Dad: Okay, I’m recording! Everyone introduce yourselves.
[silence]
Sam: [hissing] Somebody say something!
Jax: SOMETHING
Eli: SOMETHING
Sam: [whispers]Very funny. You guys, come on! The video is running. We’re going to look like morons. [louder] Um, hi everyone, I’m Sam Fletcher. I’m in sixth grade —
Jax: I’m Jax. I’m in fourth grade, at at the same school. It’s really cool. We have lockers this year, and the cafeteria has ice cream —
Eli: I’m Eli Fletcher. I’m also in fourth grade, but this year I switched to the Pinnacle School. It should be amazing. We have additional research time, and—
Jax: If by amazing you mean amazingly boring! You guys don’t even get real recess.
Frog: Hey! It’s my turn! I’m Frog. I start kindergarten this year and my pet cheetah Flare is coming too. My teacher says she’ll make a special place for him to sit.
Jax: Yeah, a special place called NOWHERE. Because he’s not real!
Frog: He is too!
Jax: Is not!
Papa: CUT! Boys! Enough. This is supposed to sound fun.
Dad: Oops. Is the machine even on?

We trudge down the empty hallway, out the front door, where the air is cold and the sky a flat, dull gray. I sigh heavily and Ms. Lewiston looks at me and smiles, but her forehead’s wrinkled and worried.

“You doing okay? I know that story —“

“I’m fine,” I say quickly. Because that story had literally nothing to do with me. The kid in the story was damaged beyond repair, and seriously, no one even touched me. It was only my photos. “Let’s do this. Let’s go…be all justice-y.”

Ms. Lewiston looks like she wants to say more, but Alice has started chirping on about how an empty playground on a gray, overcast day would be an excellent place to film a murder, and we all get pretty distracted.

At the playground we all stand around like some kind of humanoid robots who lack the programming to actually play. But Ms. Lewiston pulls us all together and tells us to circle up.

“A real circle. A tight circle,” she says. “Shoulder to shoulder.”

I squint, suddenly suspicious. “Wait. Are we going to do those stupid —“

“Trust falls. Yup. You say stupid, I say there’s a reason everyone from the Boy Scouts to CEOs all do it. It’s a way to put our bodies where our words are, to prove that we are willing to trust each other.” She looks at me like she dares me to talk back, but I shake my hair down and stare the faded mulch.

Molly shakes her head so hard that her furry pom-pom hat waggles back and forth. “Wait, what? I don’t really think there should be physical touching, you know?” She side-eyes Alice, who repositioned the nail to her cheek to accommodate the giant scarf she has wrapped up to her chin.

“Molly, we’re doing it because it’s hard. Hang in there,” Ms. Lewiston says, her voice far too cheerful for the situation. She looks around. “So…who wants to fall first?”

We all step back, except Alice, who is left in the middle of the circle. She looks mildly surprised to be there. “OH! I’ll go!” she says, and who knows, but she sounds like it was actually her idea.

Ms. Lewiston beams. “Excellent. So here’s how it works. You put on this blindfold, fold your arms across your chest, and fall in any direction you want. To start we will all be in very close, so you’ll only fall a little ways before being caught. As we continue, we will move the circle out somewhat, still protecting the trust faller, but creating more space to fall, so more need for trust. Are you ready?”

I glance around. I’m shoulder to shoulder with Molly on one side and Andre on the other, and across from me, Erik is red and worried-looking. What’s his problem? He can probably catch Alice with one meaty paw while eating a bag of Doritos with the other.

“When you’re ready, Alice,” Ms. Lewiston says softly.

There’s a moment of silence then Alice comes swinging toward Andre and Ms. Lewiston, who catch her and push her gently in the other direction, so that she falls toward Erik and Jax. Then toward me and Andre, then back toward Erik and Molly, and on and on. It’s silent except for the thump and scuffle of hands on fabric. After a minute, Ms Lewiston puts her hands on Alice’s shoulders to hold her in place, and takes off the blindfold.

“What was that like?” she asked Alice.

Alice blinks like an owl, and looks around at us all. “It felt…safe. I felt safe,” she says, in her usual cheerful loud voice. And I want to quickly pull her away from here, away from trollish tweenbots who will make fun of her for being honest and earnest instead of making a joke.

But no one says anything.

“Okay, who’s next. Erik?” Ms. Lewiston says, and Erik, who nearly falls backward in his attempt to get out of the way before Alice takes his spot, gets into the middle.

I glance at Andre and raise my eyebrows a little. Erik is, to state the obvious, not Alice. That is to say, he’s: 1) at least fifty pounds heavier, and 2) a jock who hangs around with people who do not take kindly to being touched. As in, “will take someone’s backpack and throw it in the toilet for bumping into them in the hallway” don’t like. I’m not sure I want to catch him.

Before I can react though, the blindfold is on, and we’re back in the game. I stumble backward with the sheer heft of him when he comes swinging toward me like a large UnderArmour-clad pendulum, but we keep Erik from hitting the deck, and maybe I shove him a little harder than needed but hey, he can take it.

We keep this up, and when it’s my turn I do everything right. I fold my arms across my chest like a mummy, and keep my body straight, and let myself fall. But unlike Alice, I don’t feel safe. At all. It takes serious willpower not to pull off the blindfold and see whose hands are on me, whose breath I feel on my cheek before I fly upward again. By the time my turn’s done I’m sweaty and my jaw hurts from clenching it.

“So,” Ms. Lewiston says as we keep going, one after another. “Let’s start talking. This is more of a challenge. Keep your focus on the person in the center of the circle. But also start to share a little about that story. But before we get into your opinions, can we start by talking about the difference between restorative justice and punitive justice?” She looks across the circle. “Who wants to begin?”

Molly, whose turn was the shortest by far, and who has refused to go back in, immediately starts talking. I think she’d do anything to avoid getting into the circle again, probably due to her concerns that we will be pathetically sub-par in the catching department. “Well, punitive means that whoever broke the rule gets punished. Like, in this case, only the person who actually ruined Theo’s photos would be in trouble.” She glares around, as though to say that punitive justice would be fine by her.

“That’s true, Molly,” Ms. Lewiston says, “but what are some reasons that restorative justice is different?”

Andre speaks up, managing to simultaneously push Alice back toward Ms. Lewiston. “Well, in restorative justice it’s all about what happened before, and what has to happen to make things right. It’s not all about the victim, or even the…you know, perpetrator. Like in the story, Derek’s the guy who did it, but he’s not really who the story’s about.”

Ms. Lewiston nods and holds Alice again. Alice seems to find the trust falls great fun, and keeps volunteering to go back in. The nail did fall out once, but she put it in her pocket for safekeeping. We all stare at Molly. She peers at the dirty mulch like there are extra credit problems buried there.

“Molly, it’s your turn again,” Ms. Lewiston says softly.

Without looking up, Molly walks to the center. Alice comes next to me, wiggling into place. “Don’t worry, Molly. Just think of it as being stuck in a giant spiderweb, bouncing and wiggling around while the spider’s off finding something to feed you!”

Molly looks like she’s going to either barf or cry, and I exchange startled looks with Jax, who shakes his head. “Dude, SO not helpful.”

Molly doesn’t move at first, until Jax does a fake cough, then she immediately steps back instead of letting herself fall. Once she gets going we get back into the rhythm, though I catch her peeking out from under the blindfold. I don’t say anything.

Ms. Lewiston smiles. “Jax, do you want to tell us what your partner thought?”

Jax catches Molly easily and pushes her away, like he’s closing a door. “So it was me and Erik, and we thought the story was pretty dope. Erik…well, he figures the coolest part of the story is that Derek’s dudes, the guys he hung around with when he was messing with everyone, were also part of the circle, and they had to talk about how they considered Derek one of their boys, but they couldn’t really have his back anymore after he nearly killed Jamal. Like, it was the last straw for them. And they cut him loose. And they didn’t want him to think it was because he got busted, because it wasn’t. It was because they couldn’t handle how crazy he got, you know?” He looks over at Erik. “Did I get that right?”

Erik nods again. “Yeah. They were like a team, kind of. But Derek…he wasn’t a good teammate. Anyway,  Jax thought it was cool that the whole point of this wasn’t to punish Derek, even though he had done something really bad. Because say Derek gets out of juvie in six months, then Jamal’s all freaked out waiting for him to come back. And that’s even worse. This way, they deal with it, and everyone can move on.”

Ms. Lewiston smiles. “That’s exactly right. It’s more about moving on, about being able to move forward.”

Jax opens his mouth, then pauses and looks up. “Yo. Is it raining?”

On cue our heads all swivel up, right as Molly comes crashing into me and Alice. Alice gives a high squeak like a cat when you accidentally step on its tail, and we all three go down onto the damp and filthy ground.

Molly rips the blindfold off. Her face is pure You Are All Too Stupid To Be Allowed Out Without A Leash. “I KNEW THIS WAS A BAD IDEA ! YOU HAVE ONE JOB –” she starts, but Ms. Lewiston has her up and is brushing her off before she can finish.

“You’re okay. You’re fine,” Ms. Lewiston says, and I can’t be sure, but it sounds like she’s willing it to be true. I’m guessing a compound fracture — or even a bloody nose — would pretty much send Davis over the edge.

I get up and reach out a hand to help Alice, whose scarf has come undone and is tangled around her.

Jax has both hands on his knees, his head shaking back and forth. “Sorry!” he manages to gasp out. “I’m seriously sorry. But your face…” He collapses into giggles.

Molly glares at him, then at me.

I look back and shrug. Listen, it’s not like any of this was my idea. But Molly’s so pale she looks almost blue, and there are wood chips all caught in her pom-pom, so I mumble a pathetically non-sincere apology that sounds like I’m trying to win a contest for bad acting.  Then I go back to picking damp mulch out of my waistband.