By the time we reached the rope, three girls had jumped out, and there was space in the rope for more kids, so we jumped in. Not long after we were in the rope, some other kids joined us. I recognized that cologne; it was Ricky, Derrick, and little Jon Jon, who wasn’t in our grade, because he was two years younger. I could still see the other boys running back and forth, playing their game, but Ricky and his crew wanted to come and be close to us.

If they weren’t the right boys crashing our game—the cute, cool, confident ones—the girls turning would stop and shoo them away, their faces tight with wrinkles of disgust. But since we all had crushes on these two boys, and little Jon Jon was adorable, we allowed the intrusion, and the girls on the end turned harder, and we jumped with even more exaggeration.

The game continued, and the song restarted while they yanked the rope to the beat. We were always amazed to see the boys playing what everyone believed to be a girls’ game. It never occurred to us that this wasn’t so special, that boys could jump up and down over a rope and girls could catch a football and run with it or simply run away when they heard someone yell, “Run, G, run!”

By the time Stacia marched onto the grounds, we were tired of playing All. We had a little time before the first bell rang, and we had to bolt to our spots in front of the doors to wait for Ms. Pierce, so I whispered to Precious and Stacia, “Let’s run with the boys!”

They both looked at me with wide eyes, then Stacia took off running, even though we didn’t have a plan, and we didn’t really know anything about why they were running up and down the playground. But that was how she was: a rocket, full of fire.