The heat of the day was already settling in. The sun burned off most of the fog but it still remained trapped in the trees and lower parts of the field. Lydia was running as fast as she could and being chased by nearly half of her classmates. They were all running so fast and hard they didn't have time or breath to yell to each other or to her. Lydia saw a flash of red in the corner of her eye and smiled. She didn't need her lungs to do that. It had worked. Their plan had worked. She kept running and wouldn't stop until she reached the lower left corner of the field where the fog might still be thickest. They had had a good strategy. But not good enough.
Tuck the flag in the densest part of the field with the greatest fog and they wouldn't need to guard their flag like blue team who had used the incline to their advantage. The red team could see their flag but the blue team could see their own flag too. She heard a shout and didn't turn around until the sound of feet started to recede further away. Everyone who had been chasing her had turned and was following Mouse whose little legs carried her like wings over the field. Though she moved quickly, for every two steps she took her peers only had to take one and they were soon right behind her. Lydia ran in the opposite direction. Keeping the bolt of red fabric in her sight.
The sun climbed in the sky and the flag seemed to glow in early if day. There were several more events planned for later and the remainder of the week but it might as well have been a real war, they were all that focused. Streams of blue team started to flood out from behind the trees. Lydia was gaining on them and she leapt over a student that had been knocked out the way and barely dodged another who was mid fall. Blue team had formed a sort of mutating geometry around Mouse. First, a triangle, then a circle, a diamond with her at the front. Lydia felt herself push a red team member out of the way and she was part of the fold. They were on part of the incline where they couldn't see their flag which meant it would soon be right in front of them. They made it to the hill the red team still huffing behind them. Mouse planted the red flag alongside the blue one and someone far away sounded a whistle. Everyone was panting. Blue team, had picked up some of Mouse's great sense of formality straightened up and still panting shook each others hands in turn. Mouse nodded to the red teams captain.
"Well done." she said through huffs of air but standing very straight.
The remainder of the days activities were canceled or neglected by Lydia's class through some fluke of circumstance. Instead, they made their way, both teams of the same class, under a fruiting tree and laybout under the shade alternately staring at the sky, picking fruit off the trees or sitting in quiet contemplation. Lunch rolled around and they ate silently in their own young thoughts strategizing or planning. Stretching or resting. They would do this for the remainder the week. Capture the flag was scheduled for the morning and they neglected the rest of the days scheduled activities. Sometimes they would read from the library take walks along the edge of the enormous field. One might have thought from this that they were all friends, you might have thought, if you caught them in the afternoon that they enjoyed each others company and got along. You would have only had to wait until the morning to find out how untrue that was. Red team vs blue team. However, at the end of that week you might have been right.
If they had been pressed they might have remembered the details of the first game. Neither team made such a dire or obvious mistake ever again. To send all of one team to chase down one person. By the end of the week however what they remembered and even longer after that was only that they had played. They remembered the gathering warmth of the quiet day doing nothing. The faint sound of cheering and whistles from the other classes who were enjoying the games what felt like miles away. They remembered the sweetness of the pears and berries and the cool breeze that crested over the hill from a nearby private manmade lake where they might have swum or done laps had they followed the itinerary. They remembered their teacher also. Lain out in the soft tufted grass napping quietly, her mouth lolled open sometimes, relieved to not have to bake in the heat, correct papers or participate as a referee in the sports events. Lydia and Mouse had come back from a walk around the school and found her just a little ways away from the other students reading and speaking softly so as not to disturb her or the day. Lydia didn't know what to feel or think seeing her teacher this way. Mouse followed her staring and snorted to see their teacher like this. Tacky. She knew she didn't like this woman from the word go. She gently patted Lydia's arm to get her away and in the shade. This was not the place or time to discuss any of this. Besides, they had to plan for their sleepover later, not worry about their teacher who looked dead. If Lydia had been older, she would have kicked a clod of dirt into her sleeping face but she wasn't. She was a child. To see her teacher like this, she wondered how she could have ever been afraid of her at all.
Mouse turned to wave from the steps at Lydia who waved back and smiled. She didn't care if the teacher waited for her or left anymore. Sometimes, now she would break out of the line when her driver would show up and trot down the steps like Mouse did and no one could say anything. What would they have said. The driver checked his rearview mirror and Lydia was staring out of the window smiling. He would drive her to Amina's home later in the evening. Their driver could be sent but her parents still preferred for him to do so because he had offered. He wanted to ask how the day had been. Many of the drivers wanted to ask, they knew it was sports week. Not a one of them could have been pressed to tell them or you or anyone else who had won which game besides the first but he assumed that whichever team she was on must have won everything for how calm and joyful she was.
