Corn blocks

Oh — they fell off

The pictures went down flat on the table — a whale, a turtle, a starfish — and the corn blocks went on top of them, one at a time.

“Red. Blue. Yellow.”

Bori was singing the shark song the whole way through it.

Then the whale got picked up to be looked at properly, and every corn block on it came off, one after another, onto the table.

“Oh — they fell off.”

Teacher Yepark touched one onto a wet wipe and pressed it down onto the paper.

That one stayed. So did the next. After a while the whole picture could be lifted up and waved about and nothing came away from it.

“That's lovely, that is.”

“I want to do more.”

Two dabs, that's all

The story that morning had an octopus in it, so an octopus was what got made.

Chaewon held a corn block down on the wet wipe and kept it there.

It came up smaller than it went down. It went back for more water and came up smaller again, and what was left after that was not worth sticking anywhere.

“Try two dabs. Just two, quick ones,” said Teacher Yubok.

Two, then.

After that Chaewon counted them out loud before every single one. One dab. Two dabs. On.

There's no water in it

They had been finding shapes in the animal pictures all morning.

“The fox's face is a triangle.”

Teacher Yepark made a triangle out of her fingers.

“I want to do fingers like that too.”

“The bear's face is a circle. Two circles.”

“Like glasses, those,” said Teacher Yepark, and two circles went up to two eyes.

“I've made glasses.”

Then some of them went off to stick corn blocks onto the shapes they liked best, and one of those came back over.

“There's no water in it, I don't think. It's not sticking.”

The spray bottle came out and went over the corn blocks.

“Let me do it!”

And after that the sticking took a while to get going again, because the spray bottle had to be pumped, and taken apart, and put back in its pot, and taken out again.

“This is fun.”

Taking them off again

The corn blocks had been cut in half beforehand, so that a whole one would not have to be held in a whole hand.

That part worked. They picked them up fine.

“Onto the wipe — one, two, three, press,” said Teacher Yepark, and did it again, and said it again.

What most of them wanted was the other thing. Once a corn block was on the paper it could be pulled back off the paper, and then it could be put on and pulled off again.

So Teacher Yepark held them on the wipe herself, and passed each one over ready to stick, and the sticking happened in between all the unsticking.

It's on my hands

“Soft, isn't it. Squashy,” said Teacher Yepark. “And all different colors.”

They were squeezed for a while before anything else happened to them.

Then Teacher Yepark showed what a bit of water does, and two corn blocks that had nothing to do with each other became one thing.

That got watched very closely. Then it got done — two at a time, then three.

“Green.”

“Yellow.”

“A yellow ant. And now a green and blue and red ant, look.”

Then the water started dissolving them, and what had been a corn block was on their fingers instead.

“Ugh. Ugh!”

“It's on your hands and it doesn't feel nice. Let's finish these and go and wash them.”

Some of them went back to it with their hands like that. Some could not. Those ones went and got washed and came back.

It smells like corn

They wrote their own names on black paper. Most of them could, by now — and then the black paper swallowed the writing.

So the invisible letters got built back up, on top of where they had gone. Cube blocks first, then corn blocks pressed along the lines, until the names stood up off the page.

The cubes stuck without any glue, which took some believing.

And then the corn blocks turned out to smell of something.

“It smells like corn! Now I want to eat corn.”

It won't cut

“Is this one a heart?”

“It is, yes.”

“We did these before!”

Chaewon went along the tub looking at the rest of them.

“There's flower ones too. What are we doing with them?”

“We're decorating winter things with them.”

“I want to do it now!”

The bread knives came out with the corn blocks, with the rule that only corn blocks get cut. They took hold of them like people who had held a knife before, and got on with it.

“This won't cut.”

Teacher Yubok put a hand over the hand that had the knife in it, and they did that one slowly, together.

The cut pieces went onto the wet wipe and then onto the gloves and hats and scarves on the paper.

“Look at this! Look!”

“I brought my gloves in!”

“It snowed this morning. I touched it.”

“Shall we put our gloves on and go and play in it, then?”

The stickers, then

The autumn tree was ready before they were. A paper plate, branches made out of kitchen roll tubes, and the corn blocks cut in half in autumn colors, waiting to be dabbed and pressed on.

Nobody came.

Teacher Yepark put four things out where they could be seen — the corn blocks, cellophane, jewel stickers, colored pencils.

“Which of these would you like to use?”

A finger went out and landed on the jewel stickers.

So the jewel stickers it was, and the tree stayed as it was.

Somebody else picked up a handful of corn blocks and shook them, and then started lifting them towards a mouth, which is a different thing to have to say something about.

Later that week there was a dragonfly on a stick up on the wall, made for the room rather than for them. That one they wanted. It got jewel stickers all over it.

The pointy end

Teacher Yubok was pushing corn blocks onto a wooden skewer to make a kebab, and Chaewon came over to watch and then to do it.

The first one got gripped too hard on the way on. It went flat.

“Why won't it work?”

The second one went on crooked — through the corner instead of the middle, sticking out sideways.

Chaewon looked at it, and then left.

Somebody else took the place at the table. That one could not get them on either, so the skewer went point-down on the floor to be pushed onto instead, and then it got turned round, and then turned round again.

“One end is sharper than the other end,” said Teacher Yubok.

The sharp end went first after that, and they started going on.

Then one got squeezed too hard again and stuck halfway. They worked at it together, and it did not come good, and it got left there and a new one started.

The new one went on with hardly any grip at all. So did every one after that.

You only did a few

There was an igloo printed on paper.

“What is this?”

“It's an igloo. A house made of ice,” said Teacher Yubok.

“An ice house would be cold.”

The decorating basket came over, and the igloo got corn blocks and pencil drawings until it was finished. Then it went up in its place on the wall — next to somebody else's.

“That one's mine, that I decorated.”

“You only did a few. I stuck loads of corn blocks on.”

Brown ones

The poo game needed poo, and the corn blocks come in brown.

“What's this?”

“Brown. And squashy — feel it.”

They got compared to the other colors, and squeezed, and stuck together, and pulled apart, and stuck together again.

Then they stopped sticking, because a corn block only sticks while it is wet enough.

Teacher Yepark brought the spray bottle. After that the water was something to keep an eye on: too little and it fell apart, too much and it went soft on their fingers.

“Again. More.”

They went on making them until there was nowhere left to put any.

Then, at the end, the whole lot got carried over and dropped in the bin, which is where that sort of thing goes.

Chocolate sauce on it

The ice cream shop opened with an apron and a printed till on the wall.

“You press here and the ice cream comes out.”

“Ice creams! Get your ice creams!”

The orders came in from the queue.

“Strawberry, please.”

“Have you got chocolate?”

Chaewon looked through the tub of corn blocks. Yellow, red, green, blue, white.

“Chocolate, please.”

There was a pause over the tub.

“Oh! I know.”

A yellow one came out, and a brown pipe cleaner came off the craft shelf and went over the top of it.

“This one's got chocolate sauce on it.”

“That does look like real chocolate.”

Medicine that makes you feel better

The hospital had been open a while when one of them said what was actually wrong.

“I'm angry, so my heart hurts.”

Which is a different hospital. Corn blocks went into a plastic cup, and the cup was medicine now.

“This one is medicine that makes you feel better.”

“This one is medicine for making up with your friend.”

Then one of them carried a cup over to a friend and held it out.

“Were you upset? Here, take this.”

People's legs hurt if they stand there all day

They had been building a forest in the room for days. Bare branches at first.

“There's loads of flowers outside. This needs some.”

So flowers got drawn and stuck on, and then stag beetles and caterpillars pressed out of clay.

“A forest is somewhere you have to protect, though.”

“That's true, yeah.”

“People throw cigarette ends everywhere, so it needs protecting.”

“And there are people who catch all the animals that live there. That's why.”

“Then this is a forest too, so let's make somebody to protect it.”

They started on a keeper, a ranger — and then hit a problem with the job.

“But people's legs hurt if they stand there all day.”

“Let's make robots instead. Unmanned ones.”

The corn blocks became robots. One had wings on the back so it could get around the forest without tiring. One had a blade on it, for cutting the weeds down when they grew too tall.

What kept it going The problem was never how to build a ranger. It was that a ranger's legs would hurt, and the robots came out of that.