Holly’s Windy Table

Holly was setting a table for a garden drawing club. She spread a cloth over the top and smoothed the corners. A breeze lifted one side. Holly caught it before the pencils rolled away. “I need something to hold this down.”

Uncle brought a large empty cardboard box and a small cloth bag of smooth stones. Holly reached for the box. “That one is bigger,” she said. Uncle put it on the cloth. The breeze pushed it across the table.

“Big does not always mean heavy,” he said. Holly lifted the empty box, then the little bag. The bag felt heavier in her hands. “That surprised me,” she said. “Can we check without just guessing by how they feel?”

Uncle fetched a balance scale with two pans. Holly put the empty box on one pan and the bag on the other. The bag’s pan moved down. The box’s pan went up. They waited until the pans stopped moving.

“The heavier side goes lower,” said Uncle. Holly looked carefully. “The little bag is heavier than the big empty box.” She took both things off the scale and watched the empty pans return to the same height.

They tried again, swapping sides. This time the bag was on the left and the box was on the right. The bag’s side still went down. “Changing sides did not change which one was heavier,” said Holly.

Holly put the closed bag on the windy corner of the cloth. Uncle helped her fasten the other corners with clips. The bag stayed put and the cloth stopped flapping. Holly brought out the paper and the pencils.

Her friends arrived with drawings to show. Nobody’s paper blew away. Holly left the big box beneath the table for collecting scraps. It was useful after all—just not for the job she had first chosen.