by Bart King
I held up my thumb. “There’s a fifth explanation.”
“Hmm?” said the psychologist. “Oh, that you’re telling the truth? Yes, I suppose there is that, too.” Mr. Gillespie pushed himself away from his computer and wheeled his chair closer to me. “Noah, you say you’ve used this device a few times now. How did that make you feel?”
I was tired. What could it hurt to tell him? “The first time I used the quincunx, it scared me. So I sort of freaked out.”
The psychologist nodded. “Mmm-hmm. And the second time?”
I thought for a moment. “There was a lot going on. A car crash, kids screaming, power poles dropping—but after I froze the fire hydrant’s water, I remember feeling good. Like I made a difference by saving those kids?”
“Do you like to help people?” Mr. Gillespie asked.
“I guess.” And since Spencer was watching me, I added, “And I like helping animals, too.”
Spencer wagged his tail approvingly.
Mr. Gillespie wheeled back to his computer. As he typed, he mumbled quietly to himself: “—anxiety combined with wishful thinking—”
After a few moments, he looked up. “You have a good heart, Noah. And you want to be helpful. So is it possible that you came up with the idea of this special device that helps you be helpful? Maybe what we’re dealing with here is what I’m going to call ASHD.”
“ASHD?” I said doubtfully.
Outside, the flock of California gulls suddenly rose together and flew over the roof of the school.
Inside, Mr. Gillespie seemed pleased with himself. “Yes, yes, ‘Altruism Surplus Hyperimaginative Disorder.’ Tell me, Noah, have you ever used your magic device for anything else? For instance, do you use it to fly?”
Sheesh! “Why does everyone ask—”
CRACK!
I jumped at the loud sound and turned to the office window—the now-cracked office window.
“What was that?” I asked.
Mr. Gillespie was surprised too, but he tried to smile reassuringly. “One of the gulls must have flown into it.”
I looked at the window. There was no impact point on it. And there were no feathers stuck to the glass.
CRACK!
Another big crack appeared in the office window, crisscrossing the first—and at the same time, the office walls shuddered a little.
Spencer calmly scratched his ear.
“I don’t think that was a bird,” I said, my voice shaking a little.
Mr. Gillespie shook his head. As he did, his helmet-hair didn’t move at all.
Meep-meep-meep!
The fire alarm! Outside Mr. Gillespie’s room, bright lights started flashing throughout the school office. But it didn’t make any sense: How could a fire break a window?
Then I got an idea. “Hey, is this an—”
SMASH!
This time, the cracked office window shattered inward, showering Mr. Gillespie, Spencer, and me with bits of broken glass.
“Earthquake!” Mr. Gillespie yelled, throwing himself under his desk.
I already knew that California had lots of earthquakes, but I’d never been in one. Still, our school practiced earthquake drills all the time. These started with hiding under a desk and ended with the whole class parading outside.
As I looked around for another desk, the office walls swayed, and crashing sounds came from near and far. I could hear high-pitched screaming and teachers shouting.
As for Spencer, he finally stood up from his cushion and gave me an accusing look that seemed to say, What did you do now, fool?
“MR. GILLESPIE? SIR?”
The school psychologist was covering his face with his hands. Also, his foot was on my chest. But that wasn’t really his fault. Even as short as he was, there was barely enough room under his desk for all three of us.
Spencer tried licking Mr. Gillespie’s face to calm him down, but it didn’t seem to help. Still, you can’t blame a therapy dog for trying.
Meep-meep-meep!
Warm air poured in through the broken office window. Then the floor beneath us shuddered again. I think I would have been more scared if Mr. Gillespie wasn’t having a nervous breakdown. But his terror didn’t leave any room under the desk for me to be frightened, too.
“Mr. Gillespie…are you okay?”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Mr. Gillespie chanted, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth.
Spencer looked at me and almost shrugged. Hey, I didn’t pick my owner, he seemed to say.
“We should probably stay put,” I said reassuringly.
“Stay put, stay put,” he mumbled.
Spencer didn’t disagree.
But now we heard a new noise over the fire alarm. It was a distant rumbling, almost like the sea was rushing in at high tide. But that couldn’t be right—we were twenty miles from the ocean! The mysterious rumbling was getting louder. What is that? It lured me out of the cramped safety of the desk. I peeked my head up, looked out the broken window, and saw—
What is THAT?
A large swell was coming through the parking lot, just like an ocean wave before it hits shore. This earth-swell moved fast, crumbling the parking lot pavement and lifting up cars, then dropping them down out of sight behind it as the swell moved.
The solid earth was acting like water—it was like the ground was doing a pop-and-lock! I stared as the earth-swell hit the lawn in front of the school. Now it became a green wave, pushing up the grass into a long, horizontal hill that stretched to my left and right, coming closer….
And now it was almost to Mr. Gillespie’s office and—yikes!
I jerked my head back under the desk. As I did, the ripple passed under us, lifting the floor up a couple of feet, then passing beneath us to the wall and then into the office beyond.
Walls crunched! Bookshelves toppled! Broken glass and dust blew everywhere! Mr. Gillespie screamed! I screamed! And Spencer sort of yipped.
Meep-meep-me—
At least the fire alarm finally stopped.
And then it was quiet. Although there was still a crash here and there—probably from falling ceilings or furniture—it seemed like the earthquake was over.
From a distance, I heard a teacher’s voice. “Students, the only way out is through the windows!” Then the happy cheers of kids breaking glass rang out. A moment later, small groups of third graders ran across the school’s front lawn. Some kids were even laughing and chasing each other, like this was a surprise holiday.
Mr. Gillespie was coming back to his senses. He took his thumb out of his mouth and said, “Now where were we, Noah? Oh, yes—ASHD.”
I held my finger to my lips. “Listen.”
Mr. Gillespie was quiet. We listened.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
Spencer whined uneasily.
It sounded like more screaming.
* * *
Swirling dust rushed in the room when I opened Mr. Gillespie’s office door. I slammed the door shut again. As Spencer came out from under the desk and nuzzled my hand, I got an idea.
“Can I borrow this?” I asked, untying the pink bandanna from Spencer’s neck.
Spencer gratefully licked my face. Dog breath!
I refolded the bandanna and tied it around my face. Sure, it stank like a dog, and yes, I looked like a stagecoach bandit. But it would help filter the dust out of the air.
I opened the door again and plunged into the dust. From under his desk, Mr. Gillespie squeaked, “Good talk, Noah. Let’s continue it later.”
Through the clouds of debris, I saw the school office was turned upside down. Parts of the floor had buckled. Shelves were knocked off their walls. Broken lights flickered and dangled from the ceiling.
It was eerie.
Eerie and deserted—there wasn’t a single student or teacher in sight. I guess all of our earthquake drills finally paid off! I went through the office to the hallway. It was quiet out there, too. So quiet I could hear footsteps approaching.
And as the footsteps got louder, I started to get kind of spooked.
“W-who’s there?”
Out of the misty, powdery dust, a chunky, dark-haired kid appeared. Spotting me, he stopped in his tracks and threw his hands over this head.
Huh?
As I got closer, something about this kid seemed familiar—he was wearing dress pants.
“Ronnie?” I asked. “What are you doing?”
“N-Noah?” Ronnie Ramirez slowly dropped his arms. “You scared me with that m-mask—I thought you were a robber.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “It’s a good thing you surrendered,” I said. “The first thing most robbers do after an earthquake is loot the closest school.”
Ronnie just looked at me. (He doesn’t have a very good sense of humor.)
“Ronnie, what are you doing?” I repeated.
He looked around. “We were in B-Band. I was in the middle of playing my t-tuba solo. Then the ground shook, and even though I wasn’t d-done, Mrs. Ernst ran out of the room. And ev-everyone followed her.”
I waited, but that seemed to be the end of the story. “And?”
Ronnie Ramirez shrugged. “And I-I waited a while, but no one came back. So now I’m just sort of sn-snooping around. School is d-dismissed, right?”
“Yeah, definitely. There’s hardly anybody left in the office,” I said. “Come on, I’ll go out with you.” The two of us started for the school’s front exit. We had to pick our way carefully because the school’s trophy case had exploded and there were toppled awards everywhere.
Going down the hallway, we saw every classroom door was wide open. That’s a good sign, I thought. The teachers stayed cool-headed and evacuated their classes—
But then I heard the screaming again. It was clearer now, and coming from the eighth-grade hallway, where the dust was the thickest.
“HAAAAALP!”
“Why don’t you go ahead, Ronnie,” I said, pushing him to the exit. “I’m right behind you.” Ronnie stumbled to the front door, which I knew would lock behind him. Then I turned and headed for the eighth-grade hallway.
It was REALLY dusty, but I didn’t have to stumble far. I could hear the screams coming from a closed classroom door on my right. Waving my hand to clear the air revealed piles of ceiling tile in front of a closed door. And above, poking down through the ceiling and wedged against the door, was a big steel strut.
This must’ve been a roof brace that the earthquake had knocked loose. And since the classroom door opened out into the hallway, the eighth-grade class was trapped inside.
I turned the doorknob and pulled. But it didn’t budge.
“Let us out!” There was that voice again, the one that had been screaming. It sounded like a boy.
“The door is blocked!” I yelled back.
A brassy girl’s voice answered. “We know, Einstein!”
I thought of the third graders who’d broken out of their classroom. “Why don’t you just go out the windows?”
“The windows are blocked too, you @#!&$!” the girl shouted.
Well, that wasn’t very nice.
Unsure of what to do next, I yelled, “What class is this, anyway?”
“Homework Lab. You know, like Study Hall?” answered the girl. There was a pause. “Why do you care? Do you need to evacuate the real classes first?”
Sheesh! “No, I was just wond—”
A boy’s voice cut in. “Mr. Torpor left right before the quake hit. Now hurry up and get help—we’re running out of air!”
So there was no adult, no air, and no exit.
These kids needed help. And that meant I needed the quincunx—now!
MRS. SANCHEZ’S ROOM WAS TOTALLY DESTROYED. The windows were broken out, parts of the ceiling had fallen down, and all the desks were upended.
I picked my way through the rubble, carefully stepping over the broken beakers that’d been hurled to the floor—and that’s when I saw her, facedown in a pile of student lab folders. I ran over, grabbed Mrs. Sanchez’s shoulder, and rolled her over. I gasped. She had a gigantic red bruise on her temple. She must have fallen and smashed her head against a lab table.
I reached for her wrist to feel a pulse—but I couldn’t feel anything! “Mrs. Sanchez?” I pleaded. “Mrs. Sanchez!”
Nothing. My science teacher was gone. Departed. DEAD.
I gently set her hand back down. This is so unfair! Why couldn’t it have been my PE teacher?
Outside the broken windows, the California gulls had returned to the trash can, cawing and cackling. I turned back to my fallen science teacher, my eyes misty.
“Why her?” I wailed. “Why?”
“Noah?” Mrs. Sanchez whispered. Her brown eyes fluttered open. “Why are you wearing Spencer’s bandana?”
I quickly blinked away my tears. “You’re not dead!”
“If you say so.” She tried to sit up, grimaced, and brought a hand up to her bruised temple. “But I feel like I should be,” she moaned, lying back down.
With Mrs. Sanchez alive, I remembered why I was there in the first place.
I quickly made my way to her desk. The earthquake had knocked a display case of rodent skeletons onto it. But as I carefully picked through glass and bleached gopher bones, a familiar round disc glittered green and purple.
The quincunx.
I carefully brushed it off and started for the door. But then I stopped and walked back to my fallen science teacher.
“Mrs. Sanchez,” I said, “I need to try to save some suffocating eighth graders.”
Mrs. Sanchez nodded weakly. “Noah,” she said, “be very careful.”
“I will,” I promised. “Of course, it might be dangerous, but I’m their only hope.”
“No,” she said. “I meant be very careful with the quincunx. It’s a major scientific discovery!”
“Oh.”
* * *
“I’m back!” I yelled at the blocked door. “Don’t worry. You’ll be out of there before you suffocate!”
“Yay!” the girl called sarcastically. (She sure didn’t sound like she was getting weaker.) “How’re you going to save us, anyway?”
“Um, we have a team out here working on it!” This, of course, was a lie.
And at that moment, the school shook again. Suddenly I found myself on the floor as a series of groans and crashes came from up and down the hallway. Lockers crumpled like shrieking soda cans. Doors popped open, spewing out books, stuffed animals, backpacks, and lunches. The screams of the trapped eighth graders filled the air.
After the ground stopped shaking, the air was thick with dust again. I stood and slipped into the adjacent classroom. The air there was easier to breathe, but it was very dark.
I pulled the quincunx out and pushed the stem. Green light spilled into the gloom. I worked my way to the bank of windows high on the far wall, stood on a desk, and pried one open. As the window swung in, it revealed a cheap-looking plywood wall on the other side.
No exit.
I figured out what’d happened. See, portable classrooms were perched on a small rise behind the eighth-grade wing. The earthquake must have popped a portable off its footing, making it slide downhill, right up against these classroom windows.
“Noah?” called a voice behind me. A figure swayed in the doorway. Mrs. Sanchez! “More aftershocks are coming,” she said. “We need to get everyone out of here quickly.”
I peered through the dust. “Aftershocks?”
Mrs. Sanchez woozily stepped in and sat at a desk. “Aftershocks always follow a big quake.”
And now another scream from next door: “I can’t breathe!”
So what were our choices? On one hand, Mr. Torpor was probably coming back to rescue his class. But on the other hand, right now the students were terrified and needed help. Yet on the other other hand, a team of real firemen should be arriving any second—and I did not want to be using the quincunx when they did.
(And yes, I realize that I just counted thre
e hands.)
A thought occurred to me: If the earthquake hit the whole city—or state!—it could be HOURS before anyone shows up to help.
And at that moment, a shock jolted the classroom and more dust rose in the air. Staggered, I half-jumped and half-fell off to the floor. I held the quincunx close to my face and could barely make out a few dark menu choices: CARPAL TUNNEL…SUBLEVATION…TRANSLOCATE…
Of course these don’t make any sense!
Speaking to the quincunx, I said, “I’m going with my gut feeling—so don’t make me sorry for trusting you.” I made my choice and pushed the quincunx stem. Its oval screen flashed brightly in the haze:
CARPAL TUNNEL
CARPAL TUNNEL
CARPAL TUNNEL
Whatever this is, please let it be better than ICK. Come on, come on.
Holding the quincunx in that dark, cloudy classroom, a powerful feeling ran through me. I walked to the whiteboard and pictured the trapped students on the other side of the wall.
Pressing my ear against it, I could hear a boy’s deep, mournful voice: “I don’t think anyone’s going to help us. Face it, everyone—
we’re history.”
I needed to DO something—fast!
My hands felt odd. I cracked my knuckles and started drumming my fingers against the whiteboard. The sound was weirdly satisfying. At first, it was a gentle tapping, and then it sounded more like a series of little hammers hitting the hard plastic. Tapping a little harder, the whole whiteboard started shaking—and my hands felt like they were made of steel.
I slowly straightened my fingers out, like I was going to karate chop something. And then I thrust my hand—fingers first—right at the whiteboard.
My fingers broke through the plastic, all the way to the first knuckle. I froze.
Whoa.
Slowly I pulled my hand out of the hole. My fingers were covered in splinters and powder—but as I flexed them, nothing seemed broken, bruised, or even scratched.
So this was CARPAL TUNNEL!
I tried hitting the board a little harder this time. It punched right through it, as if the wall were made of Styrofoam. I switched off with my left hand—bam, BOP, bam, BOP.
