1The playground smelled like hot rubber and cut grass. Nia stood at the gate, her sneakers still clean, watching everything. A girl with braids was spinning on the tire swing. Three boys were digging something serious near the fence. And over by the oak tree, one boy sat alone on the left seat of a two-seat swing, dragging his sneaker slowly through the dirt.
2Nia walked over. "Is anyone using that side?" she asked, pointing to the empty seat. The boy shook his head. His name was Leo. He had a small sticker of a blue rocket on his water bottle.
3She sat down, and they both swung a little without talking. The chains creaked. A cloud moved. It wasn't awkward, exactly. It was just quiet.
4"Do you want to play something?" Nia asked. "You can pick first." Leo thought for a second. "Lava," he said. "Everything on the ground is lava."
5They played lava for a long time. Nia crossed the monkey bars. Leo leaped from a bench to a tire. They never once touched the ground.
6Then it was Nia's turn to choose. She picked statues — you run, someone claps, you freeze. Leo was very good at freezing. He could hold one leg up for almost a whole minute.
7After a while, Leo stopped running and sat on the bottom of the slide. He didn't say anything. He just looked at his water bottle.
8Nia sat on the step beside him. She didn't ask what was wrong. She just looked at her own shoes.
9After a minute, Leo said, "My dog died last week." "Oh," said Nia. She didn't say I'm sorry right away, the way grown-ups do when they aren't really sure what else to say. She just sat with it. Then: "What was his name?" "Biscuit," said Leo. "That's a good name," she said. He almost smiled.
10Later, when they went back to the swing, Leo pumped his legs hard and went high. Nia pumped too, and for a few swings they were perfectly matched, rising and falling at exactly the same moment.
11Then Nia jumped too soon off the swing, landed in the mulch, and Leo thought she was trying to win something, so he jumped too, and the game turned strange and they were both standing there not quite sure who had done what. "I wasn't racing," Nia said. "I just wanted to see how far." "Oh," said Leo. "Me too, actually."
12They looked at their footprints in the mulch. Then they looked at each other, and the strangeness blew off like a napkin in the wind.
13When Nia's grandmother called her name from the bench by the gate, Nia stood up and brushed the wood chips off her knees. "I come here Saturdays," she said. Leo picked up his rocket-sticker water bottle. "Me too," he said.
14Nia walked back across the playground. The tire swing was empty now. The boys had finished digging. The shadows were getting long and cool. She didn't look back, but she was already thinking about what game she would pick next Saturday.
