Question 1 of 16 · Reading
Theme, contrasting characters, and language · Curriculum connections: RL.5.1, RL.5.2, RL.5.3, RL.5.4
The Last Empty Square — original fictional story
Original classroom material; people, sources and data are fictional.
Suri divided the mural paper into a perfect grid. Every fifth grader had one square to fill with a picture of the neighborhood. Her cousin Ben wanted to paint the cracked basketball court. Suri suggested the flower shop instead. “A mural should show our best places,” she said. Ben folded his sketch without answering.
By Thursday, the squares held bright windows, fruit stands, and a bus with shining wheels. One square remained empty. Ben had not returned his sketch. Suri carried the paper to the community center, where their grandmother was sorting photographs. In an old photograph, children played on the same cracked court. Suri recognized her mother by her crooked ponytail.
“That court looks worn,” Suri said. Grandmother turned the photograph over. On its back were the names of children who had played there. “It has held a lot of afternoons,” she replied. Suri traced the edge of the photograph. She had been thinking about surfaces, while Ben had been thinking about what happened on them.
The next morning, Suri asked Ben to bring his sketch. He painted the crack as a thin silver river. Around it he added children passing a ball. Suri helped mix the gray, though it was not the color she had pictured for their mural. When the paper was hung, people paused longest at Ben’s square. One neighbor recognized the court and told a story. Suri left a blank card beside the mural for the next story someone might bring.