“Why don’t you ask Granma to help you?” Orion’s mother suggested.
“But she’d dead!” He objected.
“So? That only means she won’t be distracted by other things she has to do here,” his mother answered.
“But, I’m used to talking to her.”
“So am I, Honey. So am I”
“I guess it would be like talking to God,” Orion said thoughtfully.
“Exactly,” his mother agreed. “As long as you know the difference.”
“Not a problem!” Orion laughed. “God made EVERYTHING! And, Granma made cookies!”
“Right on both counts!” His mother agreed and laughed with him.
“And remember what the Sacred Writings say,” his mother added, then recited: “The soul that hath remained faithful to the Cause of God, and stood unwaveringly firm in His Path shall, after his ascension, be possessed of such power that all the worlds which the Almighty hath created can benefit through him. Such a soul … furnisheth the power through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest.”*
“I’m sure Granma qualifies,” his mother finished.
“Okay, Granma,” Orion began. “I hope you’re listening because I need help figuring out how to make this science project work. I have to take it to school next week. My fifth grade is in a competition with the fifth grade at Logan. They won last year; we don’t want them to win this year too!
“I have to demonstrate that sometimes water is thicker than other times. How can I do that? I have to finish my math now, so I can’t think about it until later.”
That night, while he was sleeping, Orion dreamed of his granma. She was holding a picture his uncle had taken on a trip to Israel. One of the places where he stopped was the Dead Sea. He took pictures of people floating on top of the water. “The water is so full of salt and other chemicals, you can’t sink in it,” he heard his Granma say. That was the last dream Orion had just before he woke up.
“Wow!” Orion said, half asleep. “Thanks, Granma. I need to remember that. Salt!” And turned over in bed. Then his brain began to wake up.
“GRANMA!” Orion sat up in bed and exclaimed. He was fully awake now! “You told me! WOW! You really did! Wow!” He rushed down to the kitchen.
“How much salt? Do we have any eggs? Where’s the salt? Does the color of the egg matter?” These, and many other questions ran through his mind as he began to search in the kitchen.
“Are you fixing breakfast today?” His mother asked as she came into the room.
“Oh. Hi, mom. No,” he answered as he looked in a cupboard. “Where’s the salt? A lot of salt.”
“The salt is with the flour and other baking supplies in that cupboard,” she pointed.
“Oh. Thanks. How much would I need?” He asked.
“How much salt do you need for what?”
“To float an egg.”
“What are you going to float it in?”
“A cup, or bowl, or something…” Orion hadn’t thought that far ahead. Then he remembered and exclaimed, “Granma told me!” He whirled around facing his mother. “Granma came to me in a dream and she had one of Uncle Lennert’s pictures from his trip to Israel, when he went to the Dead Sea and said it was so salty you couldn’t sink!” The words tumbled out so fast his mother had to sort them out in her head. He was clearly excited. “Granma told me!”
“See, I thought she might be a good person to ask.”
“Yeah. Wow!” Orion shook his head in amazement.
“You might want a bowl or glass that can hold enough water so the floating egg will be obvious. And, maybe you’ll want a second egg, on that sinks to show the difference between the two.”
“Yeah. That’s great, Mom.” He went to get two clear glasses that eggs would fit easily into, then resumed looking for the salt.
“How much salt will I need?”
“Why don’t you experiment? Try one teaspoon and see what happens.”
Orion did that, stirring the salt so it would melt. The egg went nearly to the bottom of the glass, sort of floating.
“I need more,” he concluded as his mother nodded in agreement.
He put in a second amount and stirred to dissolve that. This time the egg floated in the middle of the glass.
“AWESOME!” He exclaimed. “This is it!”