The World Ends in April

by Stacy McAnulty

  “If we survive,” I add.

  “Oh, we will survive. Drosses are survivors.” I can imagine him puffing out his chest.

  “What are you going to tell Dad?” I ask. “He doesn’t—”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head. I’ll take care of your daddy.”

  “That’s kind of sexist. Don’t tell girls not to worry their pretty little heads.”

  “My apologies, soldier.” He lowers his voice. “But I was serious about the other part. Don’t worry about your daddy.”

  My phone vibrates in my hand. It’s my alarm going off. Time to start the day.

  “Thanks, Grandpa Joe. I gotta get ready for school. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Love you, Eleanor. And thanks for sharing this with me. We’re going to be okay.”

  “Love you too.”

  I stare at myself in the mirror over my dresser. I still have an awful bluish haircut. I didn’t finish my homework and need to do it over breakfast (without Dad seeing). I have gym class today, which always has a risk of embarrassment and injury. Yet somehow, everything feels like it’s going to be okay. Not that an asteroid crashing into our planet is a good thing, but it does put everything else into perspective.

  Having a private conversation at lunch is impossible. I sit at the end of a table with Mack to my right. But because space is limited, there are kids across from us and on the other side of Mack. They talk to him sometimes, never to me.

  We don’t have assigned seats, but we always sit in the same spots. By the end of the first week of school, you know where you’ll be parking your lunch bag for the rest of the year.

  “Why don’t our parents believe it?” Mack says. “This internet dude is a genuine scientist. Why would he make it up?”

  “He’s not making it up,” I whisper as I tear my peanut butter and Fluff sandwich into bite-size pieces.

  “At least your grandfather’s on board.” Mack holds his juice box inches from his dark glasses to see the flavor—cran-grape.

  “Yeah, and that’s probably more important than my dad or your parents buying it. Grandpa Joe knows stuff, and he can teach us. And our parents will have to come around eventually. It’ll be all over the news.”

  Mack dips an apple in a caramel sauce. His lunches are always organic and healthy and still yummy.

  “I just hope it’s not too late. How long does it take to fully stock a bunker?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. If the weather forecaster predicts two inches of snow, all the stores run out of milk and bread. What’s going to happen when they put the asteroid on their satellite maps?”

  “Prepare for impact.” Mack whistles and makes a sound like a bomb dropping. Half the table looks in our direction.

  “Shh,” I warn him.

  “What are y’all talking about?” Spencer Davidson asks. Usually, he chats with Dominic Miller or Ajay Finley, but they’re still in the lunch line.

  “Nothing,” I say quickly.

  Spencer is white, with wild, curly red-brown hair that flops over his eyes. He also has huge teeth that aren’t exactly straight. And right now he’s got chocolate stuck between all of them.

  I can’t help but run my tongue over my teeth.

  “You said something about a bomb,” Spencer insists. Then he imitates Mack’s sound effects.

  I shake my head.

  “You can’t talk about bombs at school. Not unless you’re in social studies class.” He crosses his arms, and he might be threatening to tell a teacher that we were talking about explosives.

  “We were not talking about bombs!” I say this too loudly as Dominic and Ajay join the table.

  “What bombs?” Ajay asks as he sets down a tray.

  I elbow Mack in the side. “Tell them!” People always believe Mack. He’s the most trustworthy kid in seventh grade.

  “Okay.” Mack swats at me. “Eleanor found this website that says—”

  “No! Not that. Tell them we’re not talking about bombs.”

  But it’s too late.

  “What website?” Spencer asks.

  “What did you find?” Ajay asks.

  “Was it about Mr. Furman? I heard he’s been to jail,” Dominic says.

  Everyone is asking questions. My face grows hot and sweaty. I want to run to the girls’ room, but then I won’t be here to keep Mack from telling them everything.

  “Yes. We were talking about bombs,” I say, trying to cover our tracks. “Did you know that they still find unexploded bombs and land mines in Germany from World War Two? I saw it on TV.”

  For a second, I think my plan has worked. I just need Mack to back up my story. I wrap my hand around his wrist and squeeze. We’ve been best friends for years; he should know what I’m trying to say without saying it.

  “That’s what you were talking about?” Spencer asks.

  “Yes,” I say, and squeeze Mack’s wrist tighter.

  “No,” Mack says. He puts his other hand over mine and squeezes back. I know he’s trying to calm me down, but my heart starts racing.

  Spencer, Ajay, and Dominic lean closer.

  “Tell us, Mack,” Spencer says.

  “So,” Mack whispers. “We found a website that’s predicted the end of the world. There’s this Harvard professor who’s tracking a meteor that’s going to crash into Earth in March.”

  Ajay, Spencer, and Dominic look at each other, like they’re trying to decide if they should believe it.

  “A meteor? Really?” Spencer asks, speaking for the group.

  “It’s not a meteor. It’s an asteroid. And not March. It’s April or May,” I correct. If we’re sharing information, we might as well be correct.

  “It’s going to be huge. Like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.” Mack takes a drink of his organic cran-grape juice.

  “No way,” Dominic says. He’s the shortest of the three boys. He’s black, with light-brown skin and dark-brown hair, and wears plaid shirts all the time.

  “No one knows if an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. Maybe cavemen overhunted them,” Ajay says.

  I stare at him hard. He takes off his glasses and cleans them on a napkin. He’s Indian and has dark eyes, thick black hair that’s neatly combed, and bushy eyebrows. I look to see if he’s joking. He has to be. He’s one of the gifted kids.

  “No,” Dominic says. “The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn’t get on Noah’s ark. Bon voyage, suckers!”

  The three boys bust out laughing.

  “That’s totally what happened.” I close my sandwich box and try to change the conversation. “Mack, did you finish your science homework?”

  “We didn’t have science homework.” He’s absolutely no help.

  “So you’re not fooling?” Spencer asks. “The world is going to blow up in April?” He’s looking at me, not Mack.

  “Or May. And the asteroid isn’t big enough to destroy the whole planet. Earth will still be around, but everything will be messed up. It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

  “Unless we’re in the direct path,” Mack adds in his deepest voice. “It could totally evaporate us.”

  “Are we in the direct path? What’s the trajectory?” Ajay asks. He sounds worried.

  “Um…I don’t know. If it is headed here, there’s nothing we can do about it.” I clear my throat. “What we need to worry about is the aftermath.”

  All eyes are on me. It’s a weird feeling to be part of the lunch conversation for the first time ever.

  “No electricity or clean water. We’ll run out of gas within days. You’ll only have what’s left in your car. You won’t be able to pump more because no electricity,” I explain. “And it’s not going to be like a tornado. They won’t be able to clean it up in a week.” I’m winging it. I don’t know exac
tly what it’ll be like, but Grandpa Joe and I have watched our share of prepper shows on cable over the years.

  “How long until things are cleaned up and back to normal?” Spencer asks.

  “Never!” Mack answers excitedly. I slap his arm.

  “No. Years, probably. Because we will experience an ice age. At least that’s what happened after the K-T extinction.” They all stare blankly at me. I clarify. “The dinosaur extinction.”

  “What about global warming?” Ajay asks.

  “Global warming won’t help.”

  “So if the world is going to end, we don’t need to worry about end-of-year testing?” Dominic asks.

  I just shrug.

  “Awesome! We shouldn’t even bother with homework. Who’s going to care about grades when there’s no electricity or water or food?” Dominic smiles, and his brown eyes get squinty.

  “If it lands in the ocean?” Spencer asks. “We’ll be okay?”

  “Hardly,” I say. “Ever heard of a tsunami?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Look it up on the internet,” I say. “There was a tsunami in 2004 that created a wall of water over one hundred fifty feet high. It took down buildings and drowned whole villages.” After I read in Mrs. Walsh’s book that the K-T asteroid created a tsunami, I had to look it up myself.

  “No way.” Spencer wrinkles his upper lip.

  “An asteroid impact in the Atlantic could cause an even bigger tsunami.”

  “Asteroids, tsunamis, and bears. Oh my!” Londyn Diggs leans in from behind me. I jump, hitting my head on her lunch tray. How long has she been eavesdropping?

  “Go away, Londyn,” Spencer says.

  “Losers will believe anything.” She seems to be talking to the entire table, but she’s staring at me.

  “Whatever,” Dominic says.

  “I don’t believe in fairies or trolls or leprechauns,” Mack says in what I think is supposed to be an Irish accent.

  She snarls and then walks away, proving that it only takes five seconds to ruin someone’s day.

  “What happens if the asteroid hits the Antarctic? If it hits ice?” Spencer asks.

  “I’m not talking about this anymore.”

  The cafeteria lights dim and come back on, warning us we’ve got five minutes left to finish eating. I open my pudding cup and take a spoonful.

  “This can’t be real. I don’t believe you,” Ajay says. I know he’s talking to me, even though my head’s down. “I watch NASA TV all the time. They’ve said nothing about this.”

  I should have said nothing about this. More importantly, Mack should have said nothing.

  “So it’s not real?” Dominic asks. “It’s a joke. Eleanor, I need to know. I have a book project due on Friday. ’Cause if it’s real, and even if it’s not coming till spring, grades from this whole school year aren’t gonna matter. I don’t want to waste my time. So is it real or not?”

  “Dudes, calm down. Eleanor has told you all she knows.” Mack packs up his lunch trash and unfolds Candy. “It’s your life. Good luck in the apocalypse.”

  Our end of the table is quiet for a few seconds. Then Ajay asks a question.

  “What’s the website again?”

  Thursday after school, Grandpa Joe stops by our house unannounced. I worry it’s another bug-out drill, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.

  “What’s going on?” I pick up Bubbles as I hold open the front door. She’s got a bad habit of bolting given the opportunity.

  “Just dropping off a few things. Thought it would be best to do it while your daddy wasn’t home.” He winks at me.

  “Have you talked to him?” It’s been a few days, and Dad hasn’t mentioned the asteroid or Grandpa Joe.

  “We’ve exchanged some messages. He’s worried about you when he should be worried about this dang asteroid. Here.” He hands me a tattered book he’s been holding. “This is a good one. It’ll get ya going.”

  “Really? I can have this?”

  He nods.

  I know this book. It’s like a prepper’s bible, and it’s been in his living room as long as I can remember. I open the cover, and on the inside is a picture I drew of me and Grandpa Joe—stick figures. I think I was five or six when I created this masterpiece.

  “Hang on one sec.” He runs back to his truck and returns with a large blue plastic bin.

  “What’s in here?”

  “Supplies. We’re going to need more than bug-out bags.” He steps inside the house.

  On top of the pile are new water filters, a huge first-aid kit, and a small ax.

  “We already have water filters in our packs.”

  “Oh, these are the best money can buy. The army uses these. We’re not taking any chances, soldier. At least not with water. Got one for Mack too.” He looks around the house. “Now, where should we put this so it won’t be in your daddy’s way?”

  We find a spot in the basement behind my old Barbie Dream House. I throw a ratty blanket over the top, and it looks like another bin of toys and clothes we’ve outgrown. Bubbles tugs at the fringe, and I have to shoo her away.

  “Thanks, Grandpa Joe. I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  “Private Eleanor, there are no sides here. This is about survival. We are all in this together. Understood?”

  I nod.

  I invite him to stay for dinner, but he makes an excuse about running errands. I think he doesn’t want to see Dad yet. It’s easy to say there are “no sides” when the opponent isn’t around.

  In my room, I thumb through the book Grandpa Joe gave me. The first chapters cover water and food. We need to stockpile, but we also need ways to grow and raise more food. We can’t live on MREs and canned goods forever. We’ll be hunting, fishing, and farming. I’ve grown tomatoes, watermelons, and cucumbers at Grandpa Joe’s house. Never been fishing or hunting. Maybe I’ll become a vegetarian after the impact.

  I grab an old notebook that’s mostly empty, except for a few pages Edward or Phillip scribbled on with a red crayon. The cover has a drawing of dinosaurs grazing peacefully. If you only knew what was coming! I start a list of what we need and what we need to do.

  Grandpa Joe’s book also has a big section on personal protection. There are pages and pages on guns and ammunition. I know he has this stuff and keeps it locked in a huge safe in the basement. Adults can be in charge of all the firearms and ammo. Fine by me. But there’s more to safety than weapons. Thankfully! This book says we should have dogs for perimeter protection. Not dog. Dogs! Two work better because they act as a team, and we will all form a pack like wolves.

  “What do you think, Bubbles? Want a brother or sister?” I scratch under her head. She stretches her neck and closes her eyes. “We need something bigger and more vicious. No offense, but I’ve seen butterflies scarier than you.”

  On my computer, I search for “protective dogs.” The internet suggests bullmastiffs, Doberman pinschers, Rottweilers, and other big breeds including German shepherds. That’s the dog I really want. They’re beautiful, loyal, and smart. Bubbles is beautiful too—long white fur, with a few dark spots and big brown eyes.

  I find a website that sells fully trained shepherds for seven thousand dollars. Since we paid about one hundred dollars at the shelter for Bubbles, I don’t think Dad is going to agree to the online attack dog.

  “Maybe I can train you,” I whisper in Bubbles’ ear. “You don’t have to attack. That’s not your style. But you could bark and alert us to danger. What do you think? We’ll all need to earn our keep. Okay?”

  She licks my chin, which I interpret as her saying, Not going to happen.

  * * *

  • • •

  Mack closes his locker and grabs my right elbow. Candy is in his other hand. He can get around the school as well as anyone, but we still like
to walk this way. It’s faster. At the start of sixth grade, people joked that we were girlfriend and boyfriend. Then they got used to it.

  “Hey, Eleanor.” Spencer runs up to us. “I checked out your website.”

  “Not my website,” I mumble.

  “You weren’t lying. The asteroid is coming. What are we going to do?”

  I blink hard. “What?”

  “The world ends in April. Or May. Are we going to let it happen?” His voice grows louder, and other kids look over.

  “What do you want us to do?” Mack asks. “Send up a missile to blow the asteroid to smithereens? We don’t have that kind of equipment in our science class.”

  “Eleanor! Eleanor!” Ajay calls from behind us.

  I debate abandoning Mack and ducking into the girls’ bathroom. But he has a tight grip on my arm, like he can sense my desire to run away.

  Ajay shoves a piece of paper at me. “Do you know about the Chelyabinsk asteroid? It was smaller than your asteroid.”

  I shake my head and groan. “Not my asteroid.”

  “What’s Chelyabinsk?” Spencer asks. He stares at me, and I shrug because I have no idea.

  Ajay waves us closer and whispers, “In February of 2013, an asteroid flew over Chelyabinsk in Russia and then crashed in Siberia. It was probably sixty feet wide, and none of the satellites or technology detected it. It was a surprise. If it had hit a city like New York or Tokyo, millions would have died. We got lucky.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” Mack asks, rocking on his feet.

  “No one was killed,” Ajay says. “But the sonic boom blew out glass in hundreds of buildings, and lots of people got cut up.”

  “Whoa!” Spencer said.

  “There’s video of it too.” Ajay starts to pull out his cell phone, then stops. Phones aren’t allowed in school, and the Wi-Fi is lousy.

  “We need to warn people,” Spencer says.

  “The website’s out there for anyone to see,” I say as I try to walk past him. “It’s everyone for themselves.”

  “My parents don’t believe it.” Spencer follows us.