The Big Mistake Club, Part 2: The Runaway Snack

The Big Mistake Club, Part 2: The Runaway Snack

The Story Begins

On Monday morning, an open notebook lay on Adam’s desk. On its cover were the words The Big Mistake Club. They were written in blue marker and slightly crooked, because the notebook had come about after their first school mistake together.

Adam looked at it happily. “Today we’ll be so careful that absolutely nothing can happen.”

Ela adjusted her round purple glasses. “That is exactly the sort of sentence after which something usually happens.”

Samo set his green backpack on the desk. He took out a square snack box with a yellow lid. He pressed the lid down twice with his palm. Then once more.

“My snack is closed sure-sure,” he declared.

Adam raised a finger. “And if it isn’t, we work as a team. Quickly, quietly, and completely professionally.”

“Being professional starts with not announcing disasters in advance,” Ela said.

Just then, Ms. Benková came into the classroom. She was wearing a dark green sweater and carrying a large pile of notebooks in her arms.

“Good morning,” she said. “I see three very serious faces. I hope you aren’t planning to take over the school before second period.”

“No!” all three blurted out at once.

Ms. Benková smiled. “That sounds exactly like the answer children give when they are planning something.” Then she put the notebooks on the table and turned to the board.

Samo bent over his backpack. He wanted to take out his maths notebook, which always hid right at the bottom. He lifted the bag with one hand, searched for the notebook with the other, and gently pressed the snack box with his elbow.

A soft click sounded.

The yellow lid popped open a little.

“Samo,” Ela whispered, “your sure-sure has just turned into slightly-open.”

First, a napkin peeked out of the box. Behind it, a bread roll slowly tipped forward. For a moment, it balanced on the edge of the desk as if it were deciding whether it fancied a walk.

Then it rolled onto the floor.

Bump.

And away it rolled.

“Catch it!” Adam hissed.

Adam reached out, but the roll slipped past his fingers. It rolled under the next desk and stopped for only a moment. When Adam took another step, the toe of his trainer accidentally nudged it even farther away.

“You sent it to the other side of the classroom,” Ela observed calmly.

“Not to the other side. Just… on a scouting trip,” Adam corrected her, kneeling on the floor.

Samo held the open snack box with both hands. “I can hear it.”

“Bread rolls don’t talk,” Ela said.

“No, but it rustles against the table legs. Listen.”

All three fell silent. Beneath the desks, they really could hear a soft swish-swish.

Ela tore a narrow strip of paper from an old worksheet. “We’ll put a small barrier in its path. Something light. Slowly.”

Samo studied the little piece of paper seriously. “Should it ask the roll for permission before it stops it?”

Adam almost laughed, but covered his mouth just in time. “No. The paper doesn’t ask. The paper is a secret agent.”

“Oh,” Samo said, nodding. “Then I’ll cover its back.”

While Ela slid the paper strip between the desk legs, Adam moved in from the other side. At last, the bread roll touched the paper barrier, stopped, and lay beside Filip’s chair. Filip was sharpening his pencil and had no idea that a rescue mission was happening under his desk.

When Things Start to Change

“I’ve got it!” Adam whispered.

But his elbow jerked at that victorious whisper.

An apple rolled out of Samo’s snack box.

This time, it did not argue or hurry. It moved slowly across the floor, passed Adam’s trainer, and headed through the open space between the desks.

“The apple has its own route,” Samo said.

Ela watched it go. “And that route leads to the flower pot.”

The class plant stood by the window. Its long green leaves leaned to the sides like curious ears. The children watered it according to a schedule, and two weeks earlier Adam had even made it a name label: Zelenko. The label had fallen off, but the name had stayed.

“Quick, a rescue wall!” Adam whispered. “We need books. Or pencil cases. Or a chair. No, a chair is too big. We need something smaller, but right now!”

“Not everyone at once,” Ela said. “One watches the apple. One brings a napkin. One takes the roll.”

“In small steps?” Samo asked.

“Exactly.”

The boy nodded and stepped forward. His first step was tiny. His second was even smaller. His third looked as if he were measuring the distance between his shoe and the floor with a ruler.

“Samo, you can walk normally,” Adam whispered.

“Ela said small steps.”

“She meant small jobs,” Ela explained.

“Oh. That is an important difference.”

When Samo finally moved faster, he bumped a chair with his shoulder. It shifted only a little, but enough for the napkin to fall from Adam’s hand. It landed right on the open snack box and stuck to a piece of cheese.

Adam looked at it. “Well. The napkin has joined the snack.”

Ela quietly let out a breath. “We’re not making one big plan. We’re doing three small things. Adam, lift the box. Samo, take the roll and put it aside; we won’t eat that one anymore. I’ll stop the apple.”

This time, nobody protested.

Adam carefully lifted the snack box. Samo reached under Filip’s desk, took out the roll, and put it into the paper bag by the bin.

“Thank you for the walk,” he whispered to it.

Meanwhile, Ela crawled along the desks with a clean napkin in her hand. The apple was still rolling. It was already close to the flower pot.

Just then, Ms. Benková appeared beside them.

“Interesting,” she said quietly. “Half the class is doing a maths problem, and the other half looks as if a scientific expedition is studying the floor.”

Adam opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“Ms. Benková,” Ela said, “we have a small snack situation.”

“I can see that,” the teacher said, nodding. “And I can see an apple on its way to Zelenko.”

The apple bumped into the rim of the saucer beneath the flower pot. It did not knock it over, but the saucer gave a soft clink. A few crumbs fell from the snack box Adam was holding crookedly. They landed beside the flower pot.

All three froze.

Ms. Benková crouched down beside them. “Plants don’t like crumbs in their soil. And they don’t like too much water either, when someone tries to rescue them a little too eagerly.”

Samo looked at the long leaves. “Zelenko needs protection mode.”

“That sounds sensible,” Ms. Benková said. “If by that you mean calm hands and one napkin, not a waterfall from the watering can.”

Adam held the stiff paper from the worksheet beside the pot like a little barrier. Ela gathered the crumbs into the napkin with tiny movements. Samo held the apple against the saucer with both palms, as if he were guarding a very important treasure.

An Important Moment

“The apple is secured,” he announced.

“Excellent,” Ela said. “Now put it back in the box. Don’t launch it. Put it in.”

“Understood. No take-off.”

A moment later, it was all over. The flower pot stood straight, the leaves were clean, and the apple lay safely beside the cheese, which Adam had finally managed to separate from the napkin. Ms. Benková handed Samo a damp cloth.

“Wipe the floor by the desk as well. Then you can carry on with maths. Your rescue expedition worked quite well.”

“Even though it started with a runaway bread roll?” Adam asked.

“Especially because you didn’t turn into three runaway bread rolls yourselves,” Ms. Benková replied.

When the floor was clean and the snack box firmly shut, the trio returned to Adam’s desk. Samo opened the club notebook.

“We need our first proper rule,” he said. “Big, useful, and impossible to miss.”

“Not too big,” Ela objected. “It has to fit in the notebook.”

Adam thought for a moment. “We’ll write: Snacks must not run away.”

“They would need legs for that,” Samo said.

Ela smiled. “Let’s try something more exact.”

Samo leaned over the page and slowly wrote: “When a lid looks closed, check it once more, but quietly.”

Ms. Benková walked past their desk, read the sentence, and nodded.

“That is a surprisingly useful rule,” she said.

Adam smiled. “So our club has its first useful silly thing.”

“And Zelenko has protection mode,” Samo added.

Ela closed the notebook. By the window, the leaves of the class plant did not move at all. But the yellow lid on Samo’s snack box clicked shut so firmly that all three children burst out laughing.