They went into the back of the classroom, and near the cubbies was a shelf with some large flat boxes and some smaller ones.
"You want to play checkers?" asked Jason.
"Don't know checkers. Show me," said Baartock.
They sat in the back of the classroom, and Jason taught him how to play checkers. When some other children saw them playing, they got out other games, and soon there were lots of people playing all kinds of games.
It kept on raining very hard, and there were occasional lightning flashes and crashes of thunder.
Lunch time seemed to be going on longer than usual. Baartock had just lost another game of checkers, and he let Jerry play. He didn't like checkers very much. None of the other games seemed too interesting either, so he walked over and looked out the window at the rain. He saw Ms. Laurence hurry in and go over to talk to Mrs. Stogbuchner.
"Children." Ms. Laurence had hurried out again and Mrs. Stogbuchner was walking to the middle of the classroom. "Quiet please."
There was a lot of stirring around by the children to listen to her.
"They are going to close school early today, because of all this rain." She held up her hand for quiet. Some children had started to cheer and talk as soon as they heard the news.
"They say that this could be a bad storm, and there could be some flooding. Since so many of you live on small roads, they decided you should go home very soon. They're trying to reach the bus drivers now. If it keeps raining like this, there might not be school tomorrow."