Recess Rules

There is a rule at Marrow Elementary, passed from fifth-graders down to kindergartners every September without a single adult ever writing it down: you do not stand on the well cover during recess, and you do not let your shadow fall across it either.

Nobody remembers who made the rule up, which is itself unusual, because children are usually eager to claim authorship of their own games. This one arrived, generation after generation, already old.

New students learn it fast, usually from whichever kid is standing closest when a ball rolls near the rusted iron disc set flush in the grass at the field's far edge. "Not there," the kid will say, already stepping back, and something in their voice keeps the new student from asking twice.

In 1994 a boy named Tyler Buch, transferred in from three towns over and not inclined to take playground superstition seriously, kicked his shoe onto the cover on a dare and stood on it, arms out, grinning, for a solid ten seconds before anyone could stop him.

Nothing happened. He told the story with pride for a week, and the rule seemed, for a while, like it might finally lose its grip on the school.

Then that November, on the anniversary of a well accident from 1961 that none of the children knew about and none of the teachers ever discussed, Tyler's shadow — cast long and thin by the low autumn sun during afternoon recess — swept across the cover as he ran for the swings.

He said later that it felt like his shadow caught on something, the way a coat catches on a nail, and that for just a moment he couldn't move at all, though his body kept running without him.

He left the school the following spring, and the rule tightened rather than loosened after that, expanded now to include a second clause the current fifth-graders enforce without exception: at recess, in autumn, you keep your shadow on the side of yourself that faces the building, no matter which way you have to walk to manage it.