A group of students who attended a one-room schoolhouse for all of elementary school are about to graduate to secondary school. There's a wasp in the room and everyone, from fourth to sixth grade, is freaking out about it. Finally, a girl smashes the wasp onto a fellow student's hand and all is quiet again in the room. The teacher, Miss Lynch, draws circles around the desks of each of her sixth-grade students. They have all been together since fourth year, the summer when Miss Lynch's husband left her and one of the students, Johnnie, died. Lynch leads the children through a meditation exercise where she has them envision something in a box, then calls on each child to say what they saw inside it. She pushes some of the students when she thinks they're lying; others she disbelieves but withholds admonishment. Her hope is for the children to learn what is most important to them and to save their defenses for when they're out in the real world. Last of all, Lynch tells them what she saw in hers—an egg ready to hatch, but with nothing inside whatsoever once broken open.