Operation Yes by Sara Lewis Holmes

to bother you,” Miss Candy said, still staring at the couch, “but do you still want your students to be Reading Buddies for a first-grade class?”
    â€œOf course,” Miss Loupe replied.
    â€œGood. I’ve got you paired with Mr. Nix. I was going to wait until next month, but he’s breathing down my neck!”
    She stroked the arm of the Ugly, Ugly Couch.
    â€œI guess you’re using this?” she said. “It would look greattucked under the Reading Castle I’m building. Have you seen it? I could cover this with some purple fabric and …”
    â€œSorry, I have further plans for it,” Miss Loupe said. “But we’ll be glad to invite our Buddies to come read on it one day.”
    â€œGood,” Miss Candy said. “They’ll like that. I’m starting a book club, if any of you want to join. Details will be in the next issue of The Candy-Gram !”
    She popped out the door. Then she stuck her head back in.
    â€œHave you started your report yet?” she said to Miss Loupe.
    Miss Loupe shook her head. She patted the large stack of paper. “My class is going to help me this week.”
    Miss Candy nodded and left. After the door closed behind her, Miss Loupe put down her math book and reached into her desk drawer. She brought out another picture frame.
    â€œRemember how I told you that I dropped out of the Academy? Well, that makes me the only person in my family not in the military.”
    As she talked, she let them pass the second frame around the room.
    â€œMy older sister flies C-130s for the Air Force. She’s stationed in Japan. My younger brother is in his third year at the Air Force Academy. And as I told you, Marc joined the Army Special Forces. He’s been in Afghanistan, near Kandahar, for several months now.”
    As each member of Room 208 held the frame, they could see that it held a handwritten quote on lined notebook paper. They could also see that there was a long crack in the glass, from edge to edge.
    The words said:
    Â 
    There is a crack, a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
    Â 
    â€œIt’s from a song,” Miss Loupe explained. “One of Marc’s favorites. He sent this to me after I left the Academy and moved to California. He says the glass wasn’t cracked when he mailed it, but I think it was.” She smiled. “He also swears he didn’t let my cat, Nachos, eat a whole bottle of salsa during the Super Bowl, but that stain on the couch says he did.”
    The frame had made it to the back row, where Trey was studying it.
    â€œBut why?” asked Allison. “Why did he send it?”
    â€œI guess you could say that my dropping out of the Academy caused a crack in my family,” said Miss Loupe. “Mostly with my dad. I didn’t want that to happen, but it did. Marc was trying to tell me that cracks are painful, but they can bring good things too.”
    Allison looked at Marc’s picture on Miss Loupe’s desk. Cute and nice, she thought.
    Miss Loupe drew a flat, teardrop-shaped brass object from the neck of her canary-yellow shirt. It was attached to a slender chain.
    â€œMarc also sent me this. Does anyone know what it is?” No one said anything. “My name, Loupe, is a French word that means ‘imperfect gem.’ This —”
    She pressed her fingernail into a notch on the teardrop, causinga glass oval to swing out from inside the brass casing on a tiny hinge.
    â€œThis is also a loupe. ‘Loupe, with a little l,’ Marc calls it. It’s a special magnifying glass for detecting imperfections.”
    She walked back to Bo, who had just taken the frame from Trey. She placed the lens in front of his eye. “Look at Marc’s note. What do you see?”
    Bo hesitated. “Black lines?”
    â€œYes, that’s the pen ink. What else?”
    â€œString? Or hair or something …”
    â€œThose are the