After another warm trek across the campus between the food building and the kindergarten building, we stopped in the playground outside, and Mr. Pony closed and locked the gate behind us.

"Alright, you lot, it's time for recess now. Hopefully, the healthy changes that you've made to your diets over the past two days give you more energy to run around and be youthful in this day and age! If you need me, I'll be on the bench again, reading."

It seemed like the collective class was holding their breath before we all took off running to our different destinations on the playground. That was, until Randy spoke up. "Aren't you forgetting something, Mr. Pony?" it sounded like he was about to cough when he pronounced the 'r' noises in 'aren't' and 'forgetting'. The whole class flinched. Well, most of them did, besides the more stoic ones of the bunch.

"Ooh, that's right," said Mr. Pony, putting one of their hands to their cheek, the one on their face. "I nearly forgot with all that delicious, healthy food I ate for lunch!" it was clear that they were only saying that as a way of advertising Operation: Nutrition to the children. "But yeah. Owen, you're going to have to spend this recess period inside."

"Aww," said Owen, looking a bit dismayed as he trudged towards the door. I almost felt kinda bad for him until I remembered the totally ridiculous reason he had gotten in trouble to begin with. Of all the people to pick on, it wasn't a very smart move to go after Mr. Pony' assistant.

"Hmph." muttered Jeremy, crossing his arms with an attitude. "Teacher's pet."

Randy turned to face him. "If you want, you can join him inside." he threatened. "I'll tell Mr. Pony you were calling me names."

Jeremy stared down Randy's elegantly eyelashed, ice blue eyes with his tired, dark brown eyes for a second before turning around and walking away. "It's not worth the trouble," he said.

"That's what I thought," goaded Randy haughtily. Having asserted his dominance over both Owen and Jeremy by this point, he began walking towards the cuckoo's tower. The rest of the class had mostly dispersed by this point as well, aside from William and Kristy, who had stayed to watch the conflict. I turned to them.

"Man, he's really let that power go to his head," remarked Kristy, putting a gloved hand to her chin thoughtfully.

"Yeah," agreed William, exhaling in relief. "I wouldn't want to get on his bad side, that's for sure."

"Almost makes you wonder why Owen does it," I joked, and they laughed along with me. "I also wonder if he'll stop, now that he's spending recess inside." We all glanced through the windows to see a relatively unbothered looking Owen sitting at the quiet coloring table.

"I kinda hope not," admitted Kristy, before putting her hands on her hips and laughing confidently, "cause at least he keeps things interesting around here!"

"Well, anyways," said William, "I'm off to the swingset since it's the first time it's been open so far. I'll catch you guys later." He took off.

"We should probably get going to help Eli and Jenny too," I said to Kristy. "They're probably already setting up at the sandbox." She nodded, and we headed off in that direction. When we arrived at the sandbox, we noticed that Eli had already assembled some diggers and dump trucks around the hole in the ground, and Jenny had put some support sticks around as well.

"O-okay, everyone. Are we r-ready to begin?" asked Eli once we had all gathered. We all nodded to confirm.

"What do you want us all to do?" I asked.

Eli adjusted his helmet and cleared his throat. "I'll need at least one person to stay here and help with the digging and installing the branches, and if the rest could gather more branches for the bigger tunnel, that would be great," he responded.

"Kristy and I can help with the digging," inputted Jenny. "Jordan, why don't you go find some more branches? You… do remember where you got them last time, right?"

"Uh, of course," I replied, a little caught off guard by the question. That's right, I remembered. These people still think that I had amnesia. "I'll go get some more now." I made an awkward heel-face turn and marched off in the opposite direction. For some reason, I felt like they had tricked me, but I couldn't be sure. As I was walking, I imagined what the tunnel might be like when it was completed. Eli seemed to have some big plans for it, if he was going to make it go from one part of the playground to the other, I wondered if he was going to make it into a whole network to connect the entire playground, or even the whole school. For some reason, I felt like Eli could do something like that if he really put his mind to it.

I was so absorbed deep in my thoughts that I almost didn't notice the white rubber ball that whizzed in front of my face, bounced off the brick wall to my left, and flew backwards. I had a delayed reaction and jumped backward, making a noise that sounded like a mix between Hank Hill and Kermit the Frog.

"Careful," said a voice. "Don't want you to get hit." I turned my head towards the source of the raw efficiency of the ball. One of his hands grasping it quite tightly, and the other extending into an arm that led to the rest of his body through the long sleeve of his camo shirt, was Jeremy. His tired eyes seemed to watch me intensely as I approached him.

"What is that?" I asked, gesturing to the ball he was holding. "Where did you get it?"

"This?" he asked, holding out the ball in his right hand.

"Yeah," I said.

"It's a lacrosse ball. It's mine, I got it from my bag in my cubby."

"Why do you have a lacrosse ball?" I asked surreptuously, although I wasn't sure that was a real word.

"Cause I play lacrosse," he replied, tossing and catching the ball without looking at it.

I smiled and sweated slightly embarrasedly, while extending my hand as if to offer an alternative point of view. "Don't you need a lacrosse stick to play lacrosse?"

"Well, yeah," he admitted, kicking the dirt a little bit. "I'm only playing wall ball with it right now. My parents, uh, wouldn't let me bring my lacrosse stick to school."

I put my hand over my nose and mouth. "That makes sense," I said out loud for some reason. "Something as big and unweildly as a lacrosse stick would be a real inconvenience to carry around."

"It's not that," he said. "I'd be fine with carrying around my own lacrosse stick if I was allowed to bring it to school. But it's just my parents are all like, 'Jeremy, you only want to play lacrosse so you can hit people with sticks. If we let you bring one to school there's no telling what kind of trouble you could get in.'"

I winced. "Ouch," I said. Then, I tried to be empathetic. "At the very least, I know what it's like to have parents that aren't supportive. I want to be a dentist when I grow up, but they say that's not worth it and I should be a stamp collector instead."

Jeremy slouched his shoulders as his tired eyes bored into me. "That sounds made up. Are you making fun of me?"

I immediately felt bad. "No, as weird as it sounds, I promise it's real," I tried to reassure him. "My parents really do want me to be a stamp collector instead of a dentist."

Jeremy scratched his buzz-cut head. "But why? That seems backwards."

"I don't really know," I replied, "They tell me that if I complete my stamp collection, I can sell it when I get older and make a lot of money."

"Doesn't being a dentist also make you a lot of money?" asked Jeremy confusedly.

"That's what I thought too," I said, "So if that's why they want me to be a stamp collector, I don't know why they're so opposed to me being a dentist." I felt like I had had this conversation before, like a strange sense of Déjà vu. I'd just been in this place before.

"Anyways," transitioned Jeremy, "what are you up to during recess? Not very many other people come by this wall ball part."

"Well, don't take this the wrong way," I forewarned, dancing around the topic lightly, "But I'm actually looking for sticks. Not lacrosse sticks, but like tree branches. They're supposed to fall from a tree around here. Eli told me to look for them."

"Oh, does he need them for his tunnel?" asked Jeremy, bouncing the lacrosse ball off the wall and catching it.

I closed the distance between the pile of sticks on the ground near the rock. "How do you know about the tunnel?" I asked. "I thought only the people working on it knew about it."

"Bro, I sit across from Eli in class," explained Jeremy, turning to glance towards me and catching the ball without looking. "If anyone knows about that thing, it's me and Rachel, cause he never shuts up about it."

"Are you not interested in helping out with it then?" I asked, bending down to pick up some sticks and looking up awkwardly at Jeremy through my little spectacles.

"Nah, not really," said Jeremy. "I don't see the point of it."

"What do you mean?" I was now carrying a bundle of sticks with one hand, and grasping at more sticks on the ground with the other hand.

"Like, if the tunnel just goes somewhere else in the playground, what's the point of going through the tunnel if you can just go above ground?"

"I don't know," I said. I thought, but I couldn't put my hand over my nose and my mouth because both of them were now chock full of sticks. "Because it's cool, I guess? That's why I'm helping out with it."

"Huh, all right then," he said, flicking his wrist and throwing the ball at the wall like a bullet. It ricocheted off the brick wall of the kindergarten building and bounced back like Big Sean. He caught it while looking at me. "Guess we don't see eye to eye then, hah." he waited for me to walk past him before continuing to throw his lacrosse ball against the wall and catch it in his hands. A few feet away from him, I stopped to think.

"Hey, Jeremy," I asked, "What if we used one of these branches here to make you a lacrosse stick you could use at school?"

"That wouldn't work," canceled Jeremy without even looking at me. "You'd need a net for it too, and even then it probably wouldn't be straight enough to use."

"Are you sure?" I asked him. "If your parents won't let you have one, it's gotta be better than nothing."

Jeremy caught his ball suddenly and turned towards me. "It's not that my parents won't let me have a lacrosse stick. It's that they won't let me bring it to school. I have a lacrosse stick," he insisted. His tone of voice made it sound like I really shouldn't argue with him about this.

"Oh, okay then," I said, a bit unconfidently, backing off a bit. "Well, uh, if you ever change your mind, let me know, and I'll see what we can do to help." I edged away from Jeremy slowly before taking off across the playground to return back to the tunnel.

When I arrived there, the sandbox was deserted. I looked around briefly before dropping my bundles of sticks on the ground in an unorganized fashion. "Hello?" I asked. "Eli? Jenny? Kristy? Where is everyone?"

I approached the opening to the tunnel. "Are you in there?" I looked down, apprehensive eyes waiting to see the sight that I saw below.

"Hey there, brother!" Kristy popped out of the mouth of the tunnel, startling me a little bit, but not enough to make me make the noise that sounded like a mix of Hank Hill and Kermit the Frog.

"Kristy!" I said. "You scared me a little."

"Aw, sorry brother," she said. "But you should really take a look down here. We made some serious progress!" I followed her into the tunnel. She was right – although it was very cramped, there was enough room for the four of us to all fit down there, along with a few toy diggers and dump trucks. And although it was dark, the light shone from the entrance and the lamp on Eli's helmet.

"Wow, this is impressive," I remarked.

"Thanks," responded Eli, adjusting his helmet and causing the light beam to swing wildly. "But I couldn't have done it without their help." he motioned to Jenny and Kristy. "By the way, did you find any more branches we can use? We've got this main entrance area supported so far, but we'll need more if we want the tunnel to reach the other side of the playground."

I lifted my hand slightly as if to offer an alternative point of view. "I got several of them. They're all outside the tunnel, here, I can get out and slide them to you."

"Right." In his element, Eli was absolutely beaming. He looked like such a wholesome boi. "I'll continue digging and setting the supports up. The rest of you, just pass them to me as we go along. We'll be able to make some fast progress this way!"

I crawled back out the entrance, and turned around to look back into the tunnel. In there, I could see Eli, Jenny, and Kristy looking back at me.

"Well?" asked Jenny. "What are you waiting for?"

"Sorry," I responded, snapping back to reality. "I was just thinking about something." I began sliding the sticks into the tunnel entrance, where they were graciously received by Jenny. She passed them to Kristy, who eventually passed them along to Eli, digging away at the wall of sand and dirt with his toy digger and a green plastic shovel. Once he had proceeded far enough into the tunnel, he set up a support structure using some of the sticks. For the few minutes that followed, during these exchanges, I felt like a mindless cog in a well oiled machine. The sun beat down on my back and sweat dripped down my brow, the droplets splattering on my spectacles. I toiled. After a measureless amount of time, the WATCH tower bell donged from across the street. I wiped my brown and raised my narrowed eyes to look upward towards its big clock. This made my eyelashes look especially luxurious, though not as luxurious as Randy's.

"Hey, that's the bell," I called into the tunnel. "Recess is ending soon."

"For real?" asked Kristy from behind Jenny. "Aw man, and just when I was starting to get into a groove, too."

Eli turned around from the digger, both his head lamp and his safety goggles on underneath his helmet. "Well, that's that then, I guess. Thanks for the help today, you three."

"Yeah, definitely," responded Kristy. "This is almost as much fun as busting ghosts!"

"Ah, heh heh," chucked Eli to himself. "I wouldn't really know much about that, but thanks."

"Maybe we can get more people to help out tomorrow," suggested Jenny, extending a hand to help Kristy out of the tunnel. Eli was sure soon to follow.

"Y-yeah, that would be a g-good idea," said Eli, adjusting his helmet again. "I'll t-talk to a few p-eople tomorrow and s-see if anyone else is i-interested."

As a group of four, we started heading back towards the entrance of the kindergarten building. All of a sudden, a thought crossed my mind. "Hey, Eli," I asked.

"Y-yeah? What's up, J-jordan?" he asked, a little apprehensive about a question he had not prepared to answer ahead of time.

"I was actually talking with Jeremy earlier," I brought up, "and he mentioned that his parents wouldn't let him bring his lacrosse stick to school. Is there any chance you could make one out of one of the branches I gathered?"

Eli thought for a moment, standing still as Jenny and Kristy walked farther in front of him. "Hmm…" he thought, putting his hand to his chin. "T-that seems a l-little bit out of my a-area of e-expertise. I'm a c-construction worker, you know? I b-build buildings and c-construct structures. I d-don't know if I'd b-be able to m-make a l-lacrosse stick."

Although it didn't affect me much, I was a bit disheartened on behalf of Jeremy. "Aww," I replied. "That's all right though. I just thought I'd ask anyways."

"Y-yeah, it's not a p-problem," reassured Eli. "Uh, b-by the way, isn't e-everyone waiting for the l-line leader?"

I blinked and turned my head away from him to look towards the entrance to the kindergarten building. "Yeah, I guess you're right," I concluded, after noticing the leaderless clump of kindergarteners standing near Mr. Pony outside of the entrance. "We better catch up to everyone else. Come on, let's go!" I jogged over to the crowd of people, with Eli close behind me.