It is recess, and all the kids are playing in the schoolyard,
some playing tag, others agiouto, a game in which two teams take
turns throwing a ball at the opposing team’s players to try and eliminate
the players one by one. It takes flexibility and fast reaction times,
but both Nicolas and Eteocles are good players.
Today, under the half-sunny sky, the boys go to the west side of
the yard, where there is a thicket of eucalyptus trees and a well that
the teachers have forbidden them from going near, but Nicolas, who
likes to defy anything the teachers say, has ganged up with a few other
kids and leads them there to play Tarzan. They climb the trees and
jump from branch to branch and even from tree to tree, and Eteocles,
of course, follows his older brother and competes with the older boys
in jumping between the slender eucalyptus branches.
All goes well until Eteocles steps on a weak branch and ends up
on the ground crying in pain. Nicolas rushes to his brother and helps
him to his feet while two of the other kids run to the teacher responsible
for the safety of the children during recess. This man hurries to
the eucalyptus tree and examines Eteocles, asking him to jump up
and down a couple of times, extend his arms, take some deep breaths.
Eteocles does all this without any difficulty, and the teacher decides
that he is okay. But Nicolas and two other boys of the same age are
all suspended, this time for three days.
The principal does not inform their parents, and the brothers decide
to keep the suspension a secret. Until the three days pass, Nicolas
goes off to school as usual but hangs around outside the yard all day
long and then goes home with his brother at the end of the day.
Libros Libertad 