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Emerald ran into the kitchen with a bright orange and pink Barbie hammock hooked over both ears, covering her face and mouth like a medical mask. I could see her eyes crinkling at the corners, so I knew she was grinning underneath. It struck me as so very strange, a seven-year-old child’s game centering on a worldwide pandemic. But why shouldn’t that be what’s on her mind in these troubling times? When every conversation she hears is about the latest news, when every headline screams “Danger” and every photo is grownups in masks, wearily facing a frightening enemy that is so small it can’t be detected by the human eye? What an odd time to be a second grader.