by Bart King
I can bore a hole through the wall! My fists were like jackhammers, tunneling deeper, scooping out shattered whiteboard and broken drywall, making the hole bigger and bigger—
“Noah!” Mrs. Sanchez called from her seat. “I don’t think—”
Light-headed with power, I yelled, “They need our help!” And then I got back to jackhammering with my fists and pulling big chunks of splintered wood from the wall.
Mrs. Sanchez stood up unsteadily. “Stop!”
Of course, all teachers hate to see school property destroyed. But what was more important: saving a wall or saving a life?
So for the first time ever I ignored a teacher and kept scooping the wall out with my steely fingers. My fists burrowed into the wall like a sapsucker’s beak into a tree. And finally, I reached deep and there was a pop as my hand went all the way through to the other side.
Success!
Peeking through the hole, I could see dimly lit shapes in the gloom. They were lighting the class with their smartphones—and I could see their outlines creeping forward, anxious to escape their prison. Classroom. Whatever.
“Help’s on the way,” I called. The cell phones’ light revealed that a post in the wall was blocking one side of my hole.
With blow after blow, I karate-chopped chunks of wood off it, and as the splinters flew, the post disappeared. Now the hole was almost big enough for someone to escape through.
Just one more punch should do it. I reared back and cocked my hand behind my head.
“Noah!” Mrs. Sanchez’s voice raised. “Listen—”
I didn’t listen. Like Thor throwing his hammer, I stepped forward and smashed my hand into the last remaining chunk of post. There was a loud CRACK as it broke—and an ominous creak from above.
Backing up, I saw the entire classroom roof lurch down! Sections of ceiling broke off, falling to the floor. And from the frightened curses coming through the hole, the same thing was happening in the other classroom.
“Duck and cover!” shouted Mrs. Sanchez.
I dove under a desk, but after a moment, the roof stopped groaning. Luckily, the hole in the wall didn’t cave in, either. Peering through it, I saw the eighth graders were now cowering under their desks.
“Everyone okay?” I called.
“Are you TRYING to kill us?”
“No,” I said, “I’m just trying to—”
“Squish us?” jeered another voice. Angrier muttering sprang up, and then a whole classroom of kids’ voices joined together.
They were booing me!
MRS. SANCHEZ COUGHED. “NOAH, THAT’S A LOAD-BEARING WALL.” She pointed upward. “That means it supports the weight of the building. And you can’t just punch through a load-bearing wall without problems.”
I sighed and climbed out from under the desk. Using the quincunx was like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube. As soon as I solved one problem, I just made things worse somewhere else.
I brought my hand up to my chest. “I’m sorry for not listening. My fault.”
Then I tapped my chest. Something that felt like a tiny runaway train hit me and sent me flying backward.
It was my finger!
Mrs. Sanchez helped me up. “I’m the one who owes you an apology, Noah,” she said. “You were obviously telling the truth about the quincunx. It’s clear that device is not of terrestrial origin—and I should never have sent you to Mr. Gillespie.” She paused. “But from a scientific viewpoint, I’m curious about something important.”
Finally! A smart grown-up is going to get to the heart of the quincunx’s mystery.
“Have you ever used it to fly?” she asked.
I groaned. The drooping ceiling did too, slumping even farther downward. It could collapse any second.
I started toward the hole, but Mrs. Sanchez stepped in front of me. “You stay put.” Then she turned to the hole and firmly called out. “Students! I know it’s dark. I know you’re frightened. But please line up and come through this hole one at a time and very quickly.”
Before Mrs. Sanchez was done talking, a student tumbled through the hole.
Coby Cage.
He peered through the darkness, saw me, and did a double
take. “Noah, is that you?” Looking around the ruined classroom, he laughed. “And you thought I was going to do something bad with your little toy?” Coby asked incredulously. “You just wrecked the school! What were you doing with it, playing Jenga?”
Meanwhile, more confused and coughing eighth graders streamed through the hole behind Coby.
“Go out the door and turn right to the exit,” Mrs. Sanchez directed. “Then leave the building just as you would during a normal earthquake drill. I know you’ve been through a lot, but you’ll be safe soon. Let’s move more quickly, people!”
Students staggered into the hallway. “Coby, that means you too,” said Mrs. Sanchez. Coby gave me a venomous look, then followed his classmates.
Fetching the quincunx from the desk, I pressed its stem. With the connection to CARPAL TUNNEL cut, my hands immediately felt like…well, hands again.
“Mrs. Sanchez, what does ‘carpal’ mean?” I asked.
Waving students to the classroom exit, she said, “That relates to the carpus, the bones of the wrist, hand, and fingers.”
Oh. So the quincunx let me tunnel with my carpals. I ran my fingers over its gleaming surface. And even though I messed up, the quincunx pretty much just saved the day.
Mrs. Sanchez came closer and touched my arm. “Noah—again, I want to say that I’m sorry for my behavior. It was wrong for me to confiscate that quincunx.”
Hearing a teacher apologize to me was such a new experience, and all I could say was, “Um, that’s okay.”
She looked me in the eyes. “I always knew you were thoughtful. But, Noah, you’re resourceful as well. This quincunx is a complete mystery, but you are the expert on it. And I can’t think of a better person to be its custodian while we try to discover the truth behind—”
“Gaaah,” moaned a voice. “My nose!”
The last two kids had ducked through the wall—a really tall kid being assisted by a stocky girl. The girl was guiding him because he was busy clutching his face. I recognized him—Todd Coulton, the star player on the basketball team.
The girl spotted us. “Whose idea was it to save us by breaking down the wall?” Her voice was familiar—she was the girl I’d been talking to.
“Right here.” I smiled, still basking in Mrs. Sanchez’s praise. “But there’s no need to thank me—”
“Birdbrain!” she yelled. “When the ceiling gave way, something fell on Todd’s nose!”
“Gaaah!” agreed Todd, with a yelp of pain.
“Sorry,” I retorted. “I was just, you know, trying to save your lives.”
The girl let go of Todd and put her hands on her hips. Todd started windmilling his arms to keep from falling. “How did you save our lives? And who are you anyway?”
I realized then that I was still wearing Spencer’s pink bandanna.
The girl pointed at the gaping hole in the wall. “And how’d you do that?”
“Gaaah!” added Todd. (He was a man of few words.)
I pointed to Mrs. Sanchez. “She’ll answer all your questions,” I said. “But right now, we have to get out of this building fast. It could blow at any second!”
I added that part about the building exploding because it gave me a good excuse to sprint away.
* * *
Seconds later, I was in the school parking lot—or what was left of it. The earthquake had turned the whole thing into a wavy, buckled field of asphalt. And it was swarming with worried parents driving their Subarus like roller-coaster cars over the asphalt hills.
Fire trucks were in front of the school, and somewhere I could hear a woman loudly saying, “This is Rayla Rafferty, LIVE at the scene—”
As I stared at all the kids and parents, a familiar white hybrid screeched to a stop. My parents exploded out of i
t and sprinted toward me.
“Noah!” cried Mom.
“Thank goodness!” said Dad. Then the three of us wrapped our arms around one another in a group hug.
I know that everyone’s parents talk about “love” and how they’ll “always be there” for their kids. But I never really got what that meant until right then, as we stood there in the destroyed parking lot, hugging and swaying.
If something bad happened to me, my parents really would be there. They loved me—and I loved them back.
As I looked over Mom’s shoulder, I noticed something across the parking lot. Four younger kids, grouped together on their bikes. Are they going to ride on the earthquake hills? I wondered. But no, they were just sitting there, staring at us. They looked…familiar.
In the front of the group was a plump boy on a bright-orange bike. That’s the same kid who went flying out of the bathroom stall. And seeing him back on that bike reminded me where I’d seen him before that. It was back when the power pole broke in front of the Brights’ house!
“Let’s get you home,” Dad said, holding the front passenger door open. Getting in, I looked out the window and saw the orange-bike kid hand something to one of the others before they pedaled off together.
“We were SO worried,” said Mom, driving up a rise of asphalt. “All the school phone lines were down, so we had no way of contacting you!” She swerved around an overturned school bus.
A crossing guard in a bright-green vest stood in the parking lot’s driveway. She scolded two girls jaywalking across the street, then made us wait as a white ambulance flew by, its siren howling.
“They’re never going to sell any ice cream going that fast,” said Dad. (It’s his favorite joke.)
Mom looked over at me. “We want to hear everything. But first, are you okay, honey?”
“I’m okay.”
“But that quake must have been terrifying,” said Dad. “Are you really okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Mom smiled at me. “Is it okay that we keep asking if you’re okay?”
“It’s okay.”
As Mom pulled out onto the road, I was surprised to see that its surface was still smooth. Why isn’t the street wrecked like the parking lot?
“Hang on,” said Mom, pulling over and stopping as three police cars went screaming past. Then she turned to me with a grave expression. “Since we have a minute, there is something serious your father wants to ask you about.”
“Dead serious,” said Dad from behind.
They know about the quincunx. I gulped, touched my scar, and reached a decision: I’m just going to tell them everything.
“Son,” Dad said, “what happened to my peanut butter?”
The Robert F. Moral School Newsletter
Principal’s Message
Dear Parents, Students, and Friends,
What a week!
Every school year has moments of comedy, drama, and tragedy. But since when do all three strike at the same moment? Yet that’s exactly what happened this week, when R.F.M. School was hit by its very own earthquake!
Thanks to good emergency preparedness, all of our students and staff got through the ordeal safely. And it really was our ordeal. The state’s seismologist has analyzed the data, and she believes our school was the epicenter of a very small but very intense earthquake. Luckily, this isolated earthquake—and its aftershocks—left most of the rest of our Santa Rosa community untouched.
Let me express my most enthusiastic gratitude to the students and staff. None of us has ever experienced a crisis like this before. It would have been easy to panic in the chaos and think only of oneself. But instead, from classroom to classroom, I have heard many tales of heroism. I salute you all!
Everybody has his or her own story to tell, and I’ll share some of them in future newsletters. I must say, some of these are almost unbelievable. For example, after the earthquake hit, I understand that Mr. Gillespie took refuge by standing under his desk.
Of course, I’m just kidding—Mr. Gillespie isn’t really that short! ☺ But during difficult times, the most important thing we can do is keep smiling. And we need all the smiles we can get! Because while our school is still intact, it suffered a lot of property damage, mostly from falling furniture, lockers, and ceiling tiles.
The worst of it was in the eighth-grade hall, where a fallen truss and a toppled temporary classroom briefly blocked students from exiting the building.
It really is a miracle that—with two exceptions—nobody was seriously hurt. As you may know, Todd Coulton, the basketball team captain, was injured in the quake. He is recovering at Sutter Hospital. Also, Mr. Torpor was struck by a ream of lavender copy paper and knocked unconscious. Happily, tests revealed no lasting damage. I’ve always said that teachers have thick skins (and skulls!). ☺
In many ways, this event has brought our school closer together. Right now, cleanup crews are out sweeping the halls, picking up broken glass, and getting things back to normal. There’s a lot more work ahead, but we are determined not to let this violent earthquake disrupt the student learning in our community.
Classes will resume on Monday in the portable classrooms set up on the school’s upper playground. So I guess you could say the “moral high ground” is always there when you need it. ☺
I’ll have more updates as our school cleanup and reconstruction continues. But for now, let’s all keep on keeping calm—and carrying on.
All the best,
Bruce Lapinski
Principal, Robert F. Moral School
THE DAY AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE, I was up to my neck in water.
See, school was cancelled for the rest of the week. So the Brights had invited my family over for a late afternoon Aftershock Barbecue. And since it was still totally hot, I’d jumped in the pool to cool off.
Standing on my tiptoes, the water was just below my chin, but the sun was still baking my face. Dang, how hot is it? I tried to read the outdoor thermometer on the side of the house, but the glare made it impossible. Raising a hand to block the sun, I lost my balance and had to step backward, toward the deep end. So my outstretched foot met—nothing?
I plunged underwater, swallowing a mouthful of pool water in the process. Floundering toward the shallow end, I gasped and coughed, then paddled to the side.
“Hey, Noah,” Jason called out from the patio. “Be careful not to get in over your head.”
“Thanks, but too late.” At least now I could see the thermometer: 104 degrees.
Mr. Bright and my parents were talking over at the grill, and the smell of hot dogs filled the air. Crawling over the pool’s edge, I hotfooted it across the baking concrete and sat on a wooden chair next to Jenny and Jason. My wet bathing suit stuck to the warm wooden slats.
Of course, I’d already told the twins most of my not-so-amazing story.
Jenny spread more sunscreen on her arms and picked up the story. “So after you got everyone out, that girl dissed you?”
“Yep,” I said, sipping some iced lemonade. “She wasn’t grateful at all.”
“Haven’t you heard?” asked Jason, trying to imitate his sister. “A good deed is its own reward.” Taking off his mirrored sunglasses, he gave us a secretive look. “Listen, I’ve been cooking up something important. Something big.”
He waved for us to get closer.
We got closer.
“Yeah?” said Jenny.
“What is it?” I asked.
Jason leaned to one side. What happened next was so loud, it sounded like someone had torn a sheet of plywood in half. While Jenny and I laughed in disgusted awe at his gaseous explosion, Jason sat proudly back in his chair.
“Look out for aftershocks.”
“JASON!” Mr. Bright was outraged. “THESE ARE OUR GUESTS.”
“Sorry, everyone,” Jason called. (He totally didn’t mean it.)
Jenny waved her hand in front of her face. “What will it take for you to be a mature, responsible person?”
“Dunno,” shrugged Jason. “Reincarnation?” He turned to me. “Hey, Noah, speaking of earthquakes, think about this. The first time you used the quincunx, that power pole fell in front of our house. Then yesterday you had it with you—”
“And there was an earthquake that only affected our school,” added Jenny. “Suspicious much? Seriously, I’m just waiting for the next domino to fall.”
I gave her a look. “Yeah, but the power pole fell because of woodpecker holes or something. And the earthquake was caused by…movements in the earth’s crust. Right?” The twins just looked at me. “Seriously, you think those things are connected to the quincunx?”
Jenny confirmed the hypothesis: “Duh!”
I jumped as Mr. Bright called over to us. “HAVE ANY OF YOU SEEN WHAT’S GOING ON AT NOYD WOODS?”
The black swifts! “The earthquake didn’t cause any damage there, did it?” I asked.
“No, it wasn’t affected,” Mom answered. “But there is construction going on near that waterfall.”
“No, that’s impossible,” I said. “It’s a nature preserve.”
“Actually, it’s private property, owned by the Noyd family,” said Dad. “They’ve just called it a ‘nature preserve’ all these years.”
“That’s a rip-off! I mean, what makes something a nature preserve?” Jenny asked. “Isn’t there nature there that needs preserving?”
“GOOD POINT, HONEY,” said Mr. Bright. “NOW, WHO’S HUNGRY?”
I wasn’t. I had a plan, and I needed to get to Noyd Woods like, right away. But first, I needed a disguise.
“Jason,” I said. “Can I borrow a hoodie?”
“Sure, why not?” he answered. “It’s only a thousand degrees out.”
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE HOME OF CATARACT GROVE
I slammed on my brakes and skidded to a halt. In front of me loomed a sign that was so big, it blocked the trailhead up to Noyd Falls.
Two bulldozers sat parked next to it.
