The Wright 3
By Blue Balliet

Excerpt:

The two of them had spent many years scrounging and digging and sorting – Tommy doing the spotting, and Calder the organizing.  Tommy had kept most of the finds.  Calder hadn’t minded.  They were a team, and categorizing felt more interesting to him than keeping.  When they’d both wanted something, Tommy was always generous. 

“Wait till Pe –” As the words left Calder’s mouth, Tommy’s face shut down.  The piece of stone disappeared back into his pocket. 

“Come on, Tommy! She’s smart, she really is.  Why don’t you like her?”

Tommy looked at Calder with his eyes almost closed.  “Maybe that’s why,” he muttered. 

“Not bad smart, she’s good smart,” Calder added, realizing how silly that sounded.  “She’s a buddy.”

Tommy shrugged.  “Gotta go.” He slammed Calder’s door behind him when he left.  “Oops”, he called out.

Right, Calder fumed. How could he ever have thought Tommy and Petra would get along?  Balancing the two of them stunk. 

Upstairs, Calder concentrated on his new pentominoes.  Thinking about shapes always worked better than thinking about people, and being able to build with pentominoes in three dimensions was something new.  They had been exciting in two dimensions, but they were amazing in three.  If he ever ran a school, he’d have one room filled with nothing but large, soft pentominoes.  Kids would be able to pile them up, climb on them, even use them for spelling.  And the playground equipment would be made out of solid combinations of the twelve pieces, designed by the kids themselves.  Maybe even desks and chairs…Calder pictured himself sitting on an upside-down Y and writing on a T desk.  The possibilities were endless.

He hummed as he placed the Y on its long side, then stood the T on the end of the Y, and braced the edge of the T with the I.  Then he placed the V on top of the T.  This was reminding him of something.  But what?

Knocking the structure down, he played around again, this time closing his eyes and picking up three pentominoes.  He opened his eyes and laid the L on its long side with its foot in the air.  Then he put the F upside down on top of it, fitting them together in a sort of pyramid.  The W went on top of the F, like a sideways M.  Again, this felt familiar. 

He knocked them down and started over.  The W was a W this time, and leaned on one side.  The L fit into the back of it, creating a stair with four even steps.  The F lay on its side on top.  He’d constructed a different shape, but it still stirred something in his memory.  He picked up the N and scratched his head vigorously with it.

Determined to figure it out, this time he started with the F on its head.  He built the W into the left side of it, and followed that wit the L upside down on the right end.  Again, he had a prickly sensation of recognition.  Was it just that building with three-dimensional pentominoes would always remind him of something he’d seen before?  Of course these shapes should feel familiar – after all, cities were filled with right angles and steps and overhangs. 

He knocked the threesome down again and stood the F up the right way.  Then he slammed the table with one had and jumped to his feet.

How could he not have seen it?