It's after school. The game is called 'I need to hide your lunch box 'cause I can't find mine.'

It's not your fault.You did not do anything with my lunchbox, of course -- who knows where it is? Maybe lost and found... but in the time it takes to find it I might miss school bus and Mrs. Wilson will call my parents make me clean up library and make me eat egg sandwiches she says children forgot but which I *know* were slipped them into the book return on purpose. Later, her whole station wagon will smell like egg and fur coat. I know you don't want that for me.

But if *your* lunch box was also missing a teacher might help us look. The bus driver might wait ("Hey, TWO kids are missing. Don't two kids usually sit here?") That sounds much better -- with just one person everyone gets impatient, people practice yelling at you and make giant gobs out the side windows. With TWO kids missing people think something important is up.

There are only seconds to get this game right. I need you to be red-cheeked, genuinely near tears when you remember you have a new thermos and a tupperware container you *promised* your mom you'd bring home. You cannot see me cover your lunchbox there on the art table with my coat. I jump and sit on the tablelaugh. It's a chaos of coats and books and after-school waiting for the bus and air guitar and squealing. No one cares, not even Mrs. Wilson there in the distance, that I'm leaning back making huge gestures, pretending my coat is a pillow.

Really, I'm pushing your lunchbox into that small space between the table and the wall. I throw my scarf on top to deter casual searchers.

The buses come. I look vaguely for my lunchbox. You look for yours with mounting panic. You're perfect -- cheeks red, running to tell the bus driver.  I comfort you -- "mine's gone, too!" -- and squeeze your hand.

"Oh wait, I see my lunchbox. I've gotta go. Here it is! Too bad about yours. Maybe Mrs. Wilson can get your mom to come, ok?"

There isn't time to retrieve your lunchbox. And I can't tell you what happened to it -- that's not in the rules. If you do that can never play again. Not even variations of the game like 'I need to hide your shoes so you can stay at my house longer.'