by Polly Becks
As he had said, a rope was dangling outside, two harnesses attached to it.
While Ace pulled his legs through the harness’ loops and fastened it around his waist, Lucy gently separated Sloane out from the shivering pile of little girls clinging to one another.
“Now’s your time to play princess, Cinderella,” she said softly in the little girl’s ear, feeling how cold her skin was. “Prince Charming’s about to get you out of here, and all you have to do is hug him tight. Do you think you can do that?”
Sloane said nothing, staring blankly in front of her.
Lucy took her in her arms and kissed her, then brought her over to where Ace was holding a small safety harness. Together they put the little girl into it; Ace clipped her to himself and took her from Lucy.
Then he handed her the radio.
“Simple to use,” he said. “Press the button and talk—that’s it. Tell the guys on the roof we’re ready.”
Lucy nodded sharply, her eyes locked on him, gleaming.
“Get up there safely,” she said.
Ace smiled a little more broadly. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he nodded at her and took the rope in his hand.
Lucy pushed the button on the radio. “He’s ready,” she said.
“Copy,” came a voice in return.
Ace continued to smile at her as the rope went taut, then began to lift him and Sloane out through the emergency window and up the side of the building. His feet came to rest against the edifice, and he walked up the face of it.
Lucy leaned out and watched from below until they disappeared over the edge of the roof.
“Clear,” the radio squawked. “Got ’em.”
Lucy sighed brokenly, more relieved than she remembered ever feeling.
After a few moments, the radio squawked again.
“Go,” the voice said.
She looked up.
Boots were approaching from above.
Lucy stepped back to the huddle of girls and peeled off Elisa, as Ace had instructed, and brought her the two steps over to the window where he was appearing again.
“Clear,” she said into the radio as he came back into the room.
“Listen to you,” he said, grinning. “You’re a pro—you’ll be in the department in no time.”
“My life’s goal,” she said sourly as she took the little harness from him and started helping Elisa into it.
The little girl balked suddenly, panicking as if she had just awoken, twisting away and screaming raggedly.
The reaction caught Lucy by surprise. “Elisa—”
“It’s just like a swing, honey,” Ace said quickly. “Like we’re playing on the playground. Come on; I’ll make sure you’re OK.”
Something about his voice, Lucy thought as the little girl’s tight face went slack. So different when he’s working than in regular life. He barely talks when he’s not running a rescue.
For what seemed like an agonizingly long time, they worked together with the unseen firefighters on the roof, hauling each child up, until finally he returned for Corinne.
“All right, sweetie,” Lucy said as Ace came back through the window. “You ready?”
The little girl, who Lucy was holding in her arms, sat up straight, as if hit by lightning.
She glanced rapidly around the room.
Her eyes coming to rest on the aquarium several feet away on the shelf near the window.
“Sebastian!” she said, her voice raspy. “We—we have to save him!”
“Corinne,” Lucy said quietly as the athletic little girl squirmed in her arms, “you have to go with Sergeant Evans now—”
“No!” the little girl screeched. “No—please—!”
Ace’s eyebrows drew together. “Sebastian?”
“The turtle,” Lucy said, struggling now to keep Corinne from falling into the frigid water. Her arms, weak now from the cold, were throbbing with the effort.
“I’m not going! I’m not going without him—”
“Corinne, stop—”
“OK,” Ace said, striding through the deep water and putting his arms out. “You’ve been a good sport, Corinne. Let’s get him and get out of here.”
Lucy’s mouth dropped open. She stood in amazement as the soldier snatched the little girl from her and, in a few long steps, reached the aquarium. He shoved the cover aside, snatched the startled reptile out, and tucked him into the pocket of his fire pants.
Then he carried the child back to the window.
“Now step into the harness,” he ordered as he put her on the shelf. The comforting tone was gone, replaced by one that was all business.
Corinne’s eyes opened wider, and she quickly obeyed.
“You OK, ma’am?” he asked Lucy as they fastened Corinne’s straps. The teacher nodded.
“I will be right back,” Ace said as he hooked himself to the little girl and both of them to the rope.
“You had better be,” Lucy replied, shaking from the cold and nervousness now. “I will haunt you if you let me go.”
“That’s incentive to hurry, then,” Ace said. “Wouldn’t want that. Let ’em know we’re ready.”
Lucy complied, then felt her stomach drop as the soldier and the last of her students were pulled up the side of the building toward the roof.
She glanced around her drowning classroom, watching the water cover the desks, the bookshelves, the toys and everything that, only this morning, seemed safe and normal. The clock on the wall had stopped exactly at 10:12, probably the time when the electricity had shorted out, she thought. She rubbed her hands briskly up and down her arms, but could barely feel her fingers any more.
“Clear,” came the voice over the radio.
She held the radio up in front of her mouth, her eyes still locked on the dead classroom clock.
“Copy that,” she said.
After that, for what seemed like forever, Lucy had no idea what time it was. The sky was still gray-black as it had been that morning, so she had no idea whether it was even the same day.
She was still staring blindly at the clock when Ace returned.
“Knock knock.”
She spun around as quickly as she could. Her skirt swirled in the floodwaters, and she winced, knowing it had been doing so most of the day.
And, to make matters even more embarrassing, Ace was handing over a harness with leg loops to her.
“Do you need help getting it on?” he asked, watching her take it doubtfully.
“No,” Lucy said. She slipped it up over the skirt, anchoring it in place, somewhat uncomfortable but better for her dignity.
“Give me your hand,” the soldier said, extending his own. When Lucy did, he hauled her easily out of the water until she was standing beside him on the shelf over the long heater.
Then he clipped their waist harnesses once more.
“Together again,” he said jokingly, taking the radio back.
“Good—you’re safe from haunting for the moment,” she said. “Is the turtle still in your pocket?”
“No, he’s most likely in the chopper by now. Come on, ma’am. Put your arms around my waist and hold on.”
The world grew dark as Lucy heard him call the firefighters on the roof, telling them they were ready. Then he seized the ropes with both his gloved hands. Her sodden hair was wafting around in the wind outside the window, so she tucked her head down against Ace’s suspenders and held tight as the winch on the roof above began to turn, pulling the rope up.
As they started the final climb up the edifice of the school.
Chapter 16
‡
LUCY STUMBLED ONTO the roof a few moments later as Ace shoved her up over the top, scraping her knees against the rough pebbling atop it, her hair suddenly spinning in a roaring sound of wind and helicopter blades.
Then looked around at a scene she could never have imagined.
A large rescue helicopter was hovering above the school, ripping torrents of wind around and stirring u
p clouds of debris in the center of the roof. The last two girls, Corinne and Sarah, were being strapped to a long, flat basket in preparation for being lifted into the chopper.
Even through the currents of air she could see that Corinne was clutching an object that must have been Sebastian.
Ace took her elbow and had her walk beside him, since they were still hooked together, to the two firefighters and a pair of soldiers in military fatigues operating the winch, a much smaller machine than she had expected. They conferred with each other and, over the radio, to the ground below, again in jargon that made no sense to her exhausted brain. Then Ace turned to her once more.
“Come on, ma’am,” he said. “We’re almost there. Cover your head with your arm.”
She walked beside him, stooped over as he was, until they were standing beneath the chopper.
The flat basket was rising now into the belly of the helicopter.
“Do you feel comfortable going up the rope on your own?” Ace asked, watching the crew of the chopper pull the basket aboard.
“Lying down in the basket?”
Ace blinked. “Not unless you’re injured, usually,” he said. “I think they expect to pull you up in your harness.”
He swallowed at the sick look that overcame Lucy’s face.
“Or I could go up the rope with you,” he said.
“I think I would prefer that.”
Ace nodded, disconnected himself from her and stepped away from the area directly below the chopper, speaking into the radio again. He returned a moment later.
“Sorry to ask, ma’am—how much do you weigh?”
“One twenty one, at my last physical,” Lucy said. “It’s been three months—”
“That’s fine,” he said. He waited in silence until the rope was dropped down again.
“The helicopter also has a winch,” he said as he hooked them together for what she expected was the last time. “It should be a pretty smooth ascent.”
“Wonderful. Are they ready? I’d like to get this over with.”
Ace checked the cables and the carabineers. “All set. Grab hold.”
Lucy put her arms around him again, and Ace radioed their readiness.
The wind tugged at her skirt, anchored by the leg loops of the harness, as they were lifted slowly into the hovering helicopter.
Heavy clouds of fog were hanging over the school. Lucy felt the moisture against her face as she was dragged upward through the mist, a strange sensation in the strangest day she had ever known.
Then, just beneath the opening in the bottom of the chopper, the mist dispersed and she could see the school, the playground, the football field and the river from above.
She gasped so harshly that Ace’s grip on her tightened.
The gentle Hudson River, normally a picturesque ribbon of water no more than fifty feet wide, closer to twenty at its lowest point, laughing over visible rocks in the spring and fall, winding its way quietly in summer, was roaring angrily to the east, having swallowed everything between it and the school. And to the west of the school was the overspill, another river, less wide but equally angry, swelling around the bottom of the monkey bars and swingsets of the playground, digging big ruts in the football field beyond.
Where no one remained who had been there when she dashed into the school again.
Ace was being pulled into the helicopter. For a few terrifying moments, Lucy was hanging alone, suspended over the destruction of her workplace.
Her hometown.
A soldier in a helmet and goggles was shouting instructions at her, but she couldn’t hear him.
She tried to put her hand to her ear, but when she let go of the rope, she swung from side to side.
Her National Guardsman compatriot was staring down at her from above. Lucy had the uncomfortable realization that he was in the direct line of sight of her breasts, the tops largely exposed by the snapping wind.
As the rope continued to swing, she felt her stomach rush into her mouth and she spat out a foamy stream of liquid.
From within the helicopter’s hold, Ace reached out and snagged her rope, pulling her, along with the winch, into the chopper.
As her legs flailed helplessly he seized her backside and upper thigh and dragged her over the edge of the opening. She scrambled as far into the center of the hold as she could, humiliated, as he let go.
Inside the tight quarters of the chopper, two medics were examining the girls, all lying on the floor of the aircraft.
“What about the guys on the roof?” she asked foggily as the helicopter rose into the air and started away from the school.
“They’re OK,” Ace said, looking out the open door. “They’ll wait until you and the kids have been offloaded and put into the ambulances, and then the aircraft will go back for them.”
“Ambulances? Why doesn’t the helicopter just take us all to the hospital?”
Ace didn’t look at her, but instead continued to watch the ground, calculating the size of the flood.
“There’s a lot of demand for the helicopters in town,” he said quietly. “A lot of people need rescuing.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
“No need to be.” It seemed to Lucy that Ace was thinking about saying something else, but the helicopter was already on the farthest side of the high school fields where soccer was played in the fall, lacrosse in the spring, and preparing to set down in a wide, flat space ringed with survivors, teachers, administrators, and parents, the looks on their faces appearing more and more apprehensive as the aircraft descended.
Lucy blinked at the sheer number of rescue vehicles that were ringing or sitting on the fields, from many different companies in the adjoining towns. Five ambulances were standing ready as the copter set down.
“Don’t get out until they tell you,” Ace advised. “Those blades are deadly.”
Lucy, who was preparing to jump out, stopped.
As a deep whine screamed through the air, indicating the blades were slowing, Ace took hold of her arm again. He pointed into the distance.
“Look,” he said.
Waiting anxiously at a distance, accompanied by four soldiers from the National Guard Unit of Saranac Lake, the base where Ace was assigned, was a group of adults standing, singly and in pairs, staring at the opening where Ace and Lucy were now sitting.
Even to Ace, who had never met any of them, it was clear who they were.
The parents of the kids in the chopper.
He leaned closer to her and spoke in her ear.
“You’re about to make all those people happier than they’ve ever been before, ma’am.”
One of the helicopter’s crew gave Ace the nod. He unhooked himself from Lucy for the last time and jumped out of the chopper, then turned and took her by the waist, assisting her out as well.
Then pulled her out of the way of the five teams of medical personnel and the soldiers assigned to them, rushing forward with five gurneys on wheels, making their way to the choppers, fighting with the muddy grass.
Lucy watched, sick to her stomach, as each of the little girls, already swathed in heavy military blankets, was handed out of the helicopter by its crew to the medics, then stretched out onto the gurneys.
One of the anxious mothers consulted with a nearby soldier and then, as he stepped aside, walked quickly forward, carrying a medical bag. Lucy recognized her as Dr. Patricia Byrnes, Corinne’s mother, a well-known and highly respected pediatrician. She breathed a sigh of relief as Dr. Byrnes quickly examined each of the girls, giving instructions to the military medics, and then moved on to another as the children were brought to the ambulances.
“One parent can ride along to the hospital,” a soldier with a bullhorn was announcing to the assembled group of parents who were anxiously watching Dr. Byrnes as she made her assessments. “Once that parent has been determined, please step into the ambulance and move all the way to the seat near the front of the vehicle. One parent. No exceptions; sorry, folks.
”
As if her legs had a mind of their own, Lucy found herself making her way to the girls’ families who were still waiting for their children to be checked over. She came up to a man in a crisp business suit, slightly balding, whom she recognized at Willis Wallace, Sloane’s father. His family was one of the oldest and richest in West Obergrande.
“Mr. Wallace,” she said quietly, “I’m Lucy Sullivan, Sloane’s teacher.”
At first the man did not seem to hear her, staring as intently as he was at the front of the helicopter. Then, as her words registered, he turned abruptly to her.
“Miss Sullivan? Oh, God, thank you—thank you. I heard you went back into the school to get them out. Is she all right?”
Lucy swallowed as the other parents, hearing her name, began crowding around her.
“I believe so,” she said, her teeth still chattering, still shaking from the water and the exposure. “She was so brave—they were all so—brave—”
A cacophony of voices broke out, each of the parents begging for word on their daughters.
Lucy’s head was swimming.
“They—they’re all alive, and mostly just scared, I think—Dr. Byrnes will know more,” she said, taking Professor Byrnes’ trembling hand and squeezing it. “We tried—to keep them out of the water as much as we could—”
Suddenly, the world seemed to be shrinking and turning black.
Ace, who had quietly followed her, caught her as she collapsed on the muddy field, over to the west of Tree Hill Park.
The last thing she remembered was the ring of faces above her, the parents who had been waiting for word of their little girls, staring down at her as everything faded away.
WHILE DR. BYRNES was still examining the girls in the lights of the emergency vehicles, the medic from Ace’s unit looked over Lucy.
“She’s gonna need fluids,” he said to Ace, who had carried her back to the outside of the now-still chopper. “And heat—if there’s another ambulance available—”
“There’s not,” said a senior officer who was directing medical response vehicles around the field, which was being used as a M.A.S.H. unit for the entire town. “We’ve had twenty-three companies respond, and every one of their transport vehicles is taken.”
