Then Ms. Mendoza announced it was time to clean up and pack up and go home. She came over to our group. She didn’t notice that Bertie’s eyes were shiny or that the pile of cards was messed up or that I was stuck staring at my shoe.

“Good job, Dee,” Ms. Mendoza said. She gave him a thumbs-up.

“See you at recess tomorrow,” Dee said to us, and he hit the you real hard.

14. Pacific Blue, Chestnut, Laser Lemon

I saw my mom’s car in the pickup line. At least this day didn’t have to get any worse because of walking home in the rain.

I ran to the car, jumped in, and slammed the door, quick. My mom got the windshield wipers going full speed. They tried to flick the water away, but as fast as they flicked, there was always more.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Good,” I said. I nodded, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was turning her head between the mirrors to see if it was safe to pull out. I decided to skip the “really good.”

I didn’t say anything about indoor recess or Uno or what Dee had said to me and Bertie. And I didn’t say anything about all the things I didn’t say back to him.

It wasn’t until then that I thought of what I could have said. Easy things, stuff you didn’t have to be a golden-sticker kid to think up, like “Stop it” or “Cut it out” or “Leave her alone.”

I could have stood up or raised my hand. I could have said “Here I am. Look at me.” I could have told Ms. Mendoza what was going on with lots of specific language and illustrating details. But I didn’t.

It took longer to drive to Hidden Rivers than it did to walk. It felt like every light was red.

“The traffic here,” my mom said.

I didn’t know if she was saying it to me or the other cars or the town or the air, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do about it. When she finally pulled into our parking spot, she looked up through the windshield. “We’d better wait a sec,” she said.

And just when you thought it couldn’t rain any harder, even more fell. It was like someone up high was dumping buckets of water on us, and I thought of the second on the water ride when your boat hits the bottom and the whole pool whooshes up to soak you. Except it didn’t come and go away. It stayed where it was, loud and confusing.

I leaned my forehead on the window. The rain smacked and pooled down the glass. I wondered if this was what snorkeling was like. Then I wondered if I could do something to erase indoor recess.

“Hey, Mom?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said.