Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

wasn't long until her mother appeared at the door.

'The school called me. Honey, are you all right?' She came to the cot and put a hand on Emily's forehead. Emily gently pushed it away.

'I don't have a fever, Mom.'

'She just got upset in class,' Jenna declared. 'Madame thought she should go home.'

Her mother's lips tightened. 'Which class? The crazy class?'

'Mom!' Emily shot Jenna an apologetic look.

'It's okay,' Jenna murmured. 'I'd better get back.'

Emily's mother didn't even bother to thank her for helping Emily. She was more than upset.

'I'm taking you out of that class,' she declared in the car on the way home. 'It's not doing you any good at all-it's making things worse. Now, you just close your eyes and relax. I'll give you some aspirin when we get home.'

Emily was grateful to be left alone. She had a lot to think about.

She'd tried to tell Madame about her visions, and she should have tried again. But Madame just kept telling her she needed to interpret them, to study them, and never told Emily how. Was she stupid? Or lazy? Now she was starting to feel like she'd been given a gift she didn't deserve. Carter, Tracey, Martin, and Sarah.. With her gift, she might have been able to stop them from disappearing. If only she'd worked harder, if only she'd understood what her visions meant … Now her head was hurting again, but she was glad. She deserved the pain. She'd never felt so guilty in her life.

At home, she swallowed the pills her mother brought her, even though she knew they wouldn't do any good. But they did help her to relax a little, and maybe that was why the vision appeared.

She saw herself, in the dark of night, on a street corner. She could read the names on the signpost- Maple Street and Stewart Avenue. She wore jeans, a green T-shirt, and a brown sweater. She was alone.

A car pulled up. With no street lights, she couldn't see what color it was, but she could tell it was an ordinary car, nothing fancy or unusual. There was a woman in the driver's seat and a man sitting next to her. The woman's hair was blond--it must have been a very light blond for Emily to be able to notice it in the darkness.

One of them said something. She couldn't hear the words, but the Emily in her vision got into the car. And then the vision faded.

Emily sat up. How bizarre, she thought. She knew Stewart Avenue-it was on the other side of town, in a business district that was busy by day, empty at night. What possible reason would she have to go there? And why would she get into a car with strangers? For as long as she could remember, her mother had warned her never to talk to strangers, let alone get into a car with them. It was the wrong thing to do. Didn't all parents warn their children about this? Anyone with half a brain knew how dangerous talking to strangers could be. It was totally out of character for her to even daydream of doing something stupid like that.

She took the book she'd been reading from her nightstand and opened it. It was a good book, a mystery, and she looked forward to reading a few pages every night before going to bed. But she couldn't concentrate on it. She got up and went out to the living room.

Her mother was watching TV. She was pleased to see Emily. 'Are you feeling better, honey? Do you want something to eat?'

Emily shook her head. 'I'm not hungry, Mom. But I'm not sick,' she added hastily.

'How about if I heat up the leftover macaroni and cheese?' her mother asked hopefully.

She knew that if she could show some enthusiasm for macaroni and cheese, her mother would feel a lot better.

'Okay, that would be great.'

Soon she and her mother were curled up on the sofa with bowls of macaroni and cheese. They found a marathon of a fashion makeover reality show on TV and settled down for the evening.

Emily liked this kind of show. She enjoyed watching ugly ducklings turn into swans with the right clothes and makeup. But no matter how entertaining the episodes were, her mind kept going back to that last strange vision. Maple and Stewart. When would she find herself on the corner of Maple and Stewart? And why?

By ten thirty, both she and her mother were yawning and the marathon was finished. Her mother did something she hadn't done in years-she followed Emily into her bedroom to tuck her in.

'I know you're going to feel better in the morning,' she said, kissing Emily on the forehead. 'And I'm going to call your principal. You won't have to go to that gifted class anymore.'

Emily was in no mood to argue. ''Night, Mom.'

Once her mother left, she realized she really wasn't sleepy at all. She just lay there and thought about the events of the past week. But there, in the corner of her mind, she kept going back to that earlier vision. Maple and Stewart, Maple and Stewart. .

She gave up on trying to sleep, got out of bed, and went to her desk. Madame was always telling her she had to interpret the visions, search for details and look for clues. So once her computer had warmed up, she typed 'Maple and Stewart' into the search box on her Internet browser and hit enter.

There was an old movie starring actors named Alicia Maple and Del Stewart, and a store called Maple and Stewart that sold plumbing supplies. There was a law firm called Maple, Stewart and Jones, and a mapping service that offered to give her directions to the corner of Maple and Stewart. She clicked on that one, but it didn't tell her anything she didn't already know.

There were no clues here.

Maple and Stewart. . She realized the street intersection wasn't far from where Jenna lived in that housing project. Maybe Jenna would know something unusual about that corner. She looked at the clock. It was after eleven, too late to call. But there was a chance Jenna might be up late surfing on her computer. Emily could send an instant message. She went into her e-mail file, where Jenna was listed as an IM friend, but she wasn't online.

She noticed something else though-a notification that she had a new e-mail. She clicked on it.

Hi Emily, it's me, Tracey. I'm so sorry-they made me send this. They said they'd hurt us if I didn't. Can you go to the corner of Maple and Stewart tonight at midnight and wait there? Someone will pick you up.

Tracey

And then someone had added, a couple of lines down:

If you want to find your classmates, you will he there.

And find herself in the same danger her classmates were probably in. But it was her fault if her classmates were in danger. She knew what she had to do.

In the dim light, she dressed in the same clothes she'd been wearing in her vision: jeans and a green T-shirt. The brown sweater hung on the back of her chair. She threw a few things in her backpack- her contact lens case, a change of underwear, her toothbrush. And she put her watch back on.

She scribbled a note and placed it on her bed. Then she left the room, glancing anxiously at the half closed door to her mother's bedroom. She noted with relief that there was no light on-her mother wasn't up reading. Even so, she moved very quietly. Her mother was a light sleeper.

Once outside, she debated taking her bike, which was in the building's parking garage. But she had plenty of time to get there by midnight, so she went on foot. It took her forty-five minutes to reach the corner of Maple and Stewart.

There were no lights, no sounds-the area was deserted, just like in her vision. It was a little chilly- maybe she should have worn a jacket. But she hadn't been wearing a jacket in the vision.

She waited. Funnily enough, she didn't feel very nervous. In fact, she was unusually calm. She looked at her watch. It was midnight.

She heard something and looked down the street. In the distance, she could see a car coming. It wasn't going very fast.

She couldn't make out the color of the car, but it looked fairly ordinary. It slowed down as it approached her corner and then stopped. There was a blond haired woman in the driver's seat and a man next to her. Shadows obscured their faces, but the woman's platinum blond hair was too bright to ignore.

The woman spoke, calmly but firmly. 'Get in, Emily.'

She did. Because she knew that in this particular situation, it was the right thing to do.