So here they were, standing in the corridor near the gate, in front of one of the Standard 9 classrooms, by the back door to the chemistry laboratory. The temperature had fallen, imperceptibly, gracefully, to 27 degrees, till the school itself seemed raised to a timeless stratosphere that was neither heaven nor earth, a place rained upon by coolness. The sun became tolerant, and suddenly sunlight was reflected in blinks and flashes, now here, now there, off hospital windows across the street that, earlier in the day, no one would have guessed even existed. Just outside the school walls, in the trees whose branches climbed prolifically over roofs and partitions, and ranged freely everywhere like a band of irrepressible trespassers, sparrows had begun to chirp all at once, loudly, excitedly, and perhaps informatively. Now that the school was empty, it seemed that the life around it had begun to imitate the intent, sometimes shy, play of the schoolchildren, with light bouncing and glancing off one hospital window to the next, chasing certain routes and eluding others, and the invisible birds shouting at one another at the top of their voices.