One morning we woke up and found the trees were full of children. What are you doing, we asked. Skipping school, the children said. But why are you in the trees? Why aren't you sleeping in your beds or sneaking around town or hiding out at a friend's house? Oh, you'll see, they told us. So we waited. All spring, all summer. Then came fall. Over the course of a few days, the children dropped from the trees in accordance with the autumn leaves. We raked them up and put them into large paper yard-waste bags. And that was that.


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