First Playdate at the New School

Declan stood at the living room window, watching a blue minivan pull into the driveway. His stomach felt like it was full of jumping beans.

"They're here!" his mom called from the kitchen, where she was setting out a bowl of pretzels and a plate of apple slices.

Declan already knew everything about this situation, and none of it made him feel better. His mom had talked to some other mom at pickup. The two moms had exchanged phone numbers. The two moms had planned this whole thing. And now a kid named Marco was walking up Declan's front steps, and both of them knew — both of them — that this wasn't their idea.

The doorbell rang.

Declan opened the door. Marco stood there with his mom behind him. Marco was wearing a dinosaur shirt. He had a backpack on, which seemed like a weird thing to bring to someone's house.

"Hi, Declan!" Marco's mom said in that bright voice grown-ups use when they really, really want something to go well. "Marco has been so excited!"

Marco had not been so excited. Declan could tell because Marco was looking at his own shoes like they were the most interesting shoes in the entire world.

"Hi," said Declan.

"Hi," said Marco. To his shoes.

The moms talked for approximately one thousand years at the front door. Then Marco's mom left, and Declan's mom said, "Why don't you boys go play in Declan's room? Declan, show Marco your room!"

They walked down the hallway. Declan could feel his mom watching them go, probably smiling that hopeful smile she'd been wearing all morning.

Declan's room was messy, which he suddenly noticed for the first time in his life. There were LEGO pieces all over the carpet, a pile of stuffed animals falling off the bed, and a half-built fort made of couch cushions that he'd dragged in yesterday and never put back.

"Sorry it's messy," Declan said.

Marco looked around. He didn't say anything for a second. Then he said, "My room is worse."

"Really?"

"My mom says it looks like a tornado married an earthquake and they had a baby."

Declan laughed. It came out before he could think about it.

Marco almost smiled. Almost.

They stood there. The silence was the loud kind.

"So…" Declan said. "Do you want to… do something?"

"Sure," said Marco.

More silence.

"What do you want to do?" Declan asked.

"I don't know. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. What do you want to do?"

They went back and forth like that three more times until it became so ridiculous that Marco snorted, and then Declan snorted, and then they both just stood there snorting, which is not a great sound but felt a lot better than silence.

Marco set down his backpack and unzipped it. Inside were two action figures, a squished granola bar, and a small rubber snake.

"My mom made me bring stuff," Marco said, making a face. "In case you didn't have anything to play with. Which —" He looked around at the ocean of LEGOs and stuffed animals. "You obviously do."

"Is that snake rubber or real?" Declan asked.

"Rubber. But it looks real, right?"

Declan picked it up. It did look real. It was green and shiny, and when you wiggled it, it moved like an actual snake.

"We could scare my mom with it," Declan said.

Marco looked up. For the first time, he actually looked right at Declan. "Would she scream?"

"Oh, she would scream."

"My mom just says, 'Marco, really?' and looks tired."

"My mom goes like this —" Declan jumped up and made a high-pitched shriek and flapped his hands around. Marco cracked up.

They made a plan. Declan would put the snake on the plate of apple slices in the kitchen. Then they'd hide around the corner and wait.

They crept down the hallway like spies. Declan's mom was in the laundry room — they could hear the dryer running. Declan placed the rubber snake right on top of the apple slices, curled up like it was napping, and they both scrambled behind the kitchen island.

They waited.

And waited.

Declan's mom walked in, humming. They heard her footsteps. Then the humming stopped.

"AHHHHH! WHAT — oh. Oh my — DECLAN!"

Both boys exploded with laughter. The kind of laughter where you can't breathe and your stomach hurts and you grab onto whatever's next to you. Marco grabbed Declan's arm, and Declan was laughing so hard he knocked his head against the cabinet and didn't even care.

Declan's mom appeared around the island, holding the rubber snake with two fingers, trying very hard to look serious but not quite making it.

"Very funny, gentlemen," she said. But the corner of her mouth was twitching.

She walked away, and Declan heard her laugh a little in the hallway.

After that, things were different. Not perfect-different. Not best-friends-different. Just… easier.

Marco spotted the half-built cushion fort and said, "What's that supposed to be?"

"A fort. But it keeps falling down because I can't get the top part to stay."

"You need something stiff for the roof. Like a board or something."

"I have a big piece of cardboard in the garage."

"That could work."

They spent a long time building. Not talking the whole time — sometimes just working quietly, handing each other things, figuring it out. Marco turned out to be really good at building things. He figured out that if they wedged the cushions between the bed frame and the bookshelf, the walls stayed up on their own. Declan found a blanket to drape over the cardboard ceiling.

When they were done, they crawled inside. It was dark and warm and perfect. They could barely fit, and their knees were touching, and it smelled a little like the inside of a couch, but it was theirs.

"This is actually really good," Marco said, looking around.

"The best fort I've ever built," Declan said. And it was true. Every time he'd tried alone, it fell apart.

They lay inside the fort and Marco told Declan that he'd moved here from a place called Tucson, and that he missed his old best friend, Wyatt, and that his new school was fine but everything felt a little weird still, like wearing shoes that almost fit but not quite.

Declan told Marco that he'd been at the school since kindergarten but his best friend, Oliver, had moved away over the summer, and that lunch was the worst part because he didn't know where to sit anymore.

"That's the worst part for me too," Marco said quietly.

They were both quiet for a moment, but this time the silence wasn't the loud kind. It was the okay kind.

"You could sit with me," Declan said. "If you want. I mean — at lunch."

"Yeah?" said Marco.

"Yeah. I sit by the window. The one near the milk cart."

"Okay," Marco said. "Yeah. Okay."

From outside the fort, they heard Declan's mom call, "Boys! Marco's mom is here!"

They crawled out, blinking in the light. The playdate had gone by fast. Not the first part — the first part had lasted approximately seven hundred years. But everything after the snake had gone by in a blink.

At the front door, Marco pulled on his backpack. He almost left, then turned around.

"You can keep the snake," he said. "For next time. If there's a next time."

Declan held the rubber snake and grinned. "My mom's not going to fall for it twice."

"We'll think of something better," Marco said.

And there it was — the word we.

They didn't high-five or hug or make a secret handshake. Marco just walked to the blue minivan, and Declan stood in the doorway holding a rubber snake, watching him go.

That night at dinner, Declan's mom asked, "So? How was it?"

Declan shrugged, because that's what you do when you're six.

But under the table, in his pocket, he squeezed the little green snake and thought about where to sit at lunch tomorrow — and how it might be nice to have someone sitting there too.