The narrator remembers a science fair she participated in as a child. The projects presented were diverse. One boy weighed mice before and after killing them in order to measure the weight of the soul. Another made an atom smasher. A girl made cookies from Euglena. The narrator rubs the tar of cigarettes into the shaved backs of mice in order to discover the tremulousness of life.

The narrator says she recalled the fair because the dusky seaside sparrow just became extinct, though its cells are frozen at Walt Disney in case it is ever learned how they may be cloned. She concludes by noting that the cookies won the prize.