“That’s what happened, huh?” Wes said once Jace had summarized the day’s events, while an early episode of 3^rd Rock from the Sun played on their new house’s TV, the show having debuted only a few weeks ago. “Nice job with the grand slam.”

“Any idea how the kickball game went originally? Just… wondering.”

The glow from the comedy show filling up the dark living room and lighting up his face, Wes rubbed his chin and tried to remember. “Ugh, it’s just… too fuzzy.”

“What’s with you lately? You used to have a photographic memory of pretty much everything that happened in your childhood.”

“My recollection about bigger events has been a little off recently, I admit.”

“Is that something we should worry about? Tell me for real—don’t lie or shrug it off to make me feel better. I’m still worried about messing with the past, you know.”

Wes looked at him from across the couch and replied honestly, “I have been giving it some thought, and maybe… as we really do begin to change more things and leave behind our ‘observation’ phase, my childhood… Maybe my childhood’s being rewritten and it’ll take time for my memories to adjust or catch up.”

“Well, that’s just great. So… the more we ‘fix’, the harder it’ll get for you to remember what was screwed up in the first place.”

“I hope it doesn’t get too bad. Still… there might be some times coming up where you and even Millie will have to take command and use your best judgment. At least for now, you know what you gotta do. Put the right team together and try your hardest at laser tag. You don’t even need to win. Just do better than I did the first time.”

“I convinced Wessy to give Celeste a shot… It wasn’t easy.”

Wes muted the TV and breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good.”

“But I gotta ask, again. If I wasn’t around originally and you never put Celeste on your team, how did the water gun game go the first time? If… you can remember.”

“Oh, I still got this one,” he said and pointed to his head. “We eventually just asked Wright and Robby. They actually did… okay, nothing to write home about. Us regulars pulled most of the weight. It did suck that we had to bribe them ten bucks each just to have them run around and squirt some guns, though.”

“You’ve been bribing kids for a while, then, huh? And… who won?”

“Find out on your own.” Wes grinned a little. “Hey, it’ll be a big, fun thing. I don’t want to ruin it for you by letting you in on how it might end up.”

“Wait, shouldn’t some of this stuff just be in your first run notes, anyway?”

“What I could get. I didn’t do much spying around the school, remember?”

“Right, right… Prison and all that. But, talking about the playground, you have to tell me something about this week. I mean, The Dump’s still closed, and there’s been a heat wave, and tensions are high, and it… kinda feels like everything’s falling apart.”

“I do remember all the hot days we had right around now. But don’t worry too much about the… dumpster place. It’ll reopen when it’s supposed to.”

“It’s actually been nice having everyone around on the playground, but, again, it really feels like something’s changed. Stuff doesn’t feel… as fun as it used to.”

“Post winter break blues. I don’t mean that in a ‘oh man, we have to go back to school’ way. All your classmates are a little worried about growing up, moving onto a new school, maybe going separate ways. You’re in the second half, Jace. Of course, you already did it once before and you were probably pissed off about your friends the entire time, so your mind wasn’t where it was ‘supposed’ to be…” He looked at his nephew expecting a scowl, but he only seemed pensive. “Anyway, point is, they’re anxious.”

“Is there anything I can, I dunno… ‘fix’ here?”

Wes shrugged and turned the volume back up. “Maybe not. Time’s become the enemy again. Not that the good memories will stop coming entirely. Man, I really gotta start telling you some middle school stories. We had some good ones.”

“Middle school…” Jace breathed out. “I know it’ll suck, but I feel like I should be there. I’m starting to feel…” he looked up at Wes and murmured, “Old?”

• •

Friday was a real scorcher—hot and dry without a cloud in the sky or even a breeze to look forward to. By the time lunch rolled around, there were rumors spreading through the cafeteria that it was too miserable for recess that day, and it would be held inside instead. But then Millie flipped the gossip by sharing that she hadn’t heard anything about it, and the rumor mill slowed and then came to a stop the moment the doors to the playground opened, flooding harsh sunlight into the hall.

Outside, everything was bleached by the sun, and the heat distortion coming off the basketball court was visible from a mile away. Jace had seen worse from his age of screwed-up weather and climate, but for these 1996 kids, it must have felt like an oven.

“How can they send us out in this?” Wright complained from the front of the double doors to the playground, at the front of the school’s fifth-graders.

“What’s the holdup?” an adult man’s voice asked from behind them. Once everyone had turned to see Mr. Drake, grinning with crossed arms, he continued, “Come on, then. Recess only lasts forty minutes. Go enjoy it.”

Jace heard Spice murmur, “How can he be this evil?”

Resistance was futile, and the hundred or so kids piled up at the edge of air conditioning began marching into the blaze—with a few of the school’s richer students commenting that they were “totally” going to have their parents sue the place.

By the ten-minute mark, recess was devoid of movement. Every last student was keeping still in whatever shade they had managed to secure. The space both under the central fort and its second-floor roof was filled up, several kids were sitting beneath the raised halves of the teeter-totters, one was in the shade of the basketball backboard, and most of the others had to rely on the shadows of the playground’s surrounding trees.

“Welcome to Air is Lava…” Wessy told Jace. “Did this happen at Miller?”

Jace replied, “Yeah…” And, remembering how the other school’s playground looked, he added, “It doesn’t really have trees, either. So… it could get rough.”

Wessy’s circle of friends, along with a few others, had managed to make it to the top of the fort first, and were crammed inside of its housing. They could barely move, but being on the second floor did offer a good vantage point of the grounds and all the suffering of the less fortunate who had inadequate shade.

“I suddenly wouldn’t mind getting soaked tomorrow…” Arthur sighed.

“Winning’s more important,” Wessy replied.

Sadie, squished between him and December, grumbled, “This is crazy. We don’t have enough places to get out of the sun, and being in a sardine can isn’t much better than rotting out there. Ugh… normally I don’t mind sweat and smelly stuff too much.”

Colin, at the edge and trying to keep himself from going down the slide, covered his face up to his nose with his shirt and replied, “Is there anywhere else we can go?”

Below, a scrawny boy with black hair and a plain white t-shirt walked over, enduring the heat to deliver a message. He seemed impressed by the two dozen kids that somehow managed to occupy the fort—the three under the slide and the five under the bridge giving him a laugh. He wiped off some sweat with the jacket that he was carrying around, and then slung it back over his shoulder before making his announcement.

“I know a place with more shade if, you know, you feel a bit squeezed.”

“Is this a new kid?” Wright asked the others. “Anyone know who that is?”

“I’m not trusting anything he says until I do a background check,” Millie added.

“Come on…” the messenger sighed. “I’m Park. What, you don’t recognize me?”

“Oh, wait,” Wessy replied, “that really is Park, isn’t it?”

“We never see you without a hoodie on, dude,” Jared told him.

“Hey, I’ll take it off if I’m going to get heat stroke otherwise. Now do you want to hear about this shady spot or not? You’re gonna like this.”

“How much will it cost us?” Colin asked with skepticism.

“Nothing! Dump’s free, remember?”

Delilah, who had been under the bridge looking like a troll, stepped out into the sunlight with a raised eyebrow and replied, “You serious?”

“Completely. Zach says the owner gave the all clear. We’re back in business.”

“Great, awesome!” Wessy exclaimed and ran down the slide. “Let’s go!”

“Um, maybe we should check it out in a small group first,” Arthur suggested. “Just to be safe. The teachers with eyes on the place could’a… set a trap or something.”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “You guys go do that. Hanging around a dumpster on a hot day when it’s extra stinky is not worth the shade. Besides. If you leave, I get more room.”

Seeing as how she never went there anyway, the others were just fine with that, and Wessy’s crew took off to the hangout with Delilah, Wright, and Park.

They passed by Carson and Gerald on the way, who had somehow ended up sharing the shade of the jungle gym—which, considering it was nothing but a bunch of metal bars, was scant at best. Even so, they competed for the space and refused to go elsewhere, as they were in the midst of yet another debate about pop culture favoritism.

Another gathering spot that had proven popular for Air is Lava days was Old Bob—the tallest, oldest tree on the playground that was even now big enough to make any further growth in Jace’s fifth grade unnoticeable. Over thirty kids were packed in under its life-giving shade, but they were all giving Tamatha and Trudy a wide berth.

“Go find your own place, Tammy!” Trudy shouted at her and pushed her away, out of the shade. “I’m not sharing Bob with you!”

“Whoa, man, they’re really going at it,” Colin said. “This heat is driving everyone crazy, tearing friendships apart even…”

“Not ours, man,” Wessy replied and gave him a friendly slap on the back—only to pull it away again after he instantly realized how sweaty Colin’s shirt had become.

“Hey,” Delilah said over their squabble. “Trudy, you’re being kind of mean.”

“Buzz off, Delilah! You’ve got no authority here. Keep your nose out of it.”

“What’d she’d do this time, anyway? Is it so bad that you’d let her fry out here?”

“Doesn’t matter, and I can’t remember anyway! But that’s not the point. I almost can’t stand her anymore, and I don’t even know if we can still be BFFs… Maybe we can only be regular friends now,” she declared, resulting in some shocked whispers.

Tamatha looked ready to cry, but she held back and instead returned fire, “I bet your Lisa Frank collection isn’t even real! Probably just fake knock-off junk!”

Trudy gasped. “Tamatha! You can’t mean that! My rainbows are real!”

Tamatha then ran off, passing Zach on her way to the next largest tree, a few feet away. Once there, she blended in with its own collection of kids looking for sanctuary.

Zach shook his head as he joined them. “None of us will ever be like that, right?”

It had only taken fifty feet or so of walking under the brutal sun before everyone was sweating heavily. But then the welcoming sight of a dumpster in a school’s back alley reached their dried-out eyes, and they saw that Park was right; the angle of the sun was such that it was entirely in shade. It was also eerily empty and quiet.

“Screw it, I’m going in,” Jared proclaimed and walked into the clubhouse.

“Is it really open again, Zach?” Wessy asked him.

“Yeah, I spoke to the owner about it. I asked Park here to try and get the word around, but I don’t think anyone else wanted to make the trip in this heat.”

“It’s all good, dude!” Jared said from within The Dump as he looked around. “You could never tell we used to hang out around here, but… it’s the same place.”

The others shrugged and joined him, with Delilah crossing her arms to look tough as usual and taking up her position as bouncer and walking adult-alarm.

“This is great,” Wright said and slid his back down the wall. Once he was chilling out on the cool white concrete below, he added with a yawn, “Got the place all to ourselves, boys. I could take a nap down here.”

“Man, it must be, like, only eighty degrees here,” Arthur noted. “That’s a lot better than the rest of the playground. Anyone bring a deck of cards?”

Colin touched the metal side of the actual dumpster and pulled his hand back with a grimace. “Big Bertha’s still hot, though. Must’ve been baking in the sun.”

“These winter heat waves, I tell ya… Crazy sometimes,” Park sighed contently, using his hoodie and his arms as a pillow. “Hey, Wes, word on the street is you and your crew have a big water gun game coming up with some middle-schoolers?”

“Yeah,” Zach answered for him. “We’re going to kick some ass for fifth-graders everywhere. It’ll be good training for the laser tag tourney, too.”

“Ah… So, you are doing that, huh? I was interested, but money’s a bit tight right now… As in, I’m saving it up. Don’t think I could afford the entry fee.”

Jared, his hands in his pockets, shrugged and jokingly suggested, “Steal stuff.”

“What? No. That isn’t me. My wares are clean. Found and used, sure, but legit.”

Delilah suddenly turned around with a look of subdued panic and began pointing to the dumpster itself, more frantically by the second. The boys only looked at her.

“Is she… telling us to get inside that thing?” Wright asked lazily.

“I’m not doing that,” Colin stated. “I can smell what’s in there. It’s bad today.”

Delilah then remembered the emergency gesture all the of the club’s attendees were trained to identify and signaled them properly, by putting on her scariest scowl and pulling at her cheeks to form a super frown, making her look close to a certain adult.

“Oh, crap!” Zach exclaimed. “Drake’s coming! Hide!”

He was the first to open the dumpster lid and climb in. Wessy and Jared, looking freaked out, followed suit, as did Park, Arthur and Wright. While Jace took his turn and used all his strength to pull himself over the side, he gazed down at a hesitant Colin.

“Colin, we gotta…” Jace muttered.

“Why? Or else we lose The Dump? Is that really so bad…? I… I don’t wanna go in that hot, stinky, metal box, Jason…”

“But… Then the kids from the next class won’t get to enjoy it. Think of them.”

Colin thought about this for a moment and sighed. “Fine… I guess you’re right.”