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The second graders made it, and their teacher, Ms. Davis, gave it the name.
 Nothing looked right: sidewalks forged from pasted-down shreds of newspaper. Tongue-depressor park benches. A garden of dyed-red macaroni rose bushes. Looked like popcorn balls.
There was no sky.
Everything smelled like glue.
Dex picked up a park bench in each of his hands, checked the hallway for teachers, and finding none, rapped his hands together like he was cleaning two chalkboard erasers.
Next, he tossed a rose bush into the air and swatted it with his open palm. Then, he did the same with another. And another.
He leaned over the park, searching. Beside the garden was the pond: broken bottles -- clear and brown glass -- shaped into a bean. Beneath the broken glass: the names of the second graders who made Ephemera Park, scribbled on strips of brown paper.
Dex's face hovered. He liked those names. Drowning the way they were. Trapped beneath the surface of a little fake sea of glass.
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