It had been a year since school ended. They’d let everyone back just for the morning but with masks. One fifteen minute recess

It was her last year of elementary school. Veronica had ridden by the school while it was shut down and saw upgrades and repairs being done on the school.

“It makes me sad,” she told her mom. “I would like to use those new art easels on the playground but I don’t think I’ll be able to go back.”

But here they were after all. Veronica didn’t mind the mask, but it was hard to know what to say to the other kids. They had to line up and have their temperature checked and rub hand sanitizer on with no parents.

This continued for a few weeks. And it got to seem usual, if not necessarily normal.

Then one recess she saw it. The dark spot in the hollow by the fence. It would have been hard for the teacher to see. She walked over to it, trying not to draw attention to herself. It was her discovery, only hers.

She finally got there and saw what it was. A black bird—a dead crow was in the grass. She got up closer—not too close—and saw it was lying there peacefully. But it was dead.

Very dead.

This was something that had to be shared. Veronica waved over to some of the kids on the edge of the playground. They came over.

“It’s a dead crow!” she told them. The other kids walked over. More started to come.

They began to discuss it:

“How did it die?”

“It looks so still”

One kid poked it with his foot.

“Ew!” Veronica said.

Now a kid was bringing a teacher over. Why did someone have to tell?

The discussion continued. “It couldn’t’ have fallen from the sky. There is a tree here. How did it get here?”

The teacher made everyone step back and then a janitor person came over with a bag and a grabby claw on a pole.

Everyone stayed to watch. Once the crow was lifted off the grass its head flopped to the side.

Everyone gasped. Its neck was severed almost completely. The formerly beautiful thing was placed in the bag and taken away.

The mystery had deepened. How had the crow been killed? What would cause its head to be cut like that?

But now recess was over.