It’s 9:56 when I decide I can no longer tolerate the mystery screaming from the other end of the hallway so I walk to the Red Room and pull open the door and note that the lights are out and the dim morning filtering through the window has left the room in shadow; there are four young people all bopping around the room in various states of delighted, shrieking excitement and Young Taurus on the couch - the center of gravity of this little spinning system - wrestling with a pair of pink scissors and a package I recognize as a duct-tape-wrapped present from Classic Aries.

Young Taurus is screaming get me a knife, woman at Artsy Pisces who is screaming back I brought you those scissors and these things that you didn’t even want don’t you love me in soap-opera tones as she brandishes what I recognize as 3 coping sawblades, loose in her hand and it is at this moment that the children register my presence and start talking at once; I get snatches of trying to open and impossible and mighty duck tape and why did you do this to me - all the delighted dramatic energy of people playing - and so I put on my best bemused-dad face and don’t ask them to stop screaming, just point out that they’re using sharp things in the dark and screaming loud enough that I can hear them from the other side of the school and I’m about to start a focused offering in the room next door and screaming spreads more aerosol covid droplets so instead of closing the door all the way, I suggest gently why don’t we turn on the air filter and the lights and maybe get Young Taurus a different tool? and before I’m done speaking Impulsive Pisces leaves the room and Young Taurus and Enby Virgo start experimenting with different pairs of scissors and I collect the sawblades from Artsy Pisces as Impulsive Pisces comes back with an exact-o blade that I also happen to know is not very sharp but I compliment the impulse because it was what I asked for and point out that if Young Taurus tries to carve open the package while sitting on the couch and their hand slips that they will cut themselves and Young Taurus says nothing in acknowledgement but moves from the couch to the table as I leave the room with the sawblades and go next door to the makerspace and swap them for the box cutter and come back to the Red Room crew, settled around the table now, with Young Taurus sawing carefully at her package and a friend watching on either side quietly, and two more at the computer, one putting music on the speakers and the other negotiating turning the volume down and a wild teenager has appeared, keeping an eye on Young Taurus, who accepts the box cutter when I offer it and shouts in delight - short and triumphant, a single exaltation before she turns back to the work of unwrapping, focused now, fully engaged in the fine motor skills I know she has been honing with painting and drawing and clay -- as her friends settle in around her, gathering projects or iPads or dancing out the door and so I leave them to it to go start my writing offering because it’s 10:01

and as I go I reflect that this is the first time I’ve ever subdued a roomful of screaming children with a box cutter but time is long - it may not be the last.