It was fine. They had nothing to bet with, anyway.
The room was big (well, bigger than their houses). The room could fit all eight of the kids inside. They would sit at the table in silence some days; in loud chatter other days. The space was stifling, like a pocket in the sun, all days.
Once they were there- seated- they couldn’t remember why they hadn’t wanted to go. This place was heaven. This place was a miracle.
First, there were the chairs. Most of them had four legs. Some of them even had seat backs. They were wobbly, which made them fun. The game was that the person whose chair toppled over first had to kiss whomever the others chose. There was one rule: when the chair collapsed, and if the seated kid was somehow able to keep from falling with it, then that person could pick someone to kiss.
There were only eight of them, which meant everyone had been kissed. They—the sisters—even once had to kiss each other, much to the glee of their friends. The sisters didn’t mind. They already shared everything anyway.
Then, there were the crayons. The school had five of them (they used to have six, and the sisters suspected Tatiana had taken the blue one home
The kids had broken them in half, so there were plenty to go around. The sisters always wanted the green pieces since that color was the color of luck (or so they had been told by a volunteer named Sean last summer), but the problem was that Juan knew this, too. It would always be a race between the
The Drowning Gull
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