Fennel grips her mother's thumb at the front gate. The bells ring — DING, DING, DING. Colorful shoes flash past, and the hallway swallows the other kids whole.
Her little red shoes stay planted on the gray concrete. The gate creaks open behind her. Fennel does not step forward.
She pushes into the bright classroom. Her back presses flat against the big window. Cold glass. She can see the yard where nobody is.
Alphabet blocks wobble in a crooked tower. Crayons squeak. Papers flap, and a chair scrapes across the tile. The room is loud.
In the far corner, another kid sits with knees pulled up. Wide eyes. Staring at nothing. The sun catches his still fingers.
Fennel marches across the tile, grabs a green crayon, and slams it on a sheet of paper beside the corner kid. "Here," she says, pushing it toward him.
He doesn't move for a second. Then his hand shoots out — the yellow crayon is his, and he scribbles right over her green lines.
Wobbly rays. A crooked circle. A big green-and-yellow smudge that looks nothing like a sun but is unmistakably one.
He looks up and grins wide and lopsided. "It's funny." Fennel's knuckles loosen. She drops the green crayon and laughs — a tiny, wobbly sound.
The lopsided sun is taped to the wall between two alphabet blocks, tilted at a silly angle. "Want to draw a moon?" he taps on the paper. She picks up the red crayon. "Yeah."