“Okay, now I want you to take a deep breath in, and as you do, your elevator is going to move up your body to the top of your chest.”

Cami took a big breath in and the elevator flew up to her chin.

“That was great. Very good. But I think we might have scared your tree friend, you know? Because trees aren’t used to moving very much, are they?”

Cami shook her head.

“So now I want you to do a long breath out and as you breathe out, I want you to move your elevator back down to your lap.”

Cami breathed out and lowered her hands back down, slower this time.

“Great. Now I want you to do it a few more times. When you breathe in, take your elevator up. When you breathe out, take your elevator down. And try to go nice and slow and steady.”

Cami very carefully raised and lowered her elevator and it almost lined up with her breathing.

“Izabel, why don’t you put your hands around Cami’s hands and try to match your breathing to hers.”

“Okay,” Izabel said. She turned toward Cami and put her hands below and above Cami’s hands. Cami looked right into Izabel’s eyes, taking the exercise very seriously. Izabel smiled at her, and then she tried to match Cami’s little breaths.

Izabel breathed in through her nose, and when she breathed out, she closed her lips some and sort of blew the air out. She didn’t realize she was doing it until Cami imitated her. Cami’s big breath in, through her nose, drew her nostrils in and changed the shape of her cheeks. When she blew the air out, she pursed her lips into crinkles.

Izabel’s face started to feel hot. Cami was so cute and sweet and earnest. Izabel wasn’t sure she’d done anything as earnestly in her whole life.

Opa stopped them. “That was perfect! What a great job. And now that’s something you can do at home whenever you want. Do you remember what we were going to do next?”

“Questions and coloring,” Cami said.

“That’s right. Good memory!” Opa brought out a few sheets of paper that all had the same outline of a thermometer. It was numbered one through ten. “Do you know what this is?”

“No,” Cami said.

“We used to use thermometers that looked like this to measure how hot something was, or someone. Have you had your temperature taken at the doctor’s?”

“It didn’t look like that.”