The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell Read Online Free

sleeves. Most of the stars would wind up stuck to desks, walls, or the floor by the end of the day, and then Elaine would collect them all and stick them to her folder, which slowly grew from plain paper to a galaxy over the course of each year. She knew this was how things were going to go, just as surely as she knew that after recess they would come back to the classroom for spelling and vocabulary, which would carry them all the way to lunch. Her day was a series of small, predictable routines, cut into child-sized pieces, and that was the way she liked it to be. Surprises were for other people. First grade was for learning, and for knowing every morning how the rest of the day was going to go.
    â€œAll right, class, that’s our last answer. You all did very well. Give yourselves a hand.” She clapped, and the class dutifully echoed her, filling the room with the sound of palms striking together. Miss Oldenburg beamed. “Now it’s time for our favorite part of the day. Who knows what that is?”
    â€œRecess!” everyone crowed, in delighted if uneven unison. The recess assignments changed every week, to make sure that no class got a permanent claim on the nicest parts of the day. But even when recess happened immediately after load-in, spilling students out onto the blacktop while the air was still chilly from the night before, it remained everyone’s favorite part of the classroom routine. Fresh air, open skies, green grass…it was magical.
    â€œThat’s right,” said Miss Oldenburg. She picked up her coat—ankle-length, with Kevlar panels carefully concealed beneath the thick wool—and slipped it on. She’d need to switch to her summer coat in another month or so, which was much more obviously a form of armor, with its thin nylon fabric molding itself to the Kevlar that protected her limbs and joints. “What are the rules of recess?”
    â€œEyes and ears open, watch for danger, run for a teacher if anything seems strange,” chorused the class. They were more unified this time. The rules of recess were more familiar to them than the Pledge of Allegiance, and stood a better chance of keeping them all alive. As they got older, they would replace the word “teacher” with “policeman” or “safe room,” but the rest of the rules would be with them for life.
    The bell rang once, signaling the end of the previous recess period. Miss Oldenburg clapped her hands again. “Everyone up, out of your seat, jackets on, and get ready to go,” she said brightly.
    The students obliged, forming a quick, straight line in front of the door. There was no pushing or shoving; no one got out of first grade without learning just how quickly their recess privileges could be taken away—in some cases permanently. Everyone knew about the no-recess classes, the ones where instead of twenty minutes of freedom under the sky, they got twenty minutes to read or play with handheld games, always seated, always under the watchful eye of their teacher. Freedom was important. Too important to risk on the brief pleasure of misbehaving when being good for just a few minutes more would mean getting outside, where misbehavior was ever so much easier.
    All the teachers knew that there was a certain amount of pushing and squabbling on the playground. The cameras caught it all, and it was reviewed every night by campus security, who flagged anything troublesome straight to the appropriate teacher’s inbox. Students who regularly picked fights or bullied classmates would find themselves being watched more closely, or even pulled into parent-teacher conferences where their behavior would be discussed, and options would be put on the table, many of them pharmaceutical. Elaine wasn’t in favor of using drugs on students who didn’t have genuine medical reasons for them—Mikey had ADHD and was a much happier boy when he was taking his Ritalin; one of