Teacher Yepark was singing the one about the face like an apple.
“What are you doing?”
“I'm looking at my face in the rabbit mirror. Do you want to look too?”
They all came, and there is only one rabbit mirror, and they were pushing at each other in front of it.
“It's too tight.”
So the mirror-decorating things came out. They picked their colors and Teacher Yepark squeezed the paint, and the shaped pieces went on, and by the end everybody had a mirror.
“Pretty.”
And then their own names, said to the face in their own one.
“We're making a fishing spot. These are the fish and we're going to catch them.”
“I want to play too.”
“Go on then.”
Two of them fetched paper blocks and started building.
“Hang on, though — if we build it like this, how is it a fishing spot?”
One of them pointed at a side.
“Because the fish will all get out that way?”
“Yeah.”
The building carried on.
“Wait! Time out.”
They stopped.
“How about the seven-year-olds make the shape and the six-year-olds stack on top like this?”
“Okay.”
The older ones laid the shape and the younger ones built it up.
“It's a fish-shaped fishing spot.”
“Now let's put the fish in.”
Two more came over wanting to play.
“But there are only two rods.”
“Then we do teams!”
They picked the teams with a counting game.
“Rule time! It's over when all the fish are caught!”
“Rule time! No catching two at once!”
Then it started.
“Come on, you can do it!”
When one of them landed a fish:
“Put it in here! And give the rod to him!”
The rod went across, and the next one fished.
What kept it going Every problem that came up — the open side, the two rods, who builds which part — got called out by one of them and settled by another. Time out is their word, and so is rule time.
The family photos were up on the wall, and Bori stood in front of one with a hand flat over it so the others could not look.
“That's my mom.”
And that was as far as it went.
So Teacher Yepark took a popsicle stick, put a bit of velcro on the end, and showed how a photo goes onto it.
After that the others went and fetched their own family photos and made theirs.
Then Teacher Yepark sang it, the way the song goes. “Where's mommy?”
Bori pulled the mommy out of the handful and held it up.
The others came round to show theirs, and then the whole lot went down on the floor and they picked each one up as the song got to it.
What kept it going A photo on a wall can only be guarded. Teacher Yepark put one on a stick, and then it was a thing to hold and carry and hand over — and there was one for everybody.
The color-water bottles had been left out on the windowsill over the holiday, and by the time everyone came back they had turned to ice. Teacher Yepark opened the window and brought them in.
“Is it ice?”
“It's cold.”
“Why did it freeze?”
Then everybody wanted to be the one to touch one first.
“Me first.”
“I want a go.”
“There are enough bottles for everybody to hold one.”
So they sat down, and took one each.
“Ooh, cold!”
“It's slippery.”
“My hand's freezing!”
They held them and put them down and picked them up again. Then one of them fetched a toy bowl and tipped a bottle over it, pouring.
“It's cold ice cream.”
It was warm in the room, and by the end there was water in the bottles again.
What kept it going There was going to be a fight over who touched one first. Teacher Yepark said there were enough for everybody rather than settling who went first, and that turned out to be true, so there was nothing left to settle.
Bori went through the basket for the blue ones and came out with one in each hand.
Then another blue one turned up.
Both arms went out for it. Both hands were already full. The balloon went up and away, and the crying started.
“You wanted all the blue ones and you couldn't have them. There's a balloon in each hand, so there's nowhere for another one to go — what could we do?”
An arm round the shoulders, and the crying stopped.
Then the two in the hands got shaken, one and then the other.
“One in each hand, and you're shaking them. And your friend's got the other one. It's better with two of you playing.”
The smelt fishing spot was ready when they came in. They lifted the fish out with magnetic rods and counted them.
Then one of them picked a fish up.
“I should grill this.”
They built a frame out of paper blocks, put red circles inside it for the fire, laid a puzzle board over the top, and put the fish on it to grill.
The others started cooking too — one putting fish into a blender, one setting them in a bowl with wooden blocks, one grilling them on the fire they had made.
“Sushi! Get your sushi!”
Sushi sounds good, said Teacher Yubok — so they pulled the fish back out of the cooking and started making it.
Soon the table was covered. Sushi, and fruit, and popcorn from the play kitchen, and they ate it together.
“That's good.”
“This one is cold!”
“Sweet.”
The ones who still wanted to fish found the ice box nearly empty, so they went to the cooks to borrow some fish back. They were turned down. They fished with what was left, and agreed to do more of it tomorrow.
3–5noticing other childrencommunicationpretend play
Behind the counter it was dough, with brown sugar going into the middle of each piece, and then the presser coming down on top — which takes some working out, because press too hard and the sugar comes out the side.
Bori got through one and wanted to start again.
“I want to do it again.”
But there was one lump of dough each, and one lump each is what there was, and that was that for the day.
The next morning there was a lot more of it. And there was chocolate, because somebody had said chocolate hotteok the day before, and honey as well.
The shop opened again, and this time it had a fish-bread stall next to it, and the two of them sorted out between themselves who was buying at which.
“You're buying the fish bread. I'm going to get a hotteok.”