Copyright © 2017 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
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Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Acton, Vanessa, author.
Title: Aftershock / by Vanessa Acton.
Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2017] | Series: Day of disaster | Summary: “A high school student and her friends are already having a rough day—and then the earthquake hits. Working through personal issues suddenly doesn’t seem like such a big deal compared to struggling to stay alive”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016019495 (print) | LCCN 2016034210 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512427776 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512430912 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512427851 (eb pdf)
Subjects: | CYAC: Earthquakes—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | California—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.A228 Af 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.A228 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019495
Manufactured in the United States of America
1-41502-23363-7/29/2016
9781512435009 ePub
9781512435016 mobi
9781512435023 ePub
For I.J., who will not only help me find terrible disaster movies to watch for “research” but will find an ice cream that fits the theme.
1
Ray
The day of the disaster, everyone knew Harper was still furious.
She hadn’t spoken to Ray, Liam, or Sasha since Friday night. Hadn’t returned messages, hadn’t accepted apologies. Now it was Monday—lunchtime. And Ray knew things were about to get ugly.
“Maybe she won’t even sit here,” said Sasha, as she parked her wheelchair at the end of their table. “Maybe she’ll sit with Nina and Kailee today.”
“And miss a chance to give us a hard time?” scoffed Ray. “Not likely. You know Harper.”
They all knew Harper. Since elementary school, the four of them had stuck together. They all had other friends—even Harper, kind of. But who else knew that Liam had been in love with Tina Choi for three years? Who else could Ray talk to about his parents’ daily arguments? Who else had camped out in Sasha’s hospital room after the accident two years ago? Nobody. Each of them knew the others in ways no one else did.
Just like they all knew Harper had a limited capacity for silent sulking. Pretty soon she was going to explode. At them.
Sure enough, by the time Ray had popped open his bottle of water, Harper showed up.
Ray had left plenty of room for her, but she didn’t take her seat. She just stood there, holding her lunch tray and glaring at her three closest friends.
“Are you still mad about Friday?” asked Liam. He’d never had any problem stating the obvious. After Sasha’s accident two years ago, he’d literally said, Guess it’ll be awhile before you can walk, huh?
“Of course—I’m still mad—about Friday.” She bit off the words in angry chunks. “What, you thought I’d be over it?”
Ray held up his hands in a surrender pose. “Look, Harper, we’re really sorry, seriously. And we’ve all said so, like, eighty times. What do you want us to do? If there’s a way for us to make it up to you, tell us.”
The way Ray remembered it, it had happened like this: Friday had been a warm day, even for the middle of May in central California. So after school, they’d all gone to Neptune Park with a few other people. Sasha’s friend Chloe was there. And Drew, the guy Ray was sort of seeing. Drew had brought along Elissa and Max. Ray was pretty sure Liam’s neighbor, Justin, had been there for a while too. Anyway, a big group of them had been hanging out at the park. Sasha and Harper had brought their cameras—the fancy cameras with shutter speeds and film and whatever. They had a photography class together and they were taking pictures for an assignment. The park was a good place for this because, according to Harper, it had texture. Ray had seen her snap pictures of the swing set, the links of the fence around the basketball court, the sand in the volleyball pit. Plus there were trees surrounding the park on three sides, and the Prospect Hotel stood at the northwest corner.
The hotel had been abandoned and condemned for years—which meant people spent way more time there now than when it was open for business. It had been built back in the 1850s, during the Gold Rush, so it had that old-timey elegant architecture: two floors, a wrap-around balcony on the second floor, a wide porch at ground level, lots of pillars. And, these days, lots of dirt and mold and cobwebs and other things that qualified as good “texture” for photos.
On Friday, Harper and Sasha had taken some photos while the rest of them played volleyball. Then Sasha started a rival game of basketball, since the sand in the volleyball pit could damage her wheelchair. Soon everyone had abandoned the sand for the asphalt court at the southern end of the park. Harper photographed the action for a while. Then she’d called, “I’ll be right back—gonna grab some more photos of the hotel in this light.”
About fifteen minutes later they’d wrapped up their game and walked to Drew’s house a few blocks away. Drew had a huge backyard with a fire pit. And excellent speakers. And a wide range of beverages.
Flash forward half an hour to Ray looking down at his phone. By then he had eight missed calls, seventeen texts, and two Snapchat messages from Harper. Liam’s and Sasha’s phones told similar stories.
They’d forgotten about Harper. They’d left her at the park.
Ray called her back immediately. He even put her on speakerphone so Liam and Sasha could apologize with him. “We’re at Drew’s. We thought you were with us. We just didn’t realize with the big group . . . ” But Harper hung up on them and never showed up at Drew’s.
Now, more than two days later, Ray had run out of ways to apologize.
But Harper hadn’t run out of reasons to be angry.
“The damage is done,” she was saying now. She sounded close to tears, but her expression was pure anger. “And I lost the keychain that night too.”
The keychain was probably Harper’s most prized possession. She kept it clipped to her camera case. It had belonged to her mom, who died when Harper was four. The keychain was nothing special to look at: a flat circle of metal shaped like a compass rose, with the four cardinal directions marked: N, S, E, W. But Harper loved it more than she loved the camera.
“Oh, man, Harper,” Ray said quietly. “I’m sorry. Maybe it’s still there . . . ”
“I went back Saturday and looked for it. I couldn’t find it. But that’s not even what upsets me most. What really hurts is that you guys forgot about me.”
“Harper, it was a mistake,” said Liam. “We weren’t, like, purposely ditching you. And it’s not like we’ve ever lost track of you like that before. It definitely won’t happen again. So what do you want from us?”
“I guess I ju
st wonder if—I mean, if you didn’t miss me then, maybe you wouldn’t even notice if I stopped hanging out with you completely.”
Ray shook his head. “Come on, Harper, you know that’s not true.”
“We’re like a rhombus,” said Liam. “All four sides are equally important.”
Ray almost laughed. “Seriously, man? A rhombus?”
Harper didn’t look amused or convinced. “But that’s what I’m saying. I don’t think I am equally important. You never would’ve forgotten Sasha.”
The moment the words left her mouth, she froze. Ray felt himself stiffening too.
“Well,” said Sasha quietly, “I’m kind of hard to miss. Lucky me.”
“I didn’t . . . ” Harper stammered. “I didn’t mean it like—”
“I know,” Sasha cut her off. “But what do you mean, Harper? Do you mean you don’t believe we care about you? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
For a second Harper looked as if she might burst into tears. But then she snapped, “Maybe it is!”
Before any of them could respond, Harper turned and started speed-walking away from them. Ray watched her blonde head move toward the doors. She dropped her tray on a random table and left the cafeteria.
“Bet she’s going to see your mom,” said Liam to Sasha, whose mom was the school nurse. “With a ‘migraine.’”
Sasha shot him a disapproving look. “Don’t say it like that. Harper does get migraines.”
“Yeah, but sometimes she just feels like going home early,” said Liam. “When she just ‘can’t deal,’ or whatever. Seriously, guys, isn’t it starting to get old?”
“We did leave her behind,” Sasha said, like anyone needed reminding. “And it was thoughtless of us. I understand why it ticked her off.”
“Here’s the thing, though,” Liam pressed on. “Everything’s a huge deal with her. She turns the smallest things into drama. Yeah, we probably wouldn’t have left you behind, Sasha, but if we somehow had, would you hold a grudge over it? Would any of us get this worked up over an honest mistake?”
He’s right, Ray thought. The rest of them all had other good friends. The rest of them all did things on their own. Harper didn’t have any other real friends, and she hated being alone. So that left Ray, Liam, and Sasha to hang out with her, to support her. It got—not old, that wasn’t the right way to put it. Draining. Feeling like whenever they weren’t available, they were letting her down. Feeling like there was never a point when she didn’t need something from at least one of them.
“Yeah,” Ray agreed. “I mean, there’s only so much we can do. She should know by now that we all love her and want her to be happy and yada yada. But, like, we also have our own lives. We didn’t sign a contract that says we have to drop everything for her all the time. And it’s not fair for her to expect that from any of us.”
“I just worry about her,” murmured Sasha. “We’ve only got one year left of high school. What happens when we graduate? We’re not all going to stay in Edson. We’ll all do our own things, go our separate ways. What’s Harper going to do then?”
“I think,” said Ray carefully, “only Harper is responsible for that. We’re her friends, but we can’t always be her safety net.”
Sasha nodded slowly. She, of all people, would have a hard time arguing with that. She’d never expected any of her friends to treat her differently after her accident. She’d never wanted special treatment or reassurance or protection. When people who’d never even spoken to her tried to be friendly or helpful, she appreciated it, but it also seemed to Ray that she felt weirded out. And when people who used to be friendly started avoiding her, she said “Their loss,” and moved on.
“I still feel like crap, though,” Sasha said. “I mean, knowing Harper’s this upset, and knowing there’s nothing else we can do about it . . .”
“Yeah,” sighed Ray. He picked up his sandwich, suddenly realizing how hungry he was. “Well, on the plus side, the day probably won’t get any worse.”
On any other day, he would’ve been right.
But on that day, just a few hours later, the earthquake hit.
2
Sasha
Earthquakes were normal in California. The town of Edson sat right on top of a crack in the earth’s crust, one of the mini fault lines that branched out from the San Andreas. Sasha had lost count of how many earthquakes she’d experienced. Most were just tiny blips on the Richter scale, lasting only a few seconds, barely rattling the coasters on the living room coffee table.
For most of her life, Sasha had practiced for earthquakes the “normal” way. During drills at school, she ducked under her desk and held on to the desk leg. When an earthquake struck at home, she dove under her kitchen table. Once, she’d woken up in the middle of the night, feeling her bed shaking up and down. She’d pulled her blankets over her head, to protect herself against falling objects, and waited it out.
That experience probably came closest to her current earthquake response strategy. Stay put, cover your head, and hope for the best. Being in the wheelchair had made her a little more nervous about earthquakes—about any emergency. She used to love disaster movies. She and Liam went to every summer blockbuster with a collapsing bridge in the trailer. They used to joke that if they were in one of these movies, they’d never make it through the first half hour. Since the accident, Sasha hadn’t been so keen to see those films. Not just because the Edson movie theater was wheelchair accessible in name only. But because now, she knew that if she were a character in one of these movies, she’d be killed off within the first ten minutes. Or else the star would rescue her and tote her around like a ragdoll the whole time.
As for real-life disasters . . . for a while she’d thought about them obsessively. What would I do if . . . or How would I get out of this building in the event of . . . But then it had started to seem ridiculous. Real disasters happened so fast. The car that had hit her came out of nowhere. You couldn’t plan your reaction ahead of time. You couldn’t predict how things would play out.
Which left her with just the basics: stay put, cover your head, and hope for the best.
That’s what she did at two o’clock that afternoon, when the earthquake hit.
***
Sasha, Liam, and Ray were in the library. They were supposed to be working on a presentation for English class and their English teacher had given them permission to do research in the library. The three of them sat at one of the tables in the open workspace at the back, near the windows, pretending to look through some books.
“Harper picked a good day to go home early,” said Liam. “Independent research in English, a substitute teacher in history—”
“Did you watch The Last Days of Pompeii again?” asked Ray.
“Obviously. That’s what we always watch when Mr. Norman is out. I swear, that movie is actually three days long. I heard that one class did get to the part where the volcano erupts, but it was only because they lied to the substitute about where they left off.”
“But it’s the character development that matters . . . ”
“There’ll be algebra homework, though,” Sasha cut in before Ray could get going on some nerdy lecture about cinematic storytelling strategies. “Worksheet due Monday. Do you think I should pick up an extra handout for Harper? Or just let her get one from Mrs. Oliver tomorrow?”
“Why does Mrs. Oliver still do worksheets anyway?” asked Liam. “Printed paper is so wasteful. Why can’t we just do everything online?”
“You realize we’re in a library,” said Ray.
“Which just proves my point.” Liam held up the novel they’d been reading for class. “I guarantee you I can find this online. This is a 2012 reprint of a book that was published in 1844. Why did the world need this? How many trees died in 2012 for a book I can read on Project Gutenberg?”
“Guys,” said Sasha. “I was asking your opinion about Harper.”
Ray put his head on the table. Harper might be the m
ost dramatic one, but Ray was the runner-up. “I literally can’t devote another brain cell to Harper today. If you can, Sasha, good for you.”
That’s when the floor started to shake.
Actually, everything started to shake. A low rumbling noise filled the air. No one needed to ask what was going on. They all knew the drill. Liam and Ray disappeared under the table. Sasha backed her wheelchair against the wall, locked the wheels, and curled her upper body into a fetal position.
Instinctively, Sasha started counting the seconds. Three—four—five—
She heard books topple off their shelves and hit the floor with a scattered drumbeat noise. Luckily the bookcases themselves were nailed to the floor, and their rows ended just where the table workspace began. But even though Sasha was parked in a bookshelf-free space, several books struck her arms, which she’d raised to cover her head. Liam was right. Digital was the way to go.
Ten seconds, eleven—Man, this is a long one . . .
Sasha heard the windows shatter. She didn’t feel any glass hit her, though, and she prayed that none had lodged in her wheelchair tires.
Fifteen seconds—
Her wheelchair was moving. Even though the brakes were on, the wheels hopped forward and back, forward and back, in sickening little jolts. That’s what she got for having an ultra-light manual wheelchair, instead of a powerchair that weighed as much as a tank. Don’t tip over, don’t tip over . . . Sasha was starting to feel nauseated, as if she were on a rollercoaster.
Twenty seconds—
And then stillness.
3
Harper
It was dark. And hard to breathe.
You have to breathe. Come on, you have to breathe.
Okay, fine, she was breathing. The air was thick with dust and dirt particles, but she was breathing. As one desperate thought faded, another took its place.
How could you be so stupid? No one even knows you’re here.
Aftershock Page 1
