Mrs. Hedgerow appeared at the other side of the creek. “Halt, party.” Her breasts and stomach bubbled under a garment of blue rubber. She’d stapled toy fish to her outfit like a kind of Mother River.

“Kudos,” Mrs. Hedgerow said. “You have reached the Goodstone Waterway.”

“That’s just the creek,” Alex said. “Big whoop.”

“It is a giant whoop, young man,” Mrs. Hedgerow said. “For you must manage a crossing.”

“I know how to cross it,” said Alex. “That’s so easy it’s stupid.”

He leaped onto the wheelbarrow. Coco was ready this time and didn’t fall.

“Mush!” called Alex. “Mush, ox!”

Coco stiffened. The whole living fifth-grade class watched. She hated when people stared. They must see something she couldn’t, and the attention itched. Even so, she set her feet in the Goodstone Waterway and dragged Alex and the rations to shore. Once safely across, she rotated the wheelbarrow to face her classmates, careful not to feel pride. All she had done was what Alex had forced her to do. From behind her he tossed a wedge of bread at the unlucky souls on the far shore. The chunk landed in the creek, swelling below the surface like a hunk of flesh.

“Mr. Culver, please settle down,” said Mrs. Hedgerow. “Remember, you are a pillar of this community.”

“I am?” asked Alex.

“Consult your biography card, young man, and you will find you are a member of the local council and a well-respected truth teller.”

None of the fifth graders had read their biography cards. They were too hard. All Coco had managed of hers was “Eleanor Bell is a most curious and intriguing lady of the middling fiscal class” before she gave up.

“I regret to say that Mr. Culver has indeed chosen a legitimate route across the Goodstone Waterway. I did not know you children were issued oxen this year. Anyone else in possession of an ox may step forward at this time.”

No one did, so Mrs. Hedgerow gave the signal for the crossing to continue. She narrated the travails of each family. Whole parties were sent back halfway through after their wagons buckled and their families drowned. The Blackthorn son was sucked dry by leeches. The Murdoch patriarch contracted giardia and perished when he was already on the other side, observing the Baker family crossing. Certain individuals were singled out as drowners, like Coco’s ex-child Marley.

“Your limp handicapped you,” Mrs. Hedgerow said.

“Well, duh,” said Marley.

“I mean to say it killed you.”

By the end of the crossing Mrs. Hedgerow had killed thirty additional family members. She herded them off and left the depleted party to continue on.

Each family had lost at least one member. The peace of the insular groups had snapped and now they had to function as an unwieldy whole. Coco didn’t know if they could manage. Maybe, for the first time in the history of Bridge Elementary, the pioneers would fail.

Alex stood up on the wheelbarrow, which waggled painfully in Coco’s grip, the weight shifting as he sought balance.