The air was frosty and the wind was ice, but no snow littered upon the ground. My arm hairs perked up, seeking to gather heat for my body, which was lacking it early that morning. I hugged myself, in a futile attempt to recycle some of my radiating heat. No jackets existed in the cold realm I inhabited, and it didn’t appear as if my classmates had any interest in giving up their personal space to obtain warmth.


And so I languished, jealously glancing upon the jackets and coats my fellow students wore. A few of them wore only tee shirts, like me, and I looked at them in sympathy as we all shivered together. So, grimacing, we all took a step forward because we were being forced to walk to the park to play the games of children by a teacher who appeared to be ignoring our grumbles.


This teacher was not, in fact a bad teacher. It is simply that, like many teachers, this one thought that teenagers act exactly like they did when they were teenagers. Which is to say that this particular teacher believed that high schoolers in this decade liked going outside and frolicing. If this particular teacher happens to be reading this, please do note that giving warnings does prevent some grumbles here and there.


Suffice to say, those who were awake enough to be irritated certainly were, and those with less than 2.5 hours of solid sleep were just grumpy by default.Some groups of friends gathered together to distract themselves from the cold, while I struggled to force my way into one. New video games and movies were discussed in a ploy to replace the thought of cold, but a freezing breeze always cut the bliss short.


When everyone had arrived at the park, we all gathered under a small structure at the bottom of a depression in the land. The teacher, arriving last. Looked at us in a rather serious manner, and began speaking. “Eric, you have one hundred seconds to hide. Class, find him after he hides.” Wordlessly, a boy in a hoody with shaggy hair and glasses stepped forward and walked out of the shelter, then promptly running towards what he deemed a suitable hiding spot.


A lone voice began counting down one hundred seconds, gradually becoming two voices, and then four voices, and then eight voices, and near the end of the countdown, the whole class joined in. A mischievous spark lit up in some of my classmates eyes, and the sleepy ones suddenly looked alert. The countdown reached zero, and with it, a shouting of “Ready or not, here we come!” was done.


Maybe this day in the park wouldn’t be as painful as I anticipated.