There were about forty or so kids, running around and giggling or else standing and talking to each other. Some of the girls were trying to do handstands against the brick wall of classroom 1B, while a bunch of boys were putting their thumbs over the drinking fountains to squirt each other with water.

“Weird, watching other kids go to school while we’re on break,” Keira said.

And then I spotted them—holding each other’s hands and twirling, just like we’d seen them doing a week ago at the supermarket.

Merjeme and Arta.

The sisters looked just the same, except their tracksuits were blue this time and it looked like they’d had their hair brushed. Once they stopped twirling I thought I saw the younger one, Arta, look our way, so I lifted my hand and waved.

“What are you doing?” Aidan asked.

I shrugged and kept waving, and then Sam followed where I was looking and did the same thing.

Aidan slapped a hand to his helmeted head like he couldn’t believe us.

The two girls eventually waved back but didn’t come over—then some other kids standing near them must have asked what they were doing, so they started pointing at us.

“Hey, isn’t that Mr. Khouri?” Jed said, nodding toward the front office.

We watched as he stepped outside, along with my old second grade teacher, Mrs. Vines. Both were carrying clipboards and wearing these yellow-and-white vests with little red crosses over their hearts and the word VOLUNTEER in black letters across their backs.

Some adults I didn’t recognize followed, two of them wearing bright-yellow sweaters with the words “Albanian Community Volunteer” in bold black letters across the chests, and then a few more people wearing the Red Cross vests.

“Mr. Khouri!” Sam called.

Aidan huffed again and pulled down Sam’s arm when he went to wave. “The whole point of being on holidays is to not be at school and not talk to teachers!” he hissed. “Quick, let’s get—”

But it was too late; Mr. Khouri was already walking over and smiling at us with his eyebrows raised.

“Mr. McMillan—are you such a fan of school you couldn’t stay away?”

“Ah, no, sir,” Aidan murmured. “We were just riding by and saw . . .”

Mr. Khouri looked behind him, at the volunteers who had started calling out kids’ names and having them line up against the side of the classroom.

“What are they doing today?” Keira butted in. “Is it regular school stuff like what we do?”

Our teacher turned back to us. “Math is pretty universal, so we’re doing some of those regular lessons. And then we are teaching basic English phrases today. Most of them know quite a bit though some leave a lot to be desired.”

“What do you mean, sir?” Jed asked.