At recess, Ros said, “Come on,” and we raced to the edge of the schoolyard. I wore saddle shoes that year, which I loved—black and white, old-fashioned—and that I’d begged my mother for until she’d caved, finally. Ros wore the shoes that all the boys had, and they ran fast, faster than Touchstone, faster than the fastest kid in the grade.

At the edge of the playground they paused. There was a hole in the fence, and they started to dip through it now.

“We’re not allowed,” I said.

“You don’t have to come,” Ros said. They looked almost sad, disappointed at the prospect of leaving me here, having come this far.

I had never broken a rule before. But this was a risk, wasn’t it? I followed them.

We were in the far corner of someone’s yard, where a weeping willow stood. Ros ducked beneath the branches of the tree and walked closer to the tree trunk, where they pulled a handful of pebbles from their sweatshirt pocket and began to sort through them. They squatted, placing certain pebbles amid the roots, and that was when I saw it: In the root system of the tree, right by Ros’s feet, stood the start of a tiny village. A few houses had been made with wood chips I recognized from the playground, with moss layered over their roofs. The pebbles Ros had placed formed a path between the houses. It was the beginnings of a fairy world, tiny and perfect and all built by Ros’s hand.

I wouldn’t have told you this if you’d asked me, but I hated recess. Playing felt like a chore, something we had to do in order to get back to the good stuff—worksheets, memorizing, spelling, learning. Make-believe with Touchstone was all right—we were always orphans, and I was usually the eldest—but we were a little old for it now. The girls were interested in monkey bars and acrobatics, jump rope. A few played sports with the boys, but they were always forced to be the goalie. Flipping upside down made me feel seasick, and though I loved to swim and play tennis, I didn’t want to join in the soccer game, which always seemed to end in a skinned knee. Touchstone and I played tetherball sometimes, but you had to race to get there first. We played cards for a while, but then some kid punched another over a specific Pokémon card, so all cards were banned. Sometimes we read books side by side, but I felt self-conscious, the words swimming in front of my eyes, while smiling, well-meaning teachers were always telling me to go play, like it was such an easy thing to learn how to do.

But I watched Ros get lost in this world at their feet.