Once Eli, the last person in line, finished entering the enclosed Kindergarten playground, Mr. Pony shut the gate and locked it. They then scooted their little behind to the front of the group. "Okay kiddoes, lunchtime is officially over. So you know what time it is now?"

"Recess, right?" asked Randy, but the way he said it made it sound more like "wgrheecess, wright?"

"Correctamundo!" cried Mr. Pony, putting their hands on their stomach. "Now, go and make merry with your brethren. If any of you need me, I'll be over here, reading a book like a sane human being." They gestured toward a wrought iron bench to the right of the entrance of the building. This was a different bench than the one Rachel and I had had our deep conversation two days before, or as she would say, two days prior.

Fortunately, I didn't have to, uh, spend time flipping the Lucky Penny to decide what I wanted to do during recess, since I had already agreed to help out Eli with his construction project. I strode off towards the sandbox, confident that would be where I would find my quarry. As I approached, the smell of gasoline assailed my nostrils, which could only mean one thing…

"Gow!" went a nasally, halting voice. "What is she doing here?" That was right. Eli did mention that he had also gotten Kyle to help him out.

"Oh," replied Eli, shifting his eyes a bit nervously. "I, um, asked Maddie to help us out with digging the tunnel."

"Yep! That's why I'm here," I confirmed, closing my eyes, smiling, and folding my hands behind my back like a male gamer.

"Okay then, let's get started," Eli said, unrolling the blueprint while Kyle scowled at me, making me feel a bit unwelcome in this male-dominated environment. "I'm going to start digging here," he began, pointing to an X he had sketched out in the far corner of the sandbox. "Kyle and Maddie, can you two go looking for some sticks? We're going to need them for the tunnel later."

Kyle furrowed his brow in confusion. "Why do we need sticks for a tunnel?"

"We need them to support the roof of the tunnel in case it caves in," I replied. This was something else I remembered Eli telling me earlier.

Kyle totally ignored me. "Eli," he repeated, though it sounded a bit more like 'E-loi', "Why do we need sticks for a tunnel?"

A little confused, Eli pointed out his drawing on the blueprint. "It's exactly as Maddie said. They're to support the tunnel in case the dirt might cave in, see?"

Kyle harrumphed saltily. "Okay, but where do we get the sticks?"

"There's a few trees near the fence on the other side of the playground," I said. "There's probably some sticks on the ground near there. Come on, let's go!" I ran off on my energetic kindergarten legs, with a frustrated Kyle in hot pursuit without bending his knees a few seconds later after some encouragement from Eli.

However, nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see on the other side of the playground, next to the swingset.

TO BE CONTINUED

Mr. Pony put their hands to their mouth mischievously. "What," they asked, "did you really think the chapter was over that quickly?" They turned a bit to the side and raised one of their hands, and their voice changed to a scruff, businessman-like imitation of Yoda. "Much you have to learn, yung padawan. Time for another Ted Talk, it is!" Mr. Pony returned to normal. The one on their face, of course. "Let me tell you a story all about how my life got flip-turned all upside down. It's… the secret origin story of Paige Prep!"

Their voice took on an almost fairlytale-like tone. "Once upon a time, there were two… er, friends? Sisters? Lovers? Ah, well, who cares, the exact relationship isn't very important, the main point is that these two gorls were very close to each other." Mr. Pony put a comical amount of emphasis on the 'o' in 'gorls' as they said this. "Anyways, the older of the two was named Paige, and the younger one of the two was named Chase. They were both infamous in the tri-county area for their abilities. However, one fateful day Chase grew jealous of Paige and betrayed her, casting her into a thousand-year slumber that could only be broken by – you guessed it – true love's kiss! Some say this was the work of a poisoned apple, but others say it could have been a poisoned something else. And that's why this school is called Paige Prep!" Mr. Pony put their hands on their stomach briefly before quickly returning to the bench they had been sitting on and continuing to read Peter and the Shadow Thieves where they had left off.

"Shhh," shushed Mr. Pony. "It's supposed to be an easter egg," The world began moving again, ever so slowly.

Standing near the rock near the swingset, beneath the branches of some of the Evergreen trees on the outside of the playground enclosure, were Jordan, Jenny, and Kristy. Jordan was holding both of his hands to his head with a troubled expression, but don't worry – it was the good kind of troubled.

"Hey Jordan, what's going on? Is everything okay?" I asked.

His face lit up. "How do you know that's my name?" he asked.

I blinked once. "Huh?" All of a sudden I felt a strange sensation that had been building in me for several minutes now.

"He's been acting like this ever since recess started," explained Jenny calmly and professionally. "He says he can't remember anything."

"What? Anything?" I asked, taken aback.

"Yeah," replied Kristy. "He didn't know our names, or even his own name."

"That's so weird," I said, frowning and putting my hand to my chin as if I was thinking about something. "Jordan, is there anything you do remember?"

He shook his head sorrowfully. "Sorry, but no. It's all so fuzzy, it all seems just out of reach, like a word that's on the tip of your tongue." Kyle caught up to the rest of the group, his shallow breathing coming in ragged gasps.

"Why are they here," he growled.

"Jordan seems to have lost his memory," said Jenny again. "I'll be with you in a second, as soon as I'm done helping him out."

Kyle huffed, inflating his jowely cheeks momentarily. "I don't care," he said. "We're supposed to be collecting sticks, remember?"

While that was true, right now helping Jordan was more important. Speaking of Jordan, he spoke up somewhat meekly: "Um, if you don't mind me asking, who are all you people? You all seem to recognize me, but I have no idea who you are."

"I'm Maddie," I said, closing my eyes, smiling, and holding up my hand as a form of greeting.

"Kristy," added Kristy.

"Jenny."

All eyes turned to Kyle, who was bent at the waist, legs splayed out like a water-drinking giraffe, behind extended as if he were about to start twerking, and back arched like a beast, as he was collecting some sticks off the ground. "Kyle," he grunted at the rest of us, but it sounded more like 'coil'.

"We're all your classmates here," continued Jenny.

"Okay," said Jordan, covering his mouth and nose with his hand. "But… where is here?"

"We're all in Kindergarten," I replied. "We're at a school called Place – er, Paige Prep. Does any of this sound familiar to you?"

Jordan blinked and looked around disorientedly, before putting his hand back over his nose and mouth. "...No," he answered finally. "But… what are we all doing here?"

"Right now, we're in the middle of recess," said Jenny. "But after that, we're going to go back to class."

"Recess?" asked Jordan.

"It's where we all go outside to play," said Kristy. "Me and Jenny always hang out on the swings together."

"Hmm..." Jordan was thinking. Out of the corner of my little eye, I spied Kyle swinging a stick like a katana. He hit the wire fence and the stick snapped in half. "Gow!" he went, with an irritated expression.

"What… was I doing right before this?" Jordan asked, trying to piece together the puzzle. "Maybe that has some clue as to why I can't remember anything."

"Well, since recess started, you were climbing that rock, like all little boys like to do," said Jenny, gesturing to the large boulder the size of a small boulder next to us.

"And before that," I added, "you were in the cafeteria with me, and we were eating lunch."

"W-we were?" asked Jordan, looking both shocked and taken aback. "I don't remember any of that. The last thing I remember is… standing right over there, and not knowing where I was." he pointed to a spot a few meters away.

"And then after that," added Kristy, putting a hand to her chin and looking upwards and to the left. "You came over to the swingset and started asking us questions."

"Did you maybe… hit your head on the rock?" I wondered, "and that made you lose your memory?"

"I didn't see anything like that happen," replied Jenny, "he just slid off the top of the rock normally, but suddenly he looked all disoriented."

"That must've been…" said Kristy, "when Jordan lost his memory!"

Jordan made a shocked expression. I felt like my whole world had just been shattered. Kyle just looked kinda spaced out.

"But… how did it happen, then?" asked Jordan, still covering his nose and mouth with his hand. "And why? What does it all mean?"

"I don't know for sure," I said, "but I do remember that you were acting super weird during lunch."

"Weird? How so?" asked Jordan.

Both Jenny and Kristy looked to me. I was the only one here who could answer that question, and if Jordan really had lost his memory, he would likely believe anything I told him. I had the power. I thought about this for a minute before answering, choosing my words carefully. "You were… unresponsive, for the most part." I began. "Chuck and Owen and I all tried talking to you, but you just kinda sat there and didn't say anything to us."

"Chuck? Owen? Who are those people?"

"Owen's another one of our classmates, specifically, your boy," I said, in the hippest, swaggiest way possible. "Chuck is your pen-pal."

"My… boy?" Jordan was very confused. "pen-pal?" Hoo boy, this was going to be a lot of work.

"You know, your boy." I explained. Jordan stared at me blankly. "Your homie, your pal, your ⍰. Yo diggity dawg."

"I... don't follow," said Jordan, with a sophisticated frown.

"I'll have to reintroduce you, then," I said, doing the you-know-I-had-to-do-it-to-em pose. "And a pen-pal is basically someone you write letters to."

"This is all so new to me," contemplated Jordan, covering his nose and mouth with his hand briefly before folding his elbow outward as if to suggest an alternative point of view. "But Maddie. Can you help me remember?"

That seemed like a lot of responsibility, and I wasn't even sure if I could help him get his memories back to begin with.

"If it's okay with you, Maddie," interrupted Kristy suddenly, "do you think you can take care of him on your own? You seem like you're a lot closer with him than either of us. And plus, me and Jenny have swinging to get back to."

"Uh, yeah, not a problem," I responded. Secretly, I had kinda hoped that they would stick around so I wouldn't have to deal with Jordan's amnesia alone, but I also had no idea how they'd even be able to help. Unless Kristy actually did have some supernatural ghost powers, I didn't think either of them would be able to get Jordan's memories back. They both headed back to the swingset, leaving me alone with a confused Jordan and Kyle, who was now seated with his legs splayed out at a ninety degree angle, chewing on a tree branch like a beaver. A Justin Beaver. As I glanced at him quickly, he stopped chewing momentarily to glare at me. I quickly looked away.

"Hey, Maddie," said Jordan. "Do you think I can get my memories back?"

"I don't know," I replied wistfully. This seemed like such an incredibly daunting task that I almost felt like staring off into space and social distancing, escaping into a daydream. Fortunately, there was something else I could do for the time being to help distract me.

"But you know what? I think you can help me with something. Kyle and I are, uh, gathering sticks here for a tunnel Eli is digging. You should come along with us!"

"Who's Eli?" ...right.

"Here, grab some of those sticks and come with me," I said. "I'll show you when we get there." Jordan seemed happy to oblige. We gathered up as many reasonably sized tree branches as we could find, and with me leading the way, hurried back over to the sandbox.

Jordan and I arrived back at the sandbox a few seconds before Kyle due to his unconventional walk cycle. Eli was already about a foot and a half deep into the sandbox, scooping out a mixture of sand and dirt with a shovel and depositing it in a toy dump truck.

"Hey Eli, we're back!" I said in my outside voice, because we were outside.

He poked his head out of the hole he had dug himself into like a lil' groundhog. I wondered if that could be his rapper name, kind of like how Randy's was lil' baller. I also wondered if everyone in the class would get a rapper name eventually. "Oh, h-hey Maddie. Hey… J-jayden?"

"Is that my name?" asked Jordan, looking to me for guidance. "I thought you said it was Jordan."

"It is Jordan," I stated.

Eli looked apologetic, yet confused. "Ah. S-sorry, Jordan. I'm k-kinda bad with names. B-but why didn't you say so y-yourself?"

I spoke again. I almost felt like the Lorax, except that I was speaking for Jordan and not the trees. "Jordan here's gonna be helping out with the tunnel," I informed him. "There;'s an issue though – he's lost all of his memories." At that moment, Kyle caught up to the rest of the group, breathing heavily. He unclenched his gnarly fists, dropping the bundles of chewed up sticks he had collected before reaching into his overalls to take out some more that the had presumable been storing in there for later.

"Gow! Here's all the sticks," he went, doing a little dance to try and shake out the excess debris still in his overalls.

"C-cool, thanks guys," commended Eli. "But, w-what do you mean Jordan's l-lost his memories?"

"I'm not sure," answered Jordan. "Apparently, I had been acting strangely, but I don't remember it. I only remember being over there by the rock and not knowing anything that was going on."

"Yeah," I added, "Apparently, he was doing just fine, and then poof, everything was gone. No one knows why or how it happened."

"That's w-weird," Eli said, adjusting his helmet. "M-maybe you should t-tell Mr. Pony about it."

"Mr. What?" asked Jordan in disbelief.

"Mr. Pony," I replied. "They're our teacher. Or at least, that's the name they want us to call them." It was an eccentric name, but then again Mr. Pony was an eccentric person.

"Weird," said Jordan. "Anyways, what's all this business about a tunnel? How am I supposed to help with this like Maddie says?"

"Well," began Eli, perking up a little. "I started digging the hole for it today, and I had Maddie and Kyle collect tree branches to help support the roof of the tunnel."

Jordan nodded. "Should we help out with the digging now then?"

"Not now," responded Eli, gesturing outside of the playground, upwards, and across the screet to the gigantic clock face on the school's WATCH tower. "Since recess is ending in a few minutes. But you can definitely help out tomorrow if you want. For now, let's put all the stuff back in the shed."

While Eli dumped out all of the sand collected in the dump truck on the opposite end of the sandbox form the hole we re-picked up our piles of sticks and carried them to the wooden shed filled with toy construction vehicles.

Just put them in a big pile over here," requested Eli as he carried the empty dump truck back to its place in the shed. As Jordan and I both dropped our piles of branches on the floor of the shed, our eyes met momentarily. If I had actually had feelings for Jordan, this is the part where I would have blushed. Instead, he asked me a very strange question in an overly dramatic way, increasing the tension between us.

"Uh, Maddie," he began, putting one of his hands behind his head, looking downward somewhat, and blushing. "I've been thinking about this for a while now, and, uh, there's something I really want to ask you."

My guard was up instantly. "What is it?" I asked a bit concernedly, keeping my distance as if I were practicing my spacing against an injured, yet dangerous animal.

"Well, you mentioned that we were… classmates, and that we had a teacher, so that means we must be in some sort of school, right?"

I nodded. "That's right. The school is called Paige Prep."

"How old are we?"

That question kind of took me completely off guard, as if the dangerous animal had closed the gap between us with a level of speed that I would have thought impossible given its injury. "Huh?"

"How old are we? If we're in school, we mustn't be adults, so we're either kids or teenage teens, right?"

"Well," I started to reply, "I'm canonically six years old, and I don't know how old you are, but if we're in the same class, you must be around the same age, right?"

"Hmm," he said, putting his hand over his nose and mouth again. "I guess that makes sense."

Before we could continue this discussion further, the sound of Mr. Pony's handbell cut through our eardrums. Knowing that this signalled the end of recess, Jordan and I both hurried out of the shed to rejoin the rest of the class in front of the entrance. We all lined up behind Jordan in front of the door, and then filed back inside. Recess… was now over.