“Whatever,” Nicole said, not looking at him. Instead she looked through the crowd. “Did Carol get here yet?”
“Um,” David said, looking around, “I haven’t seen her. I was watching the line for a while, but I didn’t notice you come in either, so it’s—”
“So you have no idea,” she said, cutting him off. “Great.” She crossed her arms again and headed back to the stage for a seat. David could see that there were no spaces left. However, he felt that if he was on the stage and saw Nicole coming at them with her attitude, he’d offer up his spot pretty quick.
KAITLYN
With all of these people in the gym, Kaitlyn’s friends had to be around somewhere. She hadn’t seen them since they left the school—she was in the bathroom when the message went over the PA and ended up on a different bus with a bunch of seventh graders. When she looked for them, she saw only the same faces over and over.
They were all doing the same thing; looking for people—family members, friends, loved ones. Eventually she realized that with all the commotion, finding her friends would be nearly impossible, at least for the time being. Plus, ever since her mom had been brought in on a school bus, she would barely let Kaitlyn out of her sight.
Granted, it was a very strange, frightening situation—nothing like this had ever happened before, not in Sydney anyway. Whatever was happening had to be big. Lives could be in danger! she thought. The Soviets might be attacking! Or aliens! Or—
When she noticed Corey O’Neil, all of these thoughts slid away. If the other girls were around, she would have taken them over to him, or gotten one of them to bring him over. Well, not Sarah. She had a crush on Corey too, despite having a boyfriend already. But, talking to Corey O’Neil with her mom listening in would be a fate worse than death.
In the middle of what she could only assume was a national emergency, her goals were clear: find her friends and talk to Corey O’Neil.
ALEX
Damp, fallen leaves scattered the ground, covering the usual path he took. Alex was very familiar with these woods, so he wasn’t worried. Besides, the area was only a square kilometre or two, between the subdivision, his school, and the highway. He heard another siren, though he wasn’t sure from what kind of vehicle.
“Must be a big fire,” he said to himself.
A few minutes later he reached the brook. As he expected, Shadow stood on the other side, as if waiting for him. She was dripping wet and Alex hoped that the brief swim had tired her out.
She was just seven feet away. The water was only two-feet at its deepest. Shadow stared back at him, confident that he couldn’t get to her easily.
After a staring match too long to have with a dog, Alex yelled across. “Well? What are you going to do now?”
Shadow jumped up and down making half-barking, half-yipping noises. In dog language that meant “I want to play now.”
“I’ll play with you,” he said, using the fake happy voice dogs liked, “but you have to come here, okay?”
Shadow stood, cocked her head, and then continued bark-yipping.
He’d have to try a little harder than that. “Come on, Shadow! Come on, girl! Come here! Come on!” He patted his knees and clapped and whistled. She took a step or two forward, then stopped at the water and backed away as if she were afraid of getting wet.
“Oh, come on! You were just in there!” Alex said, incredulous. “How do you think you got over there, stupid?”
Shadow looked at him as if she were about to reply, but instead jumped up and down again, and paced the edge of the brook. Dog for: “What is keeping you? I want to play!”
This is taking way too long. Game over.
A fallen tree stretched across the brook; he had often used it to cross. It had been an excellent obstacle when he used to play ‘war’ with his friends since it looked impassible—only he knew that it wasn’t.
However, on this trip across his attention was on making sure Shadow didn’t run off again, and not on the tree, or rather on the fact that it was covered in wet fallen leaves. Slippery leaves. While sidestepping a branch nearly halfway across, he slipped into the brook with a large splash, soaking him.
He looked up just in time to see Shadow’s face coming straight at him. Before he could move, she licked him.
“Thank you,” Alex said to his dog as he grabbed her collar and struggled to his feet.
Back on the home-side of the brook, he shook off as much water as he could. Shadow did the same, which made Alex wetter. “Thank you again for that,” he said. When he checked his watch—thankful that it was “water-resistant”—he found he’d been out for almost an hour.
“An hour! Man ... Dad’s gonna flip if he called.” He looked down at his dog. “Well, I hope you got that all out of your system. Happy now?”
Shadow gave another shake, soaking Alex’s face once again. She looked up at him, panting. She did seem quite happy.
The walk home took almost twice as long. The wet leaves that caused Alex so much trouble over the fallen tree continued to be a nuisance as he trudged back through the woods. In addition to being soaked, he was now dragging a large dog beside him. He slipped several times. More than once, he accidentally let go of Shadow’s collar, leaving her free to run off again. When she didn’t, he wasn’t sure it was a sense of loyalty that made her stay, or—more likely—she simply wasn’t aware that nothing was holding her back. The fact that she licked him each time he fell made him hope for the former.
He was distracted
