and heaving and you’re getting bounced around like a piece of popcorn in a hot pan and things start falling off the shelves and everyone is screaming and scared out of their minds and you’re one of everyone.
It was more like that.
And here’s the hilarious part—it was a FORESHOCK. Apparently, that’s what happens when you’re about to experience an 8.2. It’s an earthquake so big it sends messengers ahead.
“Get to the Pizza Shack!” Niko shouted. “Under the tables!”
I grabbed Alex with one hand and picked up Ulysses the first grader with the other and ran for it. Stuff was falling off the shelves or had fallen. From the Food section and elsewhere you could hear glass bottles crashing off the shelves and onto the floor.
The rest of the kids were right behind me. I saw that all the big kids had grabbed one or two little ones. Astrid was escorting Josie. Tripping and falling and hurrying as best we could, we made it to the Pizza Shack and got under the tables. They were bolted down, which was why Niko wanted us there.
“We’ll be safer here,” I told Alex and Ulysses, whose nose was streaming wet snot.
“Hold tight to the table legs,” Niko shouted.
“This is dumb,” Brayden growled. “The earthquake is over. Why are we hiding here—”
And his voice began to shake.
Because the ground had begun to shake.
And he sure did grab himself a table leg.
The quake was less scary than the foreshock, in my opinion. We were ready for the quake. We were awake already.
We started shaking and shaking and you could hear things falling and crashing all around us.
It’s a miracle the store didn’t cave in, but, as we would discover, the store was built like a safe. It held. Rock solid. Pretty much everything was tossed to the floor and lots of the shelves toppled over, but the damage to the store was not as bad as it could have been.
“Is everyone okay?” Jake asked.
“Um, I would say, no,” Astrid answered. “The world as we know it is gone. We’re locked in a Greenway and an EARTHQUAKE just smashed the store to pieces!”
She was furious and she looked gorgeous.
“I know that, Astrid!” Jake snapped. “Obviously everything has gone to hell but I am supposed to be in charge so I just thought I’d ask!”
The kindergarten twins burst into new sobs. I saw that they, like Ulysses, had lots of grime and mucus on their weary little faces. All the little kids looked pretty bad off.
“Jake is doing the best he can so why don’t you back off, Astrid?” Brayden said.
“Screw you, Brayden! You’re the last person I want to be stuck here with!” she answered.
Josie had her hands over her ears. The little kids were crying and Chloe was starting to scream.
“All right, everyone just settle down,” Jake said. “Astrid, you’re out of control. Pull yourself together!”
“Excuse me,” Henry said to Jake. “Me and Caroline have decided. We want to go home.”
Henry and Caroline wanted to go home. Like it was some sleepover that had gone wrong and now he’d like Jake to call their parents so they could get picked up.
“Yeah! I want my nana!” Chloe yelled.
“Guys, we gotta wait for Mrs. Wooly,” Jake said calmly.
But the little kids were in a full-blown meltdown now. Crying, noses running, snorting with sobs, the works.
Ulysses was near me and he nodded his head, agreeing with the shouts and demands and wails of the other kids. These tears, fat like jelly beans, plopping out of his eyes and running down his face, were so profuse they were actually washing his face because he kept wiping at them with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told him.
He just shook his head and cried all the harder.
I got up. Determined to go find a godforsaken Spanish-English dictionary.
“Don’t go yet,” Niko told me. “More aftershocks.”
He was right. The floor started to pitch and I dropped down and ducked under the nearest table. It just so happened to be the table Astrid had ducked under, too.
This was certainly the closest I’d ever been to her. I held the center pole under the table. Her hands were just below mine.
Her head was bowed and it was all a blur of blond hair and purple sweater until the tremors stopped.
She looked up at me and there was this moment of plainness between us. Like she saw me and I saw her. She looked scared and young, like a little girl, and there were tears in her eyes.
I don’t know what she read on my face. Probably that I was totally hers. That I loved her with everything worthy inside me.
I guess she didn’t like what she saw, because she brushed away tears with the back of her hand and turned away from me. Her jaw was clenched and she looked like she wanted to punch me in the throat. That’s the truth.
I got out from under her table.
“Screw this,” Sahalia said. “I’m going home.”
“No, you’re not, Sahalia,” Jake said. “Mrs. Wooly told us all to stay here and stay together and we’re gonna do exactly that.”
“Are you kidding?” Sahalia said. “Mrs. Wooly’s not coming back. We’re on our own. And frankly I’d rather take my chances out there than stay here with you losers.”
Alex spoke up. “How are you going to get out? The gate is down.”
Sahalia pointed to the wall, past the Pizza Shack, near the Grocery section.
Duh.
There was a door with a red, illuminated Exit sign above it.
How had we missed it until now?
“They have to have emergency exits,” she said.
Then she walked over and pushed it.
“Let me,” Brayden said.
“Bray!” Jake yelled, but Brayden had already sprinted over.
He bashed his weight against it.
“No good,” he said. “It’s locked.”
“Like I said,” Jake repeated, eyeing his friend. “We’re staying here until Mrs. Wooly comes back.”
“I’ll find a way out,” Sahalia said. She stomped off.
“Excuse me, but Sahalia is my neighbor,” said Chloe. “If
“Me, too,” said Max. “I can hitch a ride.”
Jake was losing patience.
“You heard what Mrs. Wooly said! We stay here until she comes for us. It’s simple.”
“But why does Sahalia get to go?” whined Chloe.
“Sahalia’s not going anywhere,” Jake answered. “The doors are locked!”
“But I want my nana!”
Jake bent down and got up in her grill.
“Stop talking about going home. There is no going home until Mrs. Wooly gets back.”
“But I want—”
He poked Chloe in the chest.
“Stop it.”
“My nana—”
He poked her again. “Stop.”
