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Your temperature will be taken. Presuming you are at a safe temperature and cleared to attend school, you must get the right type of mask. There is a table to the side of the entrance with white and black cloth masks. Be sure to get black.

Carrying your backpack, and your new cloth face mask, you now must head to your class. You have a long way to walk. This is challenging in a mask. Pull your mask slightly away from your nose. This should give you some air to breathe, and it would look like you were adjusting your mask to any passerby.

You finally reach the stairwell. It is safe to pull your mask down below your nose, but if any footsteps are heard, immediately pull it up. You never know who it’ll be. Once you reach the top of the stairwell, you no longer can take chances. Wear your mask properly, and walk to your locker. You open your locker, put your bag inside of it, and look through it for all of your books, notebooks, and whatever else. Pull your mask down while you’re looking. No one can see your face.

Get your belongings in order, and, while having your mask fully up, walk into class. The class will be relatively noisy around this time, and no one will be paying attention to you. You have a pair of scissors in your desk. Take the black cloth mask from earlier, and cut out the first two layers. A cut white cloth mask isn’t fully transparent, but some students will notice and will tell on you for wearing a one-layer mask. Cut surgical masks are completely transparent. Only cutting out one layer in either makes little to no difference.

Do not inform anyone that you cut your mask. Word will get around, and you will eventually get in trouble, and have to switch to a surgical mask.

Eventually the announcements will come on. When the Pledge of Allegiance is said, I would recommend completely unmasking. Most of the time it is completely unnoticed, and you may not want to celebrate your country while complying with a mandate that goes against all of its principles. But, that is completely your decision.

Once your mask is back on and announcements have concluded, you will be expected to be in a mask constantly for the next seven hours. Being seen wearing a mask improperly will entail a lecture, and if you’re seen often, a detention. Luckily, you know how to survive this, as restrictions tighten.

Your morning classes will begin. You never leave your classroom, except to go to the bathroom and to go outside, so it’s going to be quite easy to breathe in your new one-layer cloth mask. Try to immerse yourself in the lesson. If you find it at all hard to breathe, or you have the urge to pull down your mask, pretend you forgot something from your locker. A coat would be your best bet, especially because it’s November. If you don’t have a coat, say you forgot a pencil or a book. You most likely will be allowed out, and pull down your mask and pretend to look for something. Once again, no one can see your face. Stay out there until you have caught your breath. Any time over two minutes will appear suspicious, though.

Finally, after about another hour, it is your ten minute morning break. You do not go outside in the morning at this time of year, which you’re grateful for. Masks are required at all times when outside, too.

Your classmates are being loud and laughing from their seats, since they aren’t allowed to get up unless they go to the bathroom. You, on the other hand, aren’t so happy. You’re starting to go insane. It’s only 10:00 in the morning, and you don’t know how much more you can take. You can’t pull down your mask, because teachers on duty are coming in and out of the classrooms. You can’t imagine how this would feel if you were wearing that heavy surgical mask from earlier. But, you need to keep yourself occupied, so you don’t feel the urge to uncover your face, and, you know, breathe.

Luckily, you have a notebook and a pencil on your desk. You start writing down your feelings. You also begin to write letters to talk radio hosts, politicians, and pretty much everyone you can think of. You just need to be careful, because any item at any time can be confiscated. If one of your letters is confiscated, you aren’t getting it back.

Class resumes ten minutes later. You are having trouble concentrating because of the mask. You wonder if you should just pull it down and face the consequences. The classroom is quiet, and everyone is working. You decide to take the chance. You pull your mask below your nose, and you are immediately bombarded with.. fresh air. It becomes easier for you to work too, although you’re nervous.

But, good things never last. The student next to you notices and calls you out. The class erupts in chatter, and everyone is silenced by the teacher, who reminds everyone to put up their masks. You’re told that if you’re caught again you’ll get detention. You apologize and pull up your mask. Everyone is working, but they’re still keeping an eye on you.

It’s time for recess, now. It’s early November, and the grass is wet from rain and melting snow. The fourth and fifth grade are separated into ‘pods’, with about twelve students in each. These pods are separated on different areas of the playground. Today, your pod is on the lower playground of the school. You wonder if it’s possible to evade the mask rule at all. You’ve snuck your notebook and pencil out, so you can write your findings.

There is a bench, around ten feet from the playground equipment. You walk there, (because running tires you out and makes you want to take off your mask), and test the limits. You sit down on the bench, and take out your notebook. You do a bit of writing, but decide to pull your mask down below your nose. You’re ten feet away from the nearest person, surely no one would care. You were right, until about ten minutes later. A teacher on duty yells for you to put it up. So you do, and once again try to distract yourself.

The whistle, signaling kids to line up, is blown twenty minutes later. It felt much longer to you, however. But that doesn’t matter. All of the children rush to line up. You need to stay back behind them. As you come closer to the lines, screams of “six feet!” from all of your peers is all you can hear. You think about how much COVID turned everyone against each other, but before you know it you’re at the end of the line, and you’re broken out of your thoughts by the line moving forward, through the door. You see an opportunity to pull your mask down on the stairs, and you do. Shockingly, in all the commotion, you aren’t noticed.

The rest of the school day goes by with you following the tips you’ve learned. You sure aren’t happy, in fact you’ve never felt more hopeless, but at least you know how to survive. You don’t know when this will end, but when it does, the first thing you’ll do is make the world aware, so the COVID mandates never happen again.

Note: This story is based on my experience during the COVID-19 school mask mandate. Despite this story being fictional, many of the elements and events are not. This story is also a collection of everything I learned from the mask mandate. I didn’t learn it all in one place. In fact, I didn’t learn about cutting two layers out of a black cloth mask until January of 2022, over a year after this story took place. That is what changed everything for me. This story is also everything I would tell nine-year-old me if I could go back to November of 2020, when the restrictions were really tightened. But, it’s in the past now. And, if you ever need to survive a mask mandate, you know how to now.

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Josie is a twelve year-old seventh grade student at Fort Fairfield Middle/High School.