Cash Purlee can tell you things about owl digestion that most adults don't know.

The Tri-Valley fifth grader recently finished a dissection unit in Mrs. Lord's science class, where every student received a foil-wrapped owl pellet — a compact mass of fur, bones, and undigested material that owls regurgitate after feeding. Each student got tweezers, a magnifying glass, gloves, and small tools to pick through the contents and catalog what they found.

Cash's hands were too big for the gloves. So he spent the first couple of days going bare-handed.

"It smelled kind of like a mixture of bones and dirt and soily stuff," he said.

He loved it.

He can tell you that mouse skulls are the most common find, that bird remains are rare, and that finding a skull and jaw still intact is rarer still because digestion breaks them apart. He knows the pellets are about the size of a thumb. And he has a theory about why owls expel bones through the mouth rather than the other end: "It's filled with hard stuff and sharp objects," he reasoned. "It's very large."

What makes the story better is that Cash had already found an owl pellet in the wild, on a walk near his neighborhood, before the unit ever started. He saw something on the ground with bones poking out of it. He stabbed it with a stick and picked it up.

"I honestly thought I was looking at poop," he said.

It wasn't until Mrs. Lord's class that he realized what he'd actually been holding. He lives near Tanglewood, close enough to the country that barn owls and great horned owls are regular visitors.

Cash likes reading and loves creative writing — he comes up with scenarios in his head and turns them into stories. He keeps most of his writing private. "I don't really like other people seeing my writing," he said. Math is not his thing. Science, he rates at "like a 75%." He used math to score how he feels about science, which prompted him to clarify: "I do not like math."

He's joining flag football this year. He has three brothers. Chase is sixteen. Neo is five — "crazier than ever," Cash reports. And Ryder, who passed away from leukemia at nine months old. Cash wears a bracelet that keeps Ryder close.

When asked what he might want to do when he grows up, Cash said he tends not to think about it. Then he started talking about his dad.

His father raced in the NMRA — the National Mustang Racing Association. He had a red fox-body Mustang with two white stripes that they called Candy Cane. She was fast — four seconds on the eighth-mile. He had to stop racing after being diagnosed with melanoma. He's on Stage 4 now.

Cash talked about all of it plainly, without drama, just as part of what is.

"I might race to see what he went through when he was racing," he said.

He and Chase are already thinking about rebuilding a Corvette they got in a trade — somewhere between a 2005 and 2011, turbocharged, possibly a big block. They haven't been out to see it in a while, but the plan is there.

When asked what he loves about Tri-Valley, Cash didn't hesitate: "It's amazing." Then he started naming people. Mrs. Lord, who teaches the two subjects he cares least about — science and math — and is somehow still one of his favorite teachers. Ms. Burnett, the principal, who's overseeing a summer renovation. The custodians, who make food and clean up after everyone. The bus drivers.

"The staff is amazing," he said.

Not every fifth grader catalogs the people who keep a building running. Cash does. He sees the custodians. He sees the bus driver who greets him in the morning. He sees the principal planning improvements he won't even be around to enjoy.

He also sees owl pellets on the ground that other people walk past. He picks them up with a stick. He looks closer. He wants to know what's inside.

That's Cash.