Leave the school running: Out the front doors by the kickball field, the dodgeball circles and hopscotch squares, the jungle gym, the monkey bars, and the tetherball pole. Turn the corner at the kindergarden side, and take off down the long sidewalk next to the soccer fields, whose orange goal pipes contrast against the still green grass and the just turning leaves. It’s September, and it’s raining.
Place a stick in the curbside stream and follow it: Over bumps in the concrete curb, around blacktop chunks pulled out of the street and into dams created by fall’s debris or placed there for fun. Watch the stick - it’ll turn this corner and keep going, halfway down the block with no sidewalk, and farther. Past the osage apple tree, and the old man in overalls watching and waiting with cross words for kids shortcutting through his backyard, past the brick row houses with bare laundry lines.
To the corner, to the drain.
Look up, and across the street kitty-corner. There it is, remember? The oak tree in the front yard, hiding the planks painted gold. Five steps, the porch, the screen door, an apron.
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