A boy holds a notebook and stands next to a girl with crossed arms amid a group of students

Art by Vivienne To

Fiction,

Find a Buddy

The last person Taryn wants to be with on her field trip is Wes. What will it take to change her mind?

By Monique D. Hall

From the September 2026 Issue

Learning Objective: Students will analyze how a character changes in a work of realistic fiction.

Lexile: 600L-700L

Featured Skill: Character,

Standards

Find a Buddy

Taryn took a bathroom break. That’s all. She left for five minutes and returned to class to find that her entire life had fallen apart! And all because her teacher, Mrs. Hilliard, had said three little words while Taryn was washing her hands.

“Find a buddy.”

It was the first week of fourth grade, and Taryn’s class would be going on a field trip to the Historic Downtown Museum. The museum was full of exhibits showing what life was like 150 years ago. On the trip, the fourth-graders would work in pairs to complete a scavenger hunt. The goal was for each student to get to know their buddywhile also learning more about their community’s history.

When Taryn returned to the classroom, each of her classmates was paired up.

“Oh, Taryn! I forgot you were out of the room,” Mrs. Hilliard apologized. “But, thankfully, our class has an even number of students! Who doesn’t have a buddy yet?”

At the back of the class, a hand shot up and an excited voice said, “Me!”

Taryn should’ve known.

“Ah, Wesley! You and Taryn will be field trip buddies.”

Taryn was sure she heard some of her classmates laugh. She glued on a polite smile, but inside, she wanted to scream.

Left Out

“Wes! I have to be buddies with Wes?!” Taryn whined to her two best friends, Amala and Quinn, at lunch.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Amala said, trying to cheer her up.

“Yeah! You might have . . . fun?” Quinn added, clearly not believing what she was saying.

“Easy for you to say. You two have each other as buddies.”

It was hard not to feel resentful. Why did her two best friends pick each other while she was in the bathroom? If Taryn was being honest, she felt a little left out. And worried. Worried that Amala and Quinn would grow closer on the trip without her.

Taryn looked around the cafeteria and spotted Wes eating lunch by himself. He was happily flipping through a book as thick as a dictionary.

“You’re going to have so much fun together, and I’m going to be stuck with the boy who watches history documentaries for fun and only eats plain yogurt! Not even vanilla. Plain!”

Taryn sighed loudly and put her head down on the lunch table.

The Hunt Begins

On the day of the field trip, Taryn had to sit next to Wes on the bus. She would have much rather sat with Amala and Quinn, but Mrs. Hilliard had asked that buddies stick together.

“Class! It’s very important that you stay with your buddy as you explore the exhibits. You and your buddy will have to put your heads together to complete the scavenger hunt.”

At this statement, Wes playfully leaned his head toward Taryn’s. “Let’s put our heads together and have fun, buddy!”

All Taryn could say was “Uh-huh.”

As they exited the bus, Mrs. Hilliard handed Wes the scavenger list and a map of the museum. Taryn was curious to see all the old-timey things inside. But her excitement faded when she thought about who she had to explore the museum with—not her best friends, just Wes.

She looked at the scavenger list over Wes’s shoulder and saw that the first item was a fancy little glass jar with a metal lid.

“We should go to the exhibit about kitchens. That looks like a fancy saltshaker,” Taryn said.

Wes shook his head. “Nope, we need to get to the exhibit about books and letters.”

“Wes, why would a saltshaker be in a book exhibit?”

“Because it’s not a saltshaker! Trust me. C’mon!”

Wes led Taryn down a narrow hallway and into a room filled with hundreds of books. In the center of the room was a large wooden desk with paper and envelopes laid on it.

“If that little jar is in this room, why isn’t anyone else from our class in here?” Taryn asked.

“Probably ’cause they’ve never seen an inkwell before,” Wes said matter-of-factly.

“A what?”

But before Wes could answer, he shouted, “There it is!”

He held up the scavenger list with the photo of a little glass jar with a metal lid and, sure enough, it matched the one on the desk.

“Back before pens had ink in them, people had to dip them in ink to be able to write stuff. An inkwell held the ink. I learned about them in a documentary.”

“Oh! That’s . . . kinda cool,” Taryn said.

“What’s next on the list?” Wes asked.

Against the Rules

Over the next hour, Taryn and Wes zoomed through most of the items on the list. Taryn wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, but she was having fun. Wes seemed to know everything about life in the late 1800s and loved to share interesting facts with Taryn.

As the two headed up a staircase to the museum’s second floor, Taryn spotted Amala and Quinn. Her friends were laughing about something she didn’t hear.

“Hey, Wes, mind if we join my besties for the rest of the scavenger hunt?” Taryn asked.

“But we’re doing so well by ourselves,” Wes replied, sounding disappointed.

“The more the merrier, right?”

“Well . . .”

But Taryn was already walking up to Amala and Quinn.

“Taryn! We missed you!” Quinn squealed, as the three girls hugged.

“I’m so glad you found us!” Amala exclaimed.

Why had Taryn worried about feeling left out? Now they could spend the rest of the field trip together.

“What item should we look for next?” Quinn asked.

But Wes pulled Taryn aside. “Taryn, it’s against the rules to join another team,” Wes said, frustrated. “We’re supposed to finish the scavenger hunt with our buddies.”

“Wes, we’re just field trip buddies. I want to stay with my real buddies! Taryn replied. But as soon as she said those words, she felt bad. She wished she could take them back.

“Fine! I’ll finish the scavenger hunt by myself,” Wes said and stormed out of the room.

Taryn thought about following him, but Amala and Quinn were by her side already.

“Is he OK?” Amala asked.

“I’m not sure . . . Let’s just keep going,” Taryn said. The three friends walked into the next room.

A Great Team

Twenty minutes later, Taryn, Amala, and Quinn arrived at the music exhibit. There, by a grand piano, Wes was speaking with Mrs. Hilliard.

“Oh no! What if he’s telling on me for ditching him? I’ll be in so much trouble,” Taryn said. She whispered a quick goodbye to her friends and rushed over to the piano.

“Oh, and here’s Taryn!” Wes was saying. “Back from the bathroom, like I said.”

He was clearly covering for her.

“Uh yeah, I was in the bathroom! But now I am back,” Taryn confirmed, trying to sound natural.

“Good. Looks like you two have made great progress on the scavenger hunt,” Mrs. Hilliard said, glancing at the paper in Wes’s hand. “I’m impressed!”

“Well, we make a great team,” Wes said, staring coldly at Taryn. “Right, buddy?”

“Right,” Taryn replied, looking down at her sneakers. And with that, Mrs. Hilliard moved on.

“Thanks . . . for not telling on me, Wes,” Taryn said, looking Wes in the eyes.

“Yeah, well, you can go back to your friends now,” Wes said with a tinge of hurt in his voice.

“But I want to finish the scavenger hunt with you . . . if you’ll forgive me for ditching you and being mean,” Taryn said. “I’m sorry.”

Wes thought for a few seconds, then smiled. “OK. I forgive you, buddy.”

Taryn smiled too and looked at the near-complete scavenger list in Wes’s hand.

“We have only one thing left to find,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yep, but I can’t figure it out. It’s this long wooden hammer. I went to the tools exhibit, but it’s not there.”

Taryn looked closely at the picture and gasped. “Wes, I know what this is! It’ll be in the fun and games exhibit in the garden!”

“The garden?”

“Trust me!”

Taryn and Wes dashed out to the exhibit in the garden. It had all kinds of outdoor toys and games that families played with 150 years ago.

“That hammer isn’t a tool. It’s a mallet for this old game my grandparents like to play called croquet (krow-KAY)! You use it to hit a ball.” Taryn pointed to the mallet next to a few small wooden balls.

“Hey! You’re right!” Wes said, excited. “That means we finished the scavenger hunt!”

Wes began doing a silly dance, and Taryn couldn’t help but join in. They danced and laughed.

“We really do make a great team,” Taryn said to Wes with a smile. “Buddy.”

Think & Write

Imagine you’re Taryn. Write a journal entry describing how your feelings about Wes changed during the school field trip. Use details from the story in your writing.