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stick figure saying “Hi!” in a word bubble next to his head, and after a few moments of consideration, I drew a balloon in his hand. On the dollar that I brought from home, I had written “FOR STAMPS” right across the front, which my mom said was unnecessary, but I thought it was genius, so I did it.
    Sitting on each of our desks was a marker, a pen, a piece of paper, and an envelope. The first part of the project for that day was to transcribe the notes we had composed at home, after which we would put it in the envelope and attach it to the balloon. If we wanted to, we could draw a picture on it.
    There was a palette of paint with some brushes and cups of water sitting on a long table just in front of the teacher’s desk for the kids who elected to paint a picture on their note. It was a sunny day, and those who wished to paint on their note were told to finish by a certain time so the letters could be set out to dry in the sun. Only a handful of kids were brave enough to send their art out into the world.
    After the teacher had finished giving us our instructions, most of my peers resumed their rowdy attempt at trading balloons while the teacher began assisting the few students who had “forgotten” to bring their letters to class. As for me, I started on my note immediately because I didn’t want it to be sloppy.
    My handwriting, at least back then, was quite nice. With the guidance of my mother, I had been practicing writing while simultaneously learning how to read for a fair amount of time before I had begun kindergarten. Since the letter was already written, all that was left for me to do was copy it down verbatim. I had broken my left arm some weeks before, so the plaster cast made it difficult to reposition and steady the paper as I went, but finally I simply laid the heavy arm on the paper, leaned on it, and began transcribing, feeling thankful that I was right-handed.
    I took care with each stroke of the pen because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to erase. I had never written anything important in pen before; everything of any consequence that I had ever marked on a page was only as permanent as I wanted it to be. But now, each straight or curved line I marred the paper with had a tint of finality in it, and this only served to threaten the stability of my penmanship even more. But this was the way it had to be.
    Several years before, when the students were still writing their notes in pencil, there had been a storm the day after the balloons were released. Virtually no letters were mailed back. Although there was no way to determine exactly why that had been, it was suggested that the pencil marks washed out much too easily, and so to be safe, we should use ink from that point on.
    I drew the last line on the paper and sat back with satisfaction. I interrupted my teacher’s conference with another student to show her the letter, and she approved enthusiastically and sent me back to my seat.
    With my remaining time, I took to decorating the balloon. Mine was red, and that suited me just fine; with no interest in trading my balloon for another color, I tried to think of what I could draw on it. I decided that Spider-Man would make the most sense. I got to work and spent about two minutes trying to figure out how to draw Spider-Man’s head before I realized that it was impossible.
    Deciding that a plain balloon was actually better than one with a drawing on it, I put the marker away and went to talk to my best friend Josh. It usually took him a little longer to write things because he was left-handed and would occasionally smudge what he had just written as his hand moved against the paper from left to right. I went over to him that day, partially to help him, but mostly because I wanted to invite him to my house after school for what would have been our first sleepover.
    When the teacher told us to return to our desks, I walked back but froze as my letter came into view. It was wet. I looked around to