"Miss Tibby!" Natara shrieked in the middle of story time. "It's snowing!" Everyone immediately ran over to the windows to see, and I climbed on top of the counter. Sure enough, big fat snowflakes were floating down outside the window. Already there was a thin layer covering the grass. Ken turned to me with a grin and I kenw exactly what he was planning.

During the winter, when it snowed we weren't allowed on the playground or the kickball fields. We had to stay on the pavement and that meant basketball, four-square or two square. But there was this map in the back of the school of America, and all the states were painted one of five different colors. Earlier in the year we'd made up a game called state tag and kept it a secret for when this day came, and I was excited to see if it worked.

I waited patiently for most of the morning, and when Miss Tibby announced that it was time to go to lunch, I was the first person at the cubbies to get my coat. Ken and I wolfed down our lunches and then lined up to go to recess; we could hardly wait. Once everyone got outside, Ken and I gathered our class around the map.

"Be prepared to worship us," I grinned at them. "We've created the best game of all time."

"It's called State Tag. And it's really easy to play. Only five people can play at a time though."

"This sounds dumb," Natara said, crossing her arms. "I'm gonna go play four-square, before they run out of the good balls." She and almost all of the girls left. The only ones who stayed were Maria and Blaise. All the boys stayed, though, and that's cause boys are better and are awesome.

"What you do is you pick a color state, and you can only touch states that are the same color. If you touch a state that's not the same color, you're out. Plus you have to avoid getting tagged." I grinned. I was so excited I could hardly wait.

Ken, Oscar, Shawn, Kai and I went first. We all had decided that whenever someone got tagged, they were 'out' and someone else got to take their spot, cause there were a lot of us. Shawn was It first and the game began. I hopped from green state to green state, hoping Shawn couldn't catch up with me. I landed on Texas and grinned; I could put both of my feet down for now. I quickly scanned the map for the nearest green state, and then right as I was about to jump I felt a hand push my shoulder and I fell.

"Mal got tagged!" Shawn hollered. I scowled at him and pushed him back.

"That's not fair!" I yelled. "You're not allowed to tag me cause I helped make up the game!"

"That's not in the rules though," he said, stomping his foot. I huffed and crossed my arms and walked off the map. I didn't want to play if I was gonna be tagged. I stormed over to where the girls were playing four-square. I sat down near the game to watch. They all looked at me kind of funny, but they just ignored me and went back to playing. Natara was really good, and she never got out. She managed to stay in the server's box for a really long time before Amy got her out. Then she surprised me and sat next to me.

"Hi," she said. I didn't say anything, but I looked at her and crossed my arms.

"You have dirt on your pants and the knee is torn. You look like a hobo." I glanced down, and sure enough she was right.

"Shawn tagged me, but he pushed me down."

"Oh." I saw her shift out of the corner of my eye, and then she was holding out a snowball to me. I eyed her suspiciously.

"What's that for?"

"Why don't you hit him with it?" she said. I grinned and took the snowball from her. I had to admit, I liked the way she thought. She was a goody-two-shoes, but sometimes she could come up with great ideas that meant breaking the rules. And I loved to break rules.

I strolled up to the map with the snowball hidden behind my back. Shawn was still in the game, hopping from one yellow state to the next. I think Matt was It, and he was going after Ken. I watched them for a little while, waited for Shawn to get ready to jump, then threw the snowball at him with all my strength right as he jumped.

It scared him enough to step off of his yellow state, and Oscar quickly pointed it out. He turned to me with his face all scrunched up and red, and I laughed at him. He still had lots of snow in his hair and on his jacket as he walked off the map and stood next to me.

"What was that for?" He demanded angrily.

"For tagging me," I grinned. His face got all scrunched up again. But then he started crying and ran over to Miss Queen Tibby. He talked to her for a minute, and then she marched over to me and I could tell she was angry.

"Mal, Shawn tells me you threw a snowball at him. Is that true?" I had no choice but to nod. "You know throwing snowballs is against the rules, Mal."

"Well, yeah, but-"

"I don't want to hear your excuses. You broke the rules. Now, please apologize to Shawn and then I'm going to have you sit out for the rest of recess."

"But Miss Tibby, Na-" She gave me a stern look, and I looked down.

"Mal."

"Sorry, Shawn." Miss Tibby took my hand and led me over to where she sat by the door. I sat on the ground next to her, poking at the pavement with a stick. I looked up at the four-square court, and Natara grinned at me and waved. I scowled back at her and pushed a rock forward with my stick.

Girls are dumb.

Alright, so I'm not too pleased with this. I wasn't sure how to end it, so I went with the only- and dumbest- thing I could think of.

And just by the way, when I was in second grade, my class did actually make up a game called State Tag. It was quite fun and at the very least it kept us entertained. I chose the purple states every time and I never got tagged once.