Excerpt

“It was the end of a long day for the class, but there was one more part of the Everglades to visit. Ms. Stone and Ranger Jim led the children into an open space hidden at the end of a hiking trail.

‘This is a finger glade,’ Ms. Stone said. ‘It’s a small part of the sawgrass prairie that does not stay wet all year.’ During the wet season, the finger glade would be filled with water and fish. But now the ground, which is higher than the larger sawgrass prairies, was dry and hard.

‘For a few minutes you can walk as far as you like and enjoy the finger glade,’ said Ms. Stone.

The children fanned out. Some pretended they were birds, flying low overhead. Others studied the sawgrass, pretending to be explorers discovering the glade. Still others talked about how the hard ground on which they were walking would turn into a lake deep enough for fist to swim through during the wet season., And some just lay on their backs, looking at the sky and the ring of trees around the glade.

When the children came back, they sat in a circle close to Ms. Stone.

‘Close your eyes,’ said Ms. Stone, ‘and listen’
‘Do you hear cars?’ she whispered.
‘Do you hear sirens?’
‘Do you hear people?’
“What do you hear?’
Silence.”

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