Everyone watched as Mr. Drake aggressively jumped up and grabbed the walkie-talkie out of Zach’s grip—who, for the first time ever at recess, actually looked worried.

           “Whoever’s on the other end, identify yourself immediately,” Mr. Drake ordered as he pressed down the button. “Tell me everything, or… Or you won’t attend graduation!”

           Jace, next to Zach on the fort, heard him breathe out, “Hang in there, Hutch.”

           Ready to squeeze the quartz and send himself back to the start of the school day so he could have a shot at fixing all of this, Jace tensed up and prepared for the worst.

           “You have five seconds to save yourself,” Drake spoke into the transmitter. “You think I’m completely clueless? You’re all up to something. You have been all year!”

           “Hutch, don’t say a word…” Zach whispered. “You’ll get to go to graduation, I swear…”

           “Okay, that’s it. I’m bringing down all the faculty on—” Mr. Drake abruptly shut up as a pebble hit his sweater vest, followed by another, and then a third. “What the…”

           Following their trajectory, many of the kids turned and found easy-going Gerald chucking the tiny rocks, a determined look in his eye. He didn’t even go to The Dump.

           “Y-you’re really mean!” he shouted at Drake. “And you gave me detention this year for no reason! N-now… Now you get what’s coming to you!”

           “Mr. Eger, you will regret this! I’m going to call your parents and—”

           “Hey, Mr. Drake!” Tammy and Trudy shouted in unison near Bob the tree.

           He saw them both sticking out their tongues at him and making faces. It wasn’t a valiant attempt when compared to others, but the pair didn’t even like the “stinky trash club,” so it was more than enough to bring out a sense of solidarity among the collective tweens. Every kid who felt like they had been wronged by Drake, or sent to detention, or had their goods confiscated, or simply didn’t like him joined in to taunt him. Out of a want to save a special place, whether or not they went to it, or as a celebration of the last day of school, or just out of revenge—it was all the same to Zach, who smiled ear to ear.

           “You little disrespectful punks!” Drake shouted. “You think you can break me? I’ll find out what you’re up to in that corner of the school! Go ahead, try to stop me!”

           Very nearly flying off the handle and into a rage, Drake stomped off towards The Dump like a freight train, refusing to be stopped or distracted for another minute. In all of the commotion of the last couple of minutes, both Zach and Jace had forgotten that it was still being emptied. But before they panicked, Hutch climbed up onto the fort.

           “Hey, guys,” he said, panting. “I, uh… I took care of it. Yeah. Everyone got out, a-and all the posters got taken down… Did I do a good job?”

           “Hutch, my new main man!” Zach said and gave him a slamming high-five. “Ya did it! Ha-ha! Drake’s about to look ridiculous! Everyone! The club’s gonna be okay!”

           Zach leapt down from the fort, and his best buds joined him on the way back to the hideout. Millie joined in, too, if only to see where this was going. They approached rather cautiously and kept back from Drake, but then things got really interesting when they saw their principal, Mr. Shumaker, emerge from the doors, a rather befuddled look on his face. As he looked around, he waved to the kids, some of whom waved back.

           “You don’t think the principal knows, right?” Wessy said. “He never comes out.”

           “Today just gets crazier and crazier,” Sadie murmured.

           “Mr. Drake, what’s all this ruckus?” Mr. Shumaker said as he arrived at the emptied Dump, all of the evidence of it being a hideout now gone. “What were you yelling at the students about? I’ve told you about that temper of yours…”

           The gang watched from behind some trees as Drake reached his breaking point, and scoured the area for any last remnants of a party. The principal reached the monitor just as he opened up the dumpster’s lid and asked “anyone in there to come out.”

           “Oh, man, we drove Drake nuts!” Arthur snickered.

           “They were just here!” Mr. Drake shouted. “Those brats! I told you there was some secret gathering going on by the trash, but no one ever listened!”

           “All right, Mr. Drake,” the principal sighed. “I think you’ve had too much sun today. Let’s go inside for a while, all right? I think these kids are old enough to handle themselves for a bit.” Shumaker turned and waved again to all the fifth-graders staring.

           Drake eventually calmed down and gave up his search, and headed inside with his boss. The moment those doors closed, the playground erupted into applause.

           “We beat ’im!” Jared exclaimed. “Ah, man! Epic! That felt great.”

           “And the playground’s all ours for the rest of recess!” Zach added. “No chance of getting busted for our big celebration! Arty, how long do we have left, anyway?”

           Arthur checked his watch. “Uh, wow. Thirty minutes, actually. That all happened pretty fast. Oh, by the way! Real quick, before The Dump fills up again.” He took out a strange-looking camera from under his shirt. “I want a picture.”

           Kids were already heading back toward the club—and Delilah had just hopped out of one of the windows facing the playground in a successful jailbreak—so the group didn’t hesitate on the chance to get one good pic of just themselves and their hideout. Millie tagging along behind them, they arrived at the just-saved Dump while it was still empty. Colin got a good look at Arthur’s camera and examined it for a moment.

           “What… kind of camera is that, anyway?” he wondered.

           “I borrowed it from our dad,” Arthur replied and showed it off. “It’s digital! And really expensive. The pictures go straight to your computer. It holds five at a time!”

           “Great,” Zach said and got into position. “So hurry up and take one!”

           “Hey, Arthur should be in it,” Wessy remarked. “He’s always taking the pictures. You don’t show up enough in those albums I’m making, buddy!”

           Arthur thought a moment, then turned to Millie. Hesitantly, he carefully handed over the new-age device to her and asked, “Millie, would you…”

           “Oh, um. Yeah…” She took it and gave everyone a second to get into formation or make a pose. “I’m pretty good at taking pictures, so… Hopefully it’ll turn out nice.”

           “Jason, you get in here, too!” Wessy said. “Ya don’t show up much, either!”

           He had tried to never show up in photos—in fact, he had taken quite a few over the months and given Arthur more exposure—but he knew he couldn’t worm his way out of this one. Millie understood his need for caution as well, and gave him an extra moment to sort of hide behind Ash and her peace sign to help obscure his face.

           The digital camera was so primitive, that it didn’t even have a back screen to see how the pictures turned out. Relying only on the viewfinder and a steady arm, and with an incoming crowd approaching behind her, Millie snapped into eternity a shot of the group at their favorite place at school. Zach struck one of his cool poses, Wessy and Colin did a sideways high-five, Jace mostly hid, Arthur made a thumbs-up, Jared did a muscle flex because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, and Sadie simply smiled.

           Over the course of the next few minutes, The Dump was remade for one last time for the class of ’96. Posters went back up, Carson brought the music, Wright came over for one more game of Pogs, and Park brought in his retro merch.

           “Sorry I ditched the soda,” Park groaned. “We could be drinking it right now.”

           “Ah, no worries, man,” Zach said as he chilled out. “It still came in handy.”

           Everyone settled into their hangout, and even Ash, who had barely ever visited, stuck around this time and chatted with Sadie. For a brief moment, everything was just right, no one had any worries, and it felt great to be back in the overstuffed hideaway.

           And then Wessy went and ruined the lax atmosphere.

           “Oh, yeah,” he said and put his backpack on the ground. “I was gonna ask for some last-minute opinions before I present this, in case I can make it better.”

           He took out a Skechers shoebox, faced its lid toward everyone, and opened it. The gang leaned in for a closer look at the Lego figures inside. Then they all gave him a curious glance and raised eyebrows. Wessy read their expressions and looked worried.

           “W-what?” he asked. “There’s not, like, a dead rat in there or something, right?”

           “I didn’t know you got assigned Anne of Green Gables,” Sadie replied casually. “It’s pretty cute, Wes. How’d you like the book?”

           “Wait, what?” Wessy spun the box around and looked in to see a girl mini-figure running about on a Prince Edward Island farm. “What the crap? This is Celeste’s!”

           “Dude…” Zach muttered. “You’re screwed, man. Sorry about that.”

           “I had a James and the Giant Peach diorama, I swear! It has a real peach, and I used my old Creepy Crawlers set for the bugs! How could this happen?” he asked in a panic.

           “Let me guess. Celeste’s shoebox looks just like this one,” Ash said flatly.

           “Yeah, I mean, I guess… But I didn’t think we’d get them swapped!”

           “Nice one,” Jared murmured. “I dunno how you’ll explain this to Ms. Porter.”

           The jubilation and craziness of saving The Dump suddenly no longer a thought in his mind, Wessy looked around for solutions—and Jace reached for his quartz again.

           Wessy’s eyes settled on the nearby bike rack, just past the chain-link fence, and his own gears got moving. He stared at the bikes for a bit, then turned to the others. It already looked like his latest new insane idea was nearing fruition in his noggin.

           “I can make it to Sherman Miller in ten minutes flat from here on a bike,” he said. “And I know just where to go to get onto their playground. I can find Celeste!”

           “Wes, there’s no way,” Colin told his friend. “You’ll never make it there and back in time before recess ends. We almost all got busted, and now you want to leave school?”

           Further trying to bring Wessy down to Earth, Arthur added, “And we all take the bus, man! Who do you think would even let you borrow their bike?”

           Before Wessy could freak out further, Park tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Ah, Wes, you seem to be in need of a service. As you know, I offer a few of those.”

           “I’m sure you’d charge five or ten to let me borrow your bike,” Wessy sighed.

           “Nah, no way. I owe you for finding out I wasn’t a thief and keeping me in biz.” Park took out his bike lock key and tossed it to him. “It’s the blue one. Don’t scratch it.”

           “Thanks, dude!” Wessy then shoved Celeste’s project into his backpack, which he slung over his shoulder. “I’ll be right back, guys. I’ll pedal real fast.”

           “This is Charlie-levels of crazy,” Jared told him. “You know that, right?”

           “Hey, he’d love it! The old version of him, at least.” Wessy turned to the fence, took a deep breath, and began climbing up, his kid shoes just barely fitting into the diamonds as the metal trembled with each impact. “I’m doing it! I’m going for it!”

           Zach muttered, “You whacked-out son of a mother… Even I wouldn’t try this.”

           Concerned about Wessy’s safety, and unsure if this was meant to happen, Jace quickly realized that he couldn’t just let him go off alone.

           “Wes, wait!” Jace shouted. “I’m coming with you! Um… Can I borrow a bike?”

           Brian volunteered this time, stepping up before anyone else had the chance. He handed Jace his key and said, “Y-you did a lot for a whole bunch of us, Jason. Mine’s the purple one w-with character sprite stickers all over it. Just be careful.”

           “I will. Thanks.”

           “Yo, Jason!” Arthur called out as soon as Jace had gripped the fence with one hand. He tossed him his watch, set on timer mode and counting down. “You guys got twenty-five minutes before recess ends. But try to get back a little sooner if you can.”

           Jace nodded, strapped on the timepiece, and then scaled the ten-foot-high fence, joining Wessy on the other side who was already unlocking Park’s bike. It was ironic, he thought—if he was getting the concept of irony correct—that he was only able to go with Wessy because his older version taught him how to ride a bike. Fate was strange.

           “Jace,” Millie said from the other side of the fence once he landed on the pavement, most of the other clubbers watching nearby. “Watch out for yourself in the wastes. They say the order of the outside world stops existing while you’re in school.”

           He glared at her and replied, “Really, Millie?”

           She laughed. “Well, watch out for traffic. Wild dogs. And truancy officers!”

           Jace found Brian’s bike, covered with video game character art that included a Mario sticker on the handlebar, and quickly unlocked it. He had to pedal fast right at the start, as Wessy wasn’t waiting up. The kid was booking it, and being a less-experienced rider, Jace wasn’t quite as comfortable going so fast down the mostly empty streets. Desert Tree Elementary soon disappeared behind them, with it the din of recess, to be replaced by a quiet early afternoon in a neighborhood where kids were in school and most adults were at work. It was an unseen world; an alternate dimension.

           Disobeying his mom long before she had the chance to tell him not to use a phone and ride at the same time, Jace kept one hand on a bar, and with the other, dug out his bulky cell phone and called up his adult uncle as he followed Wessy.

           “Jace?” his voice came in over the sounds of gear shifts and four tires on asphalt. “What are you calling for? Isn’t it still recess? Oh, crap, did Drake find The Dump?”

           “No, but good job warning me about that! I’m chasing your kidself on a bike, and we’re heading to Miller because you got Celeste’s shoebox! Is this supposed to happen?”

           “What in the… No, kid! Something must’a gotten screwed up somewhere. Look, my younger self should know the way, but I’ll give you the general directions in case he gets lost. Damn, this is nuts… Hey, if this is a new memory, make it a good one, okay?”