“Let’s go around again,” I said, and Cassie agreed. We passed slime exhibits and insect hotels. Saw celery sucking up various colored inks. Volcanoes spouted baking soda, and potatoes powered batteries.
I spotted my daughter then, emerging onto the stage at the far end of the large space, a brunette in her thirties beside her.
“Daddy!” Camila hollered, running over.
My daughter was dressed in a plaid jumper with a purple shirt under it. She had on her fancy black shoes that she wore to church with Rosa.
“I didn’t see your project,” I said.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Something happened to it.”
Camila noticed Cassie then, and I introduced them.
“I know you,” Camila said. “You gave my dad a book for me. For Christmas. Lucy Callahan. Lightning girl.” She beamed at Cassie. “Love, love, love that book.”
Cassie grinned. “I do kinda eat at giving gifts.” A humblebrag, as she would say.
By this point, the woman who had been standing with my daughter had reached us. She was mid-thirties and attractive, with a single braid of brown hair draped across her right shoulder.
“Veronica Lopez,” she said, her voice a deep pitch, her accent rolling on therin her name. “I oversee science at the school.”
“Gardner Camden.” I extended my hand. “This is my colleague, Cassie Pardo. Where is Camila’s exhibit?”
The teacher motioned for us to follow her, and we moved in a group up a set of stairs. They led to the stage where I had seen my daughter a moment earlier. We stepped behind a green curtain. There, on a white card table, were two science projects, the leftmost one my daughter’s.
“Someone smashed it, Daddy,” Camila said.
I examined the project without speaking, circling the table on which it stood. The upper halves of the cut water bottles were dented and tilted on their sides, and the ones that formed the various fly traps had leaked pools of molasses and maple syrup.
“And this?” I pointed at the other project.
“This is Sheila Torre’s exhibit,” the teacher said. “Also destroyed.”
Sheila’s project was a series of cups with labels on the side, each denoting how much salt was in each cup of water. But there was no water anymore, and the plastic cups had cracks along their sides. The bottom of the project had been lined in aluminum foil, and black streaks showed where the silver was torn.
I stared at the bottom of Camila’s project, which was built on a base of plexiglass. Each time I’d seen it, there had been a drawing under the plexi that was now missing.
“What happened?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” the teacher said. “I spoke to each of the girls right after lunch, and neither saw anything.”
I circled the table again, taking in every minute detail.
“This was likely a jealous child,” the teacher continued.
“Were there any witnesses?” Cassie asked.
The teacher turned to her. “No,” she said. “And we don’t lock up the auditorium during recess.”
“Why don’t I take my daughter home?” I said. “We can follow up by email or phone.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Ms. Lopez said.
We turned and walked away: Camila, Cassie, and me. But I told them to wait a moment and headed back. Grabbed Camila’s project.
Ms. Lopez helped me lift it up.
“The other girl went home in tears, Mr. Camden,” she said. “Camila was quieter.”
