Recess

There are always new games at recess. At the beginning of the year it was Hot Potato, which achieved celebrity status. Then they just dropped the game, like a...... like a......

Anyway, then it was Ripstiks, then Zombie Tag, then Ice Crackers; lately Sharks and Minnows.

Another recent game involves a designated show-runner throwing a ball into (or over) a crowd of bated-breath children and calling out a number and either 'Dead' or 'Alive'. Everyone runs after the ball and the person who manages to seize it gets the points and, well, I don't know what 'Dead' and 'Alive' mean in this context.

Taylor hurled a high throw on Tuesday that lodged the ball in the crook of a branch a solid twenty feet off the ground. Gabe and Evan were throwing footballs at it. Someone was shaking the tree. Isobel kept walking over to the tree with progressively longer branches gathered from the forest floor. Finally she found a huge misshapen one that looked to be long enough, but she was not steady on her feet, tottering around at first like a Scotsman with a caber.

No fewer than six other kids joined her at the base of the tree, all crowded around and hanging onto that unwieldy branch: Jonathan, Jianmarco, Trent, Lev, Saul, Evan and Taylor, who served as crew chief. They poked at the ball, making contact several times to no avail, until they finally popped it out of the tree. A roaring cheer arose. Then it was time to go inside.