Eleven Years of Beetles

(A room full of boxes at the university. The scientist has given Toby and Anika twenty minutes.)

Toby: Okay so, first question. What's your research about?

Scientist: Beetles. Which ones are moving north, and how fast.

Anika: Beetles? That's it?

Scientist: That's it. I've counted them in the same six fields for eleven years.

Toby: Eleven years. Right. Um — what's your role, exactly?

Scientist: I count. I write it down. I wash a lot of small glass bottles.

Anika: But you're a researcher. Don't you discover things?

Scientist: Sometimes. Then I write a report, and another researcher reviews it and tells me everything I got wrong.

Toby: That sounds…

Scientist: Slow. It is.

Anika: Our teacher says your project is part of a national study. Is that true?

Scientist: It is. Forty of us, counting beetles in forty places. A very exciting group, obviously.

Toby: Can we put the beetles in the school paper?

Scientist: Please do.

(Anika writes a title in her notebook: LOCAL RESEARCHER COUNTS BEETLES FOR ELEVEN YEARS.)

Anika: Is that okay?

Scientist: That's the best title anybody's given me.