In the third grade, Alfonzo had learned that the word ozone meant something beyond his home. That day in class was the first time he’d collided a small reality with an environmental, even cosmic, thought. His teacher, Ms. Malanga, stood before the class and explained a big poster behind her. A green-blue ball with white clouds and brown continents. A red sticker where they were. Ms. Malanga pointed her nose there and said, “Home.” Alfonzo and his classmates nodded. Above was a light blue layer punctuated with birds and raindrops. Another layer held a yellow balloon, then golden orbs representing meteors, then wavy purple-white smudges meant to be light. The outermost area of the chart was a deep blue-black dotted with white stars. Ms. Malanga pointed her nose at the orb layer and said, “Ozone.” The class oohed. Ms. Malanga was an excitable auburn collie who favored patterned bandanas. Alfonzo’s dad called her a fellow traveler. She was his favorite teacher in grade school, and he remembered fondly all the animals in class drawing posters illustrating different aspects of the natural world. Ms. Malanga described the invisible gases cocooning the planet, each layer serving the purpose of protecting and facilitating life. The ozone was like a fine shield, she told them. It was a rare but significant gas, like a celebrity or a gifted soul. The planet needed all these bubbles, Ms. Malanga explained. Without them, life would be impossible.

One day Ms. Malanga told the class that there was a hole in the ozone and that everyone was making that hole bigger by using hair spray and air conditioners. She described the effects of refrigerants and solvents, Freon and foam-blowing agents. Alfonzo asked if it was like the hole in his sweater or the one in the middle of a frozen pond. But Ms. Malanga answered no, it was not like that. There is no actual hole, but more like a thinning patch, an area of wispy fragility, like a father going bald. One little goat named Raquel got so upset about this lesson that she started to cry. Her dad repaired air conditioners. He complained to the principal, who in turn reprimanded Ms. Malanga. Alfonzo’s mom huffed that boneheads like Raquel’s father would rather see the world end than change jobs.

After that, Alfonzo would perk up whenever he heard TV reporters mention the ozone layer. It felt personal but also galactic. He imagined that his neighborhood had some vital responsibility in protecting the planet. Alfonzo liked imagining the sky’s layers. To soothe himself he pictured all of Earth’s creatures tucked in safe under the atmosphere’s wispy gaseous blankets.