A man named Pretti pulls out a cell phone to make a recording as he follows an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

It’s stupid, this game I play with my students, but today I want Camilla to win the prize. It's a glum and gray day in West Valley, Utah. The sky outside matches the drab gym walls. An uneasy tension fills the air. The fifth-grade students have lined up sloppily. Most of them are trying to be quiet. The class settles before one student takes a shot at the hoop for a chance to win a prize. I usually pick someone who’s been a great sport or a good competitor during the class.

The girl who won’t run because she has a week-old scab on her knee raises her hand. Camilla quietly stands in front of her. Ahead of her, two boys, Pedro and Ahmed, push for the front of the line, laughing. The rest of the students stand, their uniforms untucked. Their sleepy brown eyes glance around me. A few chatter like squirrels, covering their mouths with their hands as though I can’t hear them.

Even if they don’t know about ICE shooting an ICU nurse named Pretti, I think they can feel it. Most of the students are immigrants, a few from South Sudan, Venezuela, Peru, and Iraq, and many belong to second-generation families from Mexico. Do the images of Pretti’s death echo through their heads like they do mine?

“Who’s going to take the shot?” Pedro asks. “Pick me.”

An ICE agent pulls out pepper spray. A woman falls to the ground. Pretti moves to protect her.

Some students put their index fingers to their mouths, shushing others. I know a little basket, a student winning, won’t change what happened to that man, but it might give me hope.

Camilla’s mom is usually late picking her up from school, so she talks with me. She speaks about moving through three different countries: Peru, Venezuela, and Mexico. She doesn’t give me many details about how she made it through, but her English has improved a lot in the last two years she’s been at my school. Camilla tells me her schedule. Her mother picks her up after school, around 3:30. They go home together. An hour later, her mother returns to work for her second shift, while Camilla watches her baby sister until around 9 pm. When both her mother and father get home, they eat dinner together as a family. It is a long day for anyone, let alone a fifth grader.

Pretti leans over to help a woman who is sprayed. A gun is in his back pocket.

Looking down the line of kids, I have no idea who’s an illegal immigrant and who’s not. We don’t share those secrets. I guess we all have secrets. I don’t share how I cried last night in bed so my kids wouldn’t see, because the ICE agent killed an ICU nurse named Pretti, and that nurse reminded me of my ICU nurse, Bob, the one who let me talk all night about National Parks across the United States. That was the night after my full craniotomy.

Looking back at pictures from that time, I resembled a Frankenstein version of Sinead O’Connor, weighing 87 pounds. Half my head was shaved, and a crater wound lined my hair, covered in giant stitches. Large white mittens were strapped around my hands, so I wouldn’t pull on my IVs, and a large tube stuck out of the top of my head to drain the excess brain fluid. I’m surprised Bob didn’t laugh at me when I talked to him at 2 a.m. He just listened. I wonder how many Frankensteins like me Pretti saw before he was shot. I try not to think about that.

I don’t talk about my brain aneurysm with my students, and they don’t talk about their immigration status.

Pretti’s gun is taken from the back of his pants pocket by an officer.

“The student who behaved exceptionally today, was a good sport, and stayed quiet in the line was Camilla.” A few kids cheer, but most don’t.

Camilla places her hands over her smile in surprise. She has two half-pigtails at the top of her hair.

“She could win a stuffy,” one kid exclaims.

“Or a soccer ball,” another student speaks quietly.

I think I remember her saying she wants a jump rope. I hope she wins a jump rope.

“Stand on the line,” I say. A chill runs through me. She is taller than me by an inch, maybe two.

Another officer draws his gun on Pretti.

Camilla’s arms are long and twiggy. The ball is awkward in her hands, elbows out like a chicken. I want magic to make her win, as though it will heal all the violence happening in our nation, as though it will help her not be scared of ICE agents tonight.

The ICU nurse is shot in the back,

Bam

Bam

Bam

Bam

Bam x 2

The ball rolls between her fingertips as she reaches back and shoots the ball. Hope inside of her rolling like the hovering ball, rising higher than the rim. It is close. A student yells, “Shoot,” and there is a hush when I notice a pair of black boots in the doorway.

I don’t see if the ball goes through the hoop.

I only hear the echo of the ball bouncing.

Bump

Bump

Bump.