A Practicing Story

            Clara was a happy girl. She lived with two parents that she liked very much, and she had a dog and cat that she played with every day. Next door was a red house, and that’s where her friend Jimmy lived. Clara and Jimmy liked to play games together after school. One day they found two big buckets in Jimmy’s garage. Jimmy said, “Let’s play a game. Let’s take these buckets and try to fill them up with water. But let’s make it hard—let’s try to fill the buckets up with one drop of water at a time.”

            “Okay,” Clara said, “let’s do that.”

            They both set to work, each person putting water into a bucket one drop at a time. But it started to take a really long time, and Clara saw that even though it seemed like she had put a lot of drops into her bucket, there wasn’t very much water in it yet. The bucket was so big! Clara said to Jimmy, “This is taking a long time.”

            “Yeah,” said Jimmy, “it’s taking longer than I thought it would.”

            They both continued to put drops of water into their buckets. The water in the buckets went up a little bit, but not very much. Clara finally decided to give up. “This is impossible,” she said to Jimmy. “These drops are too small to fill the bucket.”

            “Okay,” said Jimmy. “But I’m going to try again tomorrow. I think I can do this.”

            Clara came back over to Jimmy’s house the next day and saw that he had a lot more water in his bucket! “How did you fill that up so fast?” she asked Jimmy.

            “Just one drop at a time,” Jimmy answered.

            Clara put her hands on her hips. “One drop at a time? I think you must have cheated instead.”

            “No,” Jimmy said, “just one drop at a time. Watch, I’ll show you.” Jimmy put more drops of water into the bucket. But it didn’t seem to do very much.

            “I don’t think anything’s happening, Jimmy.”

            “It takes a lot of drops,” he said, “but each drop does a little tiny bit, and when you add them all together, it starts to fill the bucket.” Jimmy had an idea. “Take your bucket home and put water in it every day, and we’ll see who can fill their bucket up first.”

            “Okay,” Clara said. “But that might take weeks!”

            Every day after school, Clara and Jimmy would go home and put drops of water into their buckets. After a few days, they would check and see whose bucket was more full. Jimmy’s bucket was always more full because he had a head start.

            Jimmy knew that he had a head start, and sometimes he would take days off where he wouldn’t fill up his bucket. After all, he thought, Clara still had some catching up to do. Clara made sure that every day after school she filled up her bucket a little more, because she had to catch up to Jimmy!

            One day they checked to see whose bucket was more full, and they both were surprised to find that Clara’s bucket was more full! Jimmy thought that Clara had cheated. “No,” said Clara, “I just put in a little every day and didn’t miss a day.”

            Jimmy knew that he had to catch up to Clara now, but every now and then he would take a day off and do something else. After a while, Clara finally filled up her bucket, and she ran to tell Jimmy. Clara was really proud of herself!

            “Wow, Clara,” Jimmy said, “good for you! And you were the one who said it would be impossible!”

            “Not impossible,” Clara said happily. “Just a few drops at a time, every day.”

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