a Plank

A wall of cans

This is an original short story. The characters, Birchview Public School and the food drive are invented.

By Thursday afternoon, the back corner of Room 9 looked like a grocery store. For two weeks, Ms. Adeyemi's Grade 4 class had been collecting food for the neighbourhood food bank, and the cans had piled up faster than anyone expected. Soup, beans, tomatoes, corn. Mateo had counted them twice: three hundred and twelve.

"Tomorrow is the assembly," Ms. Adeyemi reminded everyone. "We need all the boxes up on the gym stage by 9 o'clock, so the whole school can see what we collected. The food bank van comes right after."

Mateo looked at the stage in his mind. It was only about as high as his waist, but it had three narrow steps at the side. Then he looked at the boxes. "That's a lot of trips," he said.^[1]

The first plan

Hana had an idea. "Let's save time. We'll put more cans in each box, so we'll only have to make a few trips."

Everybody liked the idea of fewer trips. They packed the cans in tight. Mateo squeezed forty cans into the biggest box and taped the flaps shut with a grin.

Friday morning, Mateo and Hana lifted the forty-can box together. It was so heavy that their arms shook before they even reached the gym doors. At the bottom of the stage steps, Hana's fingers slipped. The box dropped onto the first step, and its bottom split open.

Cans rolled everywhere. A can of corn bounced off the step and spun under the piano. Two soup cans raced each other across the gym floor. The Grade 1 class, lining up for the assembly, cheered.^[1]

The second plan

While the class chased cans, Jordan pointed at the red wagon by the gym door. "We can put the boxes in the wagon," he said. "Then nobody has to carry anything."

The wagon worked perfectly across the floor. Then it reached the steps and stopped. Its wheels bumped against the first step and would not climb. Three kids tried to lift the whole wagon, boxes and all, up the steps, but it was even heavier than the forty-can box.

"We have twenty minutes," Ms. Adeyemi said, checking the clock. Her voice was calm, but Mateo saw her glance at the door where the principal would soon walk in.^[1]

A long board and a short one

Mateo stared at the steps. Something from science class tugged at his memory: the ramp beside the front stairs of the school was much longer than the stairs, and his class had learned that a longer slope needs a smaller push.

"We don't need to lift the wagon," he said. "We need a ramp."

Mr. Ferreira, the custodian, was setting up chairs. When he heard the plan, he went to the storage room and came back with two boards. "Short one or long one?" he asked.

They tried the short board first, because it was lighter to carry. Mr. Ferreira set it from the floor to the edge of the stage, and it tilted up sharply. When Jordan pushed the wagon, it rolled halfway up and then rolled right back down. The slope was too steep.

Mr. Ferreira set the long board in its place, checking that both ends were steady. This time the slope was gentle. Jordan and Hana pushed together, and the wagon rolled slowly up, up and onto the stage. It was a longer trip, but the push was easy.^[1]

Lighter boxes, steady wheels

There was one more change. Hana repacked the cans from the split box into three smaller boxes. "Less in each box, so no more splitting," she said. Mateo nodded. This time he did not argue for fewer trips.

By 8:55, every box was lined up on the stage, and the corn can from under the piano was back where it belonged. When the principal announced the total, the whole gym clapped for three hundred and twelve cans.

Afterward, Ms. Adeyemi asked the class to think about the morning. "What made it go wrong, and what made it go right?"

Mateo thought about the forty cans, the stuck wagon and the long board. "Every time we changed one thing," he said, "it changed the next thing."^[1]