The One Thing You'd Save

A class of young students receives an unusual homework assignment from their teacher, Ms. Chang. She asks them to imagine their home is on fire and to choose just one thing they would save. Family members and pets are already safe, and the object can be any size. The book, a collection of interconnected poems written in multiple first-person voices and structured around the syllabic patterns of sijo, an ancient form of Korean poetry, unfolds as student after student reveals a choice that exposes what matters most to each of them.

The first student narrator is excited by the assignment, mentions a nana with arthritis and a friend named May, then quickly chooses a phone, reasoning it would be necessary to call friends and 9-1-1. A second student finds the exercise agonizing, unable to choose among beloved books, graphic novels, manga, and science titles. The difficulty of narrowing everything down to a single object becomes a recurring tension throughout the discussion.

Before the classroom conversation begins, May talks privately with a friend about her choice: an ugly blue cardigan. Her friend reacts with disbelief, arguing that a phone is more practical because its data is backed up in the cloud. May counters with a principle that shapes much of what follows. One grandmother has died, and the other's eyesight has deteriorated too much for her to knit. The sweater can never be replaced, and May insists that irreplaceable things are exactly what a person should save.

Ms. Chang opens the in-class discussion by reminding students to be respectful and stressing that in an actual fire they should simply get out safely. Ron speaks first, raising the question of whether the fire occurs during the day or at night. By day, he would grab a program from a Mets-Cubs game signed by Pete Alonso; at night, he would need his glasses from the bedside table. Another student chooses a sketchbook, explaining a passion for drawing dragons and noting the chance to sketch the fire itself. A more pragmatic classmate declares the obvious answer: a father's wallet, because after a fire people need money.

When May speaks in class, she reveals the sweater's fuller history. Her grandmother originally knitted it for May's father, who wore it until it fell apart. May's other grandmother unraveled the worn-out yarn and knitted a new sweater for May. Wearing it feels as though all three family members are keeping her warm at once.

Sandra anticipates that her best friend Natalie will choose a collection of china animals that come free inside boxes of tea. Sandra recounts the effort behind one particular figurine, a tiny kitten: She had to open four boxes of tea at a grocery store, was caught and scolded by the manager, and had to buy all four boxes for $12. She buried the kitten in a large box of tea bags, and Natalie screamed with happiness when she dug through them and found it.

Not every response is sentimental. One student flatly rejects the exercise, saying the family home is worthless and burning it down would be welcome. Another proudly selects a second-place plaque from the District Science Fair, earned after six months of collecting 100 meteorites from gutter runoff soil with classmates Shareen and Carly, proving that street dirt contains fragments from real stars.

A brief conflict arises when a student named Jay agonizes over choosing between books and game cards. Classmates tease him for still caring about cards, calling them childish, until Ms. Chang intervenes by prompting the class motto: "We protect, affect, respect one another" (23). Natalie then presents her choice: 93 china animals gathered over six years, organized into sets of farm, dog, zoo, and endangered-species figurines. Her favorite is a Siamese cat Sandra gave her. Ms. Chang rules that a collection counts as one thing.

An unnamed student tells a parallel version of Ron's baseball story. This student arrived early with Ron to watch batting practice and spotted Pete Alonso first, running to the railing with a program held out. Ron caught up and pushed his own program forward; Alonso signed Ron's but kept walking. Ron's autograph, signed in pen rather than marker, is already fading. Yet as the narrator called out, Alonso looked back and smiled directly at the student. The narrator would save the unsigned program because the memory of that eye contact can never fade, unlike ink on paper.

Charles explains he would save his bedroom rug so he can use it to smother flames on anyone who escapes the building on fire, worrying specifically about Mr. Richards, an elderly, slow-moving neighbor. When a classmate dismisses heroism as something that only happens in movies, Charles insists he wants to be ready. Another student selects sneakers, the same model basketball player Jeremy Lin wore when he scored 38 points against the Lakers. The sneakers represent months of disciplined saving, during which the student refused to buy anything until accumulating enough money.

Two students offer deeply personal responses. One describes finding a perfect, unbroken shell at the ocean and keeping it in a pocket, tracing its spiral whenever life feels difficult because the memory of the waves helps wash out some of the bad thoughts. Another student, who has actually survived a real fire, reframes the entire exercise with a firsthand account of smoke curling under a door, crawling to a window, and hanging from a jammed fire-escape ladder while a mother screamed below. A neighbor told the student to let go; the student fell three floors, was only partially caught, and still carries scars. The conclusion is stark: In a real fire, the only thing worth saving is your own life.

Other choices range from practical to quietly devastating. One student picks a laptop, calling it "the whole universe on a thirteen-inch screen" (43). Sophia selects a small box from her mother's nightstand containing a curl of brown hair and tiny nail clippings belonging to her brother Anthony, who died from a heart condition. Sophia was only four when he died and barely remembers him, but her mother still cries. She wants to keep Anthony safe from the fire. Another student chooses a mother's insulin kit, explaining that remembering it is always the student's responsibility.

After hearing Sophia's story, one student hesitates, feeling that losing a pet cannot compare to losing a sibling. The student misses a dog named Prince, a black dog with white patches who always waited at the window. The student decides to speak up anyway and chooses Prince's collar because it still carries his scent.

Jay ultimately declares he would save his entire bookcase, arguing it counts as one thing just as Natalie's collection does. The bookcase holds books, game cards, comics, and a snake skeleton with 318 bones that Jay wired together himself. A classmate named Kai objects that a bookcase of assorted items is not the same as a single collection, but Ms. Chang allows it, saying the exercise is meant to be fun. Johanna then shares that May's sweater story made her think of an old photograph of her grandmother and abuelo (grandfather), taken before they were married. She feels she should save the irreplaceable photo but admits she would realistically grab her phone. Charles suggests she photograph the old picture with her phone, and Johanna calls him a genius.

Ms. Chang reveals her own choice. She initially planned to save a box of 18 grade books containing class pictures and every student's name from her career, but she decides the books are just paper; she does not need them to remember her students because they are unforgettable. Her revised choice is a philodendron, a houseplant grown from a cutting of her mother's plant, which itself grew from a cutting of her grandmother's plant. Students Ty and Shareen observe that Ms. Chang's plant connects to May's sweater and Johanna's photo, since all three objects link multiple generations. Ms. Chang praises their observations as "astute and profound" (58), then defines the words when a classmate asks what they mean, confirming that the students themselves changed her mind. The discussion closes warmly as classmates ask Jay to bring his snake skeleton to school. Surprised by the interest, Jay agrees.