By Fitz-James O'Brien
ReadOasis Step 3
(Part 1)

When I was ten years old, one of my older cousins gave me a microscope. The first time I looked through its magic lens, the clouds that surrounded my daily life rolled away. I saw many tiny living creatures in a drop of water. Day after day, night after night, I studied life under my microscope.

Fungus spoiled my mother’s jam. But it was, for me, a land of magic gardens. I would put one of those spots of green mold under my microscope, and then I...