A 7-year-old kept saving her lunch each day, never eating a bite. Her teacher grew suspicious, followed her at recess, and what she found behind the school led to an urgent phone call.

The familiar chime of the school bell rippled through the corridors of Oakwood Elementary, a soft metal echo that signaled the end of lunch. Every hallway, every classroom, every corner of the old brick building responded to that sound with movement.

It was a daily ritual—the predictable shift from chatter to organization, from lunch trays to learning—and usually, it comforted me. It meant rhythm. It meant structure. It meant another ordinary day.

But that day—like the two days before it—had something quietly wrong threaded through the routine. I stood by the doorway of my second-grade classroom, greeting children as they returned, each one carrying that…