So we were under the bleachers pretending we were animals at the zoo and I wanted to be the white tiger but Jessica said that she was already a regular tiger and we couldn't have both. But she was just being stupid because a lot of zoos have both. She's always jealous of me and Beth because we didn't invite her to be in our club so she made her own club with Amy. They whisper back and forth all the time and act like they're all big and doing something fun when they're not.

So then Jessica got bored and said she was tired of playing animals and let's play something else. We said like what and she said let's go down past the baseball field. Out where the dirt is.

I said I don't want to.

She said why and I said I just don't want to.

She didn't go to our school last year so she doesn't know. Beth was looking scared and I didn't want Jessica to call her a baby so I just said we want to stay up here.

She looked at Beth and said if you go with me I'll give you my purse. It was the pink sparkly one with the long strap and I know Beth liked it but she shook her head and said I don't want your purse. Jessica always thinks just cause she's rich she can make people do whatever she wants but she can't.

Then Jessica got kind of mad and said well I'm going. And she walked straight out through the baseball field and we ran after her because she doesn't know. And Beth was crying and I was all out of breath when we got out there and Jessica was already standing on the dirt field where it's all cracked and packed down and looks like craters. You could see the heat coming up all wavy out of the cracks.

See she said there's nothing here to be scared of.

So I pointed to the crater she was standing next to and I said see that. It's a dinosaur footprint.

So what she said. They're all dead anyway stupid. It made that a long time ago you think it's gonna come back?

And I could feel the heat under us and my mouth was so dry I could hardly talk but I just said come on we gotta go back up Mrs. Wright will be mad and we'll get in trouble cause we're supposed to stay up at the blacktop. Come on.

But she was still looking at the footprint and then she started looking at the others and talking about how cool it was and Beth made this weird kind of choking noise and turned around and ran cause she saw them coming before I did. They climb up through the cracks.

You can kind of smell them. They smell like the grill after your dad burns the hamburgers. Or maybe like a volcano. They're the same color as the dirt and they don't roar like on TV cause then you'd know they were coming and you could run but it doesn't matter cause they're too fast anyway. This time there were two of them and one jumped on her from behind and the other came around front.

Last thing I saw they were fighting over her pink sparkly purse tugging it like dogs playing except you couldn't tell it was pink or sparkly anymore because of all the blood. The dirt is always red around there.

When we lined up to go back in Mrs. Wright asked where Jessica was and I said she went down to the dirt field and Beth didn't say anything the whole rest of the day. I think she liked Jessica more than I did. We did reading and then we had show and tell and I used a barrette I found under the bleachers cause I forgot to bring anything from home. I think maybe it was Jessica's but I can't ask her now so I just kept it. Amy brought her guinea pig and everybody got to hold it and it peed on Matt's shirt. Tomorrow is ice cream day.

(c) 2010 Renee Carter Hall ("Poetigress"). May not be reprinted or redistributed without written permission.