The classroom smelled like tempera paint and graham crackers. Twenty-two small bodies sat cross-legged on a rug that looked like a city map, complete with roads for toy cars. Mrs. Deluca, who the children called "Teacher" because "Deluca" sounded like a sneeze, sat in her rocking chair, a picture book abandoned in her lap.
She had meant to read about a caterpillar who ate too much, but the question had come to her suddenly, the way important questions do. Maybe it was the way the afternoon light hit the dust motes. Maybe it was the sight of little Marcus Chen trying to stick a crayon up his nose. Whatever it was, she set the book aside.
"Class," she said. "I want to ask you something."
Twenty-two faces turned. Some were missing teeth. Some had jelly on their chins. One child, Emily, was actively picking at a scab on her knee with the focused intensity of a brain surgeon.
"What is the most important thing in the whole world?"
The silence lasted approximately three seconds. Then:
" dinosaurs," said Marcus, the nose-crayon culprit. "T-Rex could eat a whole house."
"Not dinosaurs," said Sophie, whose pigtails were lopsided and whose dress had a stain that might have been chocolate or might have been something worse. "Princesses. Princesses are the most important because they have sparkles."
"Sparkles aren't real," said Tyler, who was wearing a Batman shirt and had not removed his cape for three consecutive days. "Batman is real. Batman is the most important."
"Is not."
"Is too."
"Batman doesn't even have powers," said a small voice from the back. This was Oliver, who wore thick glasses that magnified his eyes to the size of golf balls. "He's just rich. My dad says rich people aren't more important."
"Your dad is wrong," said Tyler.
"Your FACE is wrong," said Oliver.
"Nobody's face is wrong," Mrs. Deluca interjected, though she was already losing control of the room.
"My dog," shouted Emily, still working on her scab. "My dog is the most important because he eats his own poop and that's funny."
A wave of hysterical giggles swept the carpet. Mrs. Deluca waited it out.
"Okay, okay," she said. "But think bigger. Not just things you like. What matters MOST?"
The children fell into a thoughtful silence that lasted almost ten seconds—a classroom record.
"Snack time," said Priya, who had been quiet until now. She was drawing spirals on her palm with a marker that would take three days to wash off. "Snack time is the most important. Without snacks, you die."
"You're not going to die without snacks, Priya."
"Yes you will. My mom says if I don't eat I'll die. So snacks are life."
This logic seemed unassailable to several children, who nodded solemnly.
"Love," said a tiny voice. Everyone turned. It was Jacob, who spoke so rarely that some children had forgotten he was in the class. He sat with his knees pulled to his chest, his thumb in his mouth, his eyes fixed on the window where a pigeon was attempting to mate with a reflective window pane.
"What was that, Jacob?"
"Love," he said again, thumb still in mouth, creating a slight lisp. "My grandma said love is the most important thing. She said if you don't have love, you're just a skeleton walking around."
The class considered this. Marcus pulled the crayon from his nose and looked at it with new eyes.
"I don't want to be a skeleton," said Sophie.
"You're already a skeleton inside," said Oliver, pushing his glasses up. "We all are. I saw it on a show."
Sophie screamed. Not a play-scream. A real one.
"Oliver, please don't...."
"But it's TRUE," Oliver insisted. "We're all just skeletons wearing people-suits. That's science."
Two more children began crying. Mrs. Deluca wondered why she had gone into teaching.
"Recess!" shouted Tyler, standing up, his cape flaring dramatically. "Recess is the most important! Because if we don't run, our bodies will explode from too much sitting!"
"That's not..." Mrs. Deluca started, but the class was already with him.
"EXPLOSION!"
"BOOM!"
"My brother said if you hold in a fart, you die," offered Emily, who had moved from her scab to inspecting her belly button. "So recess is important for farting."
"Emily..."
"FARTING IS LIFE!"
The class erupted. Mrs. Deluca put her head in her hands. Somewhere in the chaos, Jacob had crawled into her lap. His thumb was still in his mouth, but his free hand patted her cheek with sticky gentleness.
"Don't be sad, Teacher," he said. "Love is still the answer."
"Thank you, Jacob."
"Even though we're all skeletons."
"Please stop saying that, Oliver."
Outside, the pigeon finally gave up on its reflection. The afternoon light shifted. Twenty-two small humans, some crying, some laughing, one actively farting, continued their debate about what mattered most in a world they were still learning to see.
Mrs. Deluca looked at them, really looked, and thought that maybe, just maybe, the answer was simpler than she had imagined. It was snacks. It was dinosaurs. It was the courage to be a skeleton wearing a people-suit, holding in your farts until recess, and believing that love was what kept you from becoming just bones walking around.
"Okay," she said. "Line up for snack."
And because they were four and five, they forgot the question immediately, distracted by the promise of juice boxes and goldfish crackers. But somewhere in their small, forming minds, seeds had been planted. They would carry this question forward, through years and changes, through loss and discovery, through every version of themselves they had yet to become.
For now, though, there were snacks.
And really, when you thought about it, wasn't that answer enough?