I spend the remainder of the evening hours acquiring a pair of gym pants, a tee shirt, a hoodie, thick white socks and sneakers. The extreme lengths modern humans go to in clothing themselves seem utterly ridiculous to me. However, the sneakers are a marvel. It's like walking on warm, dry clouds. I perceive that the shopkeeper would like one of the plastic rectangles—this one a precise replica of what the man in front of me used. I give it to her, but after she uses it, she immediately gives it back. "Does it not please you?"

"I mean, it was approved, so you're all set, thanks." She hands me the bag. "Have a great night."

I find a box of books in Matthew's garage and spend the night reading. By sunrise, I have many words and twice as many questions. Mentally filing them away to consider at another time, I leave the house and walk to school. It seems wiser than provoking the ire of the bus driver.

When I approach the school building, I see the guardian standing near the bus drop-off lane. The yellow light of the rising sun glinted in her flaxen hair. Her sapphire eyes sparkled when she looked up. Her smile reveals perfect rows of straight white teeth. Short pants show her shapely legs and her long, smooth arms are bared to the sun.

A lesser creature's courage may have faltered in the face of such perfection. I am not overwhelmed, simply surprised. That's why I stumble over the curb. I hadn't expected to encounter her so early in the day.

To buy a moment to gather my thoughts, I cause a large metal bracket in the street to stand upright. An approaching bus runs over it and the tire pops with a massively loud bang. Children scream and scatter in every direction. The guardian calls out to them not to run toward the street, but one small girl with twin braids hanging over her shoulders dashes straight toward the road. I race to intercept her, yanking her out of the path of an oncoming car at the last second. The car veers hard to the left and crashes into a parked pickup truck. The plastic bumper crumbles and falls to the ground. A monotonous honking begins emanating from the truck.

When I deposit the child in front of the guardian, the woman has one hand pressed to her magnificent bosom.

"Are you alright?" I ask.

She nods, breathlessly. Her pink tongue darts out to moisten her lips and I simply cannot look away. "I can't believe that happened. Thank God you were there to grab her."

"I wouldn't have let anything happen to the children." Chaos can be dangerous, but I understand the limits that should not be crossed.

The guardian runs a hand absently over the girl's plaited hair. "I need to get them inside."

I don't want her to go. Not yet. "I am Zatyafan, the new gym teacher." I long to share with her the true power of my identity, but she is clearly already overwhelmed.

"From the museum."

Glorious day, she remembers me. "Yes, that's right."

"I didn't recognize you with your clothes on."

"Shall I remove them?"

Her laugh sounds a bit uncertain. She doesn't directly answer, but says, "Well, welcome to the staff. I hope things aren't so nutty for you all the time. It seems like every time I see you, the whole world is upside down."

"These challenges allow us to evolve. Chaos can improve a person's ability to think on their feet." Not that I'm technically a person, but the principle still applies.

"Right." She takes the girl's hand and puts her other arm around a boy standing nearby. "I'll see you at field day, then?"

Matthew jumps off the bottom step of the bus with the now-flat tire which had finally opened its doors to unload, and trotted over to us. "Hey, Ms. Williams. Hey Zittypoopin."

The principal is barreling out of the front door of the school, headed straight toward us.

"Good morning, Matthew." Ms. Williams says as she motions for the older woman to come near.

Matthew beams up at me. "That was awesome."

I incline my head in acknowledgement.

"Found this. You can have it for an offering." He slaps a filthy penny in my palm, and the power I had expended is restored.

The next few minutes are a blur of questions and exclamations that end in the bus driver threatening to call the union and Ms. Williams herding the children inside.

"I'll see you soon," I call out to her.

She gives me a smile and a wave. I accept them as her offering and hold them in my heart.

A truck full of equipment pulls up and two large men and an even larger woman get out and start fiddling with the damaged tire.

Leaving them behind, I make my way to the gym where I find Mr. Brueller tossing stacks of orange plastic cones and jump ropes into a red wagon with oversized tires. He looks up at me and rolls his eyes. "Guess you're too stupid to count. You got four more days until I'm out of here."

"I've come to assist with field day."

He grunts. "I ain't losing my—"

For the first time since returning to physical form, my temper snaps. "Oh, for the sake of all that is holy! No one is trying to take your retirement from you. I'm here to help. Can't you just accept that and be grateful?"

He blinks at me.

"Neither I, nor anyone else to my knowledge, intend to force you out early."

His heavy brows furrow again and he thrusts an armful of cones at me. "Well, help, then. Go set this up for the two hundred meter relay."

I incline my head and go to do as he asked. As I finish, the guardian approaches with a line of children in tow. Most walk in single file. My high priest hops from side to side with tiny two-footed jumps. He waves at me, beaming. I return the gesture. Not far behind them, two more rows of children approach, one led by an elderly woman in a flower-print skirt, the other by a man in bright red shorts and a white tee shirt with the school logo on the front. A whistle hangs from a string around his neck. A red ball cap sits atop his hair, causing the ends to stick out in a way that distinctly resembles dog ears.

As much as I want to be near the guardian, breathing in her sweet fake-strawberry scent, I place the last cone and approach the man in the ridiculous red shorts. "Are you Mr. Pattinson?"

The man holds up one hand at shoulder level. "Troops, halt!" The children come to an abrupt stop, and he plants both fists on his hips. "I'm Pattinson. Who's asking?"

"I am Zatyafan, the new gym teacher."

The red shorts split down the middle, revealing a bright yellow undergarment covered in tiny pictures of pink bananas. The girl in the front of the line shrieks and points. Mr. Pattinson grabs his bottom in an attempt to cover the tear. Already, the guardian is rushing over to us. Word is spreading down the line of children like fire spreading from one branch to another in a forest. Two girls fall to the grass, holding their bellies as they roll and laugh.

"Children!" the guardian calls out. "Stop that."

Her class is looking now, too. Matthew and Bentley are clinging to each other, howling with mirth. Masen and Jenny watch from further down the row. Mathew catches my eye and gives me a thumbs up.

The third class looks to see what's happening and breaks out in an uproar. The old woman makes frantic, ineffective shushing noises.

After Pattinson races from the field, the guardian looks at me with her gem-like eyes. "Perhaps you could take over for him? If you have time?"

The gentle cadence of her voice holds me captive. "I will do anything you ask."

She holds my gaze for just a moment and warm blood rushes to her cheeks, turning them a fetching shade of pink. "Just caring for these children until Tom gets back will be sufficient." She starts to walk away, to return to her class, but she stops and looks back at me. "Thank you."

I bow my head in acknowledgement, and she leads her charges, including the two whooping boys and three more who have joined them to a long metal bench.

Twenty-two pairs of wide eyes are staring up at me. She has put them in my charge, but she's said nothing that would prevent me from granting my priest's request.

"Let us sit in the designated place," I say.

They all stare.

"Go there." I point at the empty bench.

They continue staring.

"Go there or I will give your moms pink slips."

Their eyes grow even wider and a split second later, they're racing for the bench. Nineteen tiny bottoms drop onto the bench. One child misses the last spot on the end and falls to the ground. One lands on her neighbor's lap. One forgets to stop running, crashes into the bench, flips over it, and lands on the ground.

I jog over and look down at him. "Are you injured?"

He shakes his head.

"I admire your flair."

"Thanks." He sits up and picks some grass clippings out of his hair. "My mom says I'm a handful."

Mr. Brueller emerges from the school and climbs into a small vehicle that hums quietly as it crosses the grassy field. The children from Mr. Pattinson's class grow quiet and sit up straighter. Matthew and Bentley look at me from Ms. Williams' bench. They're grinning like maniacs. My admiration is growing toward love for these bizarre tiny humans who are sustaining me with praise that pours from their itty bitty hearts even now.

I squat down behind Mr. Pattinson's class. "Whatever he says, children, it is crucial that you do the opposite."

Several of the children turn to look at me.

"Mr. Brueller is days from retirement. He's never going to work again. After this week, he'll never have another day of gym class or recess. His secret desire is to go out with a bang."

"Yeah, a bang," one especially small girl with a rat's nest of uncombed hair whispers reverently.

I like her immediately. "Exactly. Make his last field day interesting. Give him something to remember, something to think about and cherish. Make sure his heart and mind remain active for years to come. If he expects you all to run in one direction, everyone take a different path. If he wants you to jump, crawl. When he tells you to crawl, do cartwheels."

"He'll be so mad," one boy says.

"We'll lose," another points out.

I narrow my gaze on him. "Winning and losing are primitive concepts. The important matter at hand is that you must honor your elder in the manner he has earned through decades of hard work and careful service."

The boy scratches his head. "I'm six."

"Then you don't have enough life experience to understand, so you should trust me."

"How old are you?" a girl asks.

I cock an eyebrow at her. "Older than six."

She sighs and turns her attention back to the field. "Duh."

In the early days of tribal structure, I once saw a father drag his insolent child to the den of a hibernating cave bear. He showed the boy the gnawed-upon bones in the cave and told him bears had been sent by the gods to eat disobedient children. As a god, I found the assertation offensive. As a gym teacher, I wonder what similar threat might work on the children of Mr. Pattinson's class. Before I come to a suitable answer, Brueller is blowing his whistle and calling for the participants in the three-legged race.

"Which of you are doing this?" I ask the children in front of me.

"Me and Ivan," says the girl with the wild hair.

I stare into her feral eyes. "Make it memorable."

She sets her mouth in a grin line and replies with a serious nod before standing up and striding toward the starting line, hauling a dark-haired boy by one arm. He staggers along in her wake wordlessly. Perhaps he's mute.

Each child on the field puts one leg in a large heavy bag. They stand in a row behind a painted white line. The girl looks over at me once and I nod. The whistle blows. Ivan takes off with a huge forward hop, but the girl, with one foot planted firmly inside the bag, turns, grabs the back of the sack of the racers next to her and yanks hard. The two children face plant in the grass. Ivan continues hopping in place for a moment, gives up, puts his other leg in the bag and squats down, pulling the sack over his head.

The two children from Ms. Williams' class bounce past the finish line with a triumphant shout.

I rub my chin. That could have gone badly wrong if the girl had caused one of Matthew's classmates to fall instead of the children from the other group. I'll have to be more specific in the future, but for the moment, we're winning and, despite what I told the kid, in this case, winning is everything.

During the relay race, Mr. Pattinson's children throw the baton at one another like a weapon. I open a crack in front of the frontrunner, causing them to stumble, and Jenny crosses the finish line first.

During the long jump, a snake bursts out of the sand in the split second before the child from Pattinson's class leaps. She pulls back, shrieking, but when the teachers race to investigate, the animal is gone without a trace. I can tell Mrs. Williams doubts the girl's word.

She looks at me and huffs. "What a day."

"Your class is winning. The ice cream party will be cherished."

I wonder if she is as excited about the treat as the children.

She pushes a gleaming lock of golden hair back from her face. "I'm going to need something stronger than ice cream after this."

When I get a chance, I pull Matthew aside and whisper in his ear. "What's stronger than ice cream?"

"Ice cream is mushy, dude. It's not strong."

Jenny rolls her eyes and leans in close to us. "'Strong' means spicy. Ice cream isn't even a little bit spicy so any kind of peppers and stuff is stronger than ice cream."

Why would peppers help the guardian cope with a difficult day? I sit down and concentrate, ignoring the children doing somersaults across the grass—and the one hopping on one foot in a circle when he was supposed to be somersaulting. With a long, slow exhale, I send my power out over the city and find a dirty white bird circling over a farmer's market. I encourage the animal to spiral downward and snatch up a bright red pepper. It gulps the vegetable down in three quick swallows and soars through the air. When I open my eyes, the bird is visible in the sky, approaching from the east. A long trail of white droppings falls from the creature's backside, spattering across the grass beside the bleachers. None of the children notice. They're too busy laughing and pointing at the hopping child who is now shaking his backside in a way that surely poses a danger to the health of his spine. Another burst of power draws a bead of sweat from my brow, but I think I've achieved my goal. I stand and stride to the end of the bleachers and there, just as I'd planned, is a pepper plant. It's small, maybe only four inches tall, but a single ripe red pepper dangles from the bowed stem. I pluck it and slip it into my pocket. I shall wait for the right moment.

As the lunch hour draws near, Brueller demands the children sit and be silent.

With all of them lined up so unnaturally quiet, I consider the effort it would take to call forth a platoon of ants. The insects could crawl up the children's legs and torsos, tickling them, giving them an excuse to writhe and giggle as children should. No one could fault them for disobedience. Who would react differently with ants crawling on them?

But I see Matthew, perched on the edge of his seat, hands gripped together, wide eyes focused on the golden statue in Brueller's hands, and I understand my high priest does not want this moment interrupted.

In gruff tones, with no ceremony whatsoever, the old man tells the children that Ms. Williams' class has won. He presents them with the trophy and a certificate that bears the promise of an ice cream party. My priest and his friends go wild. The other children all slump in their seats. Many have tears in their eyes. It's too much. Not wanting any of them to be sad for a moment longer, I call upon the ants and in moments they are shrieking and laughing, running and rolling around in the grass, slapping at their bodies.

Ms. Williams stands behind the metal bench, watching the scene with her beautiful mouth hanging open. I approach her and hold out the pepper. "It is my hope that this will satisfy your need for something stronger than ice cream."

She bursts into side-splitting guffaws that border on hysteria. Perhaps she's not as emotionally stable as she appears upon first meeting. I am in love.