The white board at the front of my fourth grade classroom brightly displayed the Special Students of the week. Each Monday the chart was updated with the names of the new line leader, line ender, calendar person (who had to know the days of the week in English and in Español, por favor), and milk people. Line leaders and enders were the envy of the class, and the calendar person got at least three minutes of his classmates’ attention each morning. But being a milk person held no glory. The task of the milk people was to carry the correct number of little milk cartons from a malodorous milk fridge to our classroom for lunch. It was a thankless job, noticed only by the kid who used to drink all 8 ounces in under 2 seconds, but someone had to do it.
“Ten whites and eight chocolates” I read off the chart on the skinny metal refrigerator door. Megan reached into the chilly space and grabbed the right number of milks, boldly holding her breath and trying not to get her hands covered with leaked milk. Giggling, I held my nose with one hand and twisted my long brown braid with the other. I watched my best friend count the milks. Milk Duty was almost bearable with Megan. Earlier that year I had to do it with Kelsey Toledo. The whole week she talked about all her clothes and shoes and earrings and how many movies her older sister took her to see and how many birthday parties she had been invited to. I don’t have great clothes or shoes or my ears pierced, and I don’t have a big sister and I seriously think I may have been invited to the fewest birthday parties of anyone in the whole fourth grade.
I caught the milks in the plastic milk crate which we carried between us on the way back to our classroom. Megan and I were friends because we didn’t like to do what the other girls liked to do at recess. Most of our time at lunch was spent on the swings, pretending to be riding horses and solving mysteries. We talked and laughed during the short walk from the milk room to our classroom. It went the same way on Tuesday and Wednesday.
By the middle of the week we had, of course, turned the job into a game. The blue carpet on the hallways of our school had this one block of off-color carpet. Probably some kid puked there and they couldn’t clean it all up so they just put in a piece of new carpet. We pretended that Deerborne Elementary was in a milk crisis and they needed us to save them and the strange carpet patch was the portal to a school where we could get the milk we needed. Megan and I would hop onto the patch with one foot, close our eyes, say a secret chant, and pretend that we were transported. Of course, in the game we had to do it all in reverse to get back to Deerborne.
“Jenna,” Megan said as we reopened our eyes. “We gotta name this new school.”
I laughed, “Yes! How about Milk Elementary?” We pushed open the swinging metal doors and I reached for the fridge. “They must have cleaned in here last night, it doesn’t smell so gross.”
“Maybe they take care-a the milk room at Milk Elementary,” Megan replied, making me giggle. We loaded the 18 little milks into our plastic crate and headed back toward our classroom. As we turned the corner and prepared for our imaginary trip back through the carpet squares, Megan stopped. The discolored patch had disappeared.
“Megan,” I breathed. “Where is it?” We looked down the long hallway. All of the carpet was the same dirty blue. I glanced over at her. Her long blonde hair was tied up high on her head in a ponytail that day, and her thin legs stuck out of the bottom of her shorts overalls. Megan took a deep breath.
“Whoa,” she said, handing me the crate. She walked slowly up and down the hallway a little bit. “Weird.”
“Really weird,” I said.
“Come on, we gotta get this milk back to our classroom. We can solve this mystery tomorrow.” We moved down past the rows of backpacks on hooks and colorful posters. One poster caught my eye. It said “Welcome to 6th grade! You fit right in!” and various names were written on puzzle pieces. I didn’t recognize the poster. I didn’t recognize the names. Megan walked up to the door of our classroom, and looked in the window. “Jen- Jenna,” she gasped and motioned me forward. Holding the milk crate in front of me, I walked up to the window. Everything was backwards. Our desks were facing the other wall, the whiteboard had flipped sides, and Mrs. Vandermeer’s desk was turned the wrong way. Sitting at her desk was a woman with Mrs. Vandermeer’s skinny face and short hair, but she had entirely blue skin.
I dropped the milk crate and began to run. Megan stumbled a little over the spilt crate and came after me. “Jenna! Did you see ‘em, did you see ‘em?” she panted as we rounded the corner.
“Meg, they were blue!”
“I know. Weird, weird, weird,” she replied. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” I felt a little sick. “That patch in the carpet was gone, and then our classroom was wrong, and Megan, the people were blue!”
“Wait. That patch in the carpet. You don’t think we could’ve actually transported, do you?”
I gasped. “That would be crazy. But this doesn’t really seem like Deerborne.”
“Not really.” Megan grabbed my hand. “We’ve gotta figure out how to get back.”
“Yes, please.” We slid, panting, through the metal doors and into the dark milk room. As Megan searched for a light switch I looked around. From the light coming from the window in the door, I could just see what looked like a storage room, with the fridge standing close to the doors, and stacks of paper and tubs of blocks on the walls. Further back I could barely make out some broom handles before the light faded to black. Megan suddenly spun around and stared at me wide-eyed. She cupped her hand to her ear. I heard someone mumbling, and getting closer.
“Rotten, no good kid,” a shadowy figure burst through the doors, carrying our dropped milk crate. Megan and I scampered away from the doors, crouching back into the dark corner. The woman tossed our milks back into the fridge. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt tucked into gray sweatpants which were pulled halfway up her ribs. A whistle hung around her neck. The bottom half of her body was round as a marble. A bunch of short, curly gray hair sat on top of her blue-skinned face.
Next to me, I felt Megan take a sharp breath in. She was holding her finger below her nose. After two more short inhales, Megan let out a ginormous sneeze. The fat teacher spun around, glaring through the darkness at us. “Who’s there?” she demanded. She crept towards the black corner, sweeping her arms hoping to find us. Without thinking, I grabbed the first heavy thing I felt, swung it up in the air and brought it down with a clang on the top of her head. The stranger wobbled and fell forward, flat on her face.
“Jenna,” Megan whispered, in wonder. “What’d you do?”
I dropped the thing in my hands in horror. “I - I don’t know. I guess I just freaked out!”
Megan looked down at the thing. “Yeah, you did. That’s a metal shovel!”
“Oh, my gosh. Megan.” I thought I was going to start crying. “I killed someone! I killed someone!”
“Shhh! Don’t worry. She’s probably just knocked out.” She walked up to the body and put her fingers on her blue neck. “Nope, not dead. Help me tie her up just in case.” We tucked a jump rope under the teacher’s body and rolled her over and over until her arms were plastered to her sides. I reached for the nametag on a lanyard around her neck. It read “Mrs. Glump, Physical Education” Megan and I grabbed Mrs. Glump’s feet, drug her into a dark corner, and slid a rack of basketballs between her and the door.
“Come on, Jen. We gotta get out of here!” Megan said, stepping up to the milk fridge.
“But how?” I asked her.
“I don’t know, but it’s gotta have something to do with this fridge.” She pulled the door open and we looked inside. Nothing strange.
“Let’s retrace our steps,” I suggested. We went out into the hallway. “How did we even get here?” Before my friend could answer, we heard a noise from behind us.
A long line of blue kids was coming towards us. Megan and I had nowhere to go. We backed against the wall next to a drinking fountain. I grabbed her hand. The kids walked up to us, smiling.
“Hi there! Welcome to Bromley!” said one of them, a girl with long pony tails. “We’re on our way out to recess. Care to join?” I shook my head. “Alright, suit yourself! But we do have the most tremendously high, wonderful swings!”
Swings were not my number one most favorite thing; they were probably like number 24 or 25. But swings were Megan’s number one, top most favorite thing in the world.
“Jenna,” she started. “Maybe if we go outside we’ll find a way back to Deerborne.”
“Oh no,” I stopped her. “We’re not going outside. We don’t know what’s out there! Megan, they look weird, they talk weird, their school is weird, they probably eat weird stuff.”
“But did you hear about their swings?”
“Their swings are probably weird.”
“I’m just going to take a look through the window.” Megan walked over to the big glass windows in the swinging metal doors. Her eyes got big. “Jenn. Look at those swings.”
I had to admit, they were great swings. All metal bars with well-worn seats, very tall and very long. “Megan, they’re awesome, but seriously, we’re not going out there.”
“Jenna, you never know. The answer could be in those swings.”
“Or the air could be poison. Or their playground could be a torture ground. Or they could be tricking us into going outside so they can lock us out forever and we’ll starve.”
“Oh, come on. They all look like they’re having fun.”
I knew it wasn’t worth it to argue with her when swings were at stake. She ran out the doors and jumped on a swing. I went out too, but kept my foot in the door just in case someone tried to lock me out.
“Hello!” I turned to see where the voice had come from. A boy walked up to me. His round face actually had normal colored skin.
“Oh, hi,” I said surprised to see someone who looked normal, like me.
The boy stuck his hand out. “I’m Dean Prescott.” He was dressed in a dirty blue button-up shirt with short sleeves and had big, round glasses.
“Jenna Davis. You don’t look like the others.”
“Neither do you. You must be new.”
“New? What do you mean, new?”
Dean started telling me about Bromley Elementary. “Every few months, a new kid shows up from Deerborne. I don’t know how they get here. They usually freak out for a while, but eventually the Bromley students get them to come to class and out for recess. Soon, they forget all about Deerborne and start to turn blue. Once the blue starts, there’s no going back. They can’t remember where they’re from or who they used to be. I’m the only one who still remembers Deerborne. I left on Show and Tell day. My pet hamster is still back at Deerborne, waiting for me to show him off,” Dean sniffed. “I’ve been mostly hiding since I got here, trying not to get taken in.”
“Wow,” I said. “Shoot.”
“I know,” Dean said. “I’ve tried everything to get back, but nothing has worked. I have one last idea to try. I think it might work, but I can’t do it alone.”
“Oh, we’ll help!” I told him. “Megan! Megan!” I shouted, “Come quick!”
My friend jumped off the swing with a spin in the air. She trotted over, looking confused. “Yes?”
“Meg, this is Dean Prescott. He has an idea about how to get us back to Deerborne.”
Megan brushed her hair behind her ear. “Deerborne?”
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