Question 1 of 16 · Reading
Vocabulary in context · Curriculum connections: 7.2B
The Missing Name — original fiction
Original classroom material; people, sources and data are fictional.
Mara had nearly finished the neighborhood history display when Mr. Ibarra stopped beside a photograph of the old market. “That was my sister’s stand,” he said. The caption credited a person with a different surname. Mara felt the smooth corner of the label she had carefully printed. She had promised the principal that every caption would be ready by Friday.
“The city booklet says otherwise,” she replied. Mr. Ibarra did not argue. He asked whether she had noticed the woman wearing a striped apron behind the counter. “Rosa made that apron from a curtain,” he said. Mara looked again, but the photograph could not prove who the woman was. Neither could the neat caption.
The next morning, Mara borrowed a recorder and returned with questions instead of a replacement label. Mr. Ibarra described two neighboring stands with similar signs. He said one moved in the late 1960s, though he could not remember the year. Mara asked permission to keep the recording. Then she found a dated advertisement that placed Rosa’s stand beside the address printed on the photograph. She also checked a second photograph that showed the striped apron more clearly.
On Friday, the principal noticed a small card beside the exhibit: “Caption revised using an interview and a dated advertisement; exact moving year uncertain.” Mara worried that the unfinished detail made the display look weak. A visitor bent down to read it. “Now I can see how you worked it out,” the visitor said. Mara smoothed the card’s corner and left it where it was.