They were coming in.
Jeff turned away from the window. With all his heart, he wanted to see someone standing there that would make him safe and tell him what to do. He wanted to see a team of Navy SEALS, gearing up for war. He wanted his dad. He even wanted Ms. Hacking. Instead, he saw a class in panic.
Zoe and Paola were screaming their heads off. Aiden was trying to barricade the door with a rising pile of desks. Ramon was fighting with someone, maybe Shen, for a place in Ms. Hacking’s overfull closet. Prithi was vomiting in the corner garbage. At least four people were looking, yelling, or crying at their phones. Phil had climbed onto a desk and seemed to be trying to open a ceiling panel.
And Suzy.
Suzy was on her knees between Peter and Zoe, staring out the window, unmoving.
“Suz.” He grabbed her shoulder. “What do we do?” She felt limp and made no response. He dropped down to his knees and pulled her around to face him. “Suzy! What do we do?!” She looked blank.
Jeff slapped her; it seemed like the sort of thing a hero would do in a movie.
Suzy slapped him back, hard, in the face.
“Don’t slap me!” She yelled. She didn’t look vacant now. “You can’t just slap people!”
Anger and shame battled in Jeff, and then both gave way to terror. “Whatever. Suzy, what do we do!? They just killed the principal, and they’re coming in!” As he finished, he felt like shaking her, screaming at her. Why was he so ANGRY?
“We should all go to the next classroom,” she pointed at the wall, “Ms. Ablom. She’ll be there.”
“What’s that going to do? Does Ms. Ablom have a gun? Does she have a magic wand?”
“No, but she’s a teacher! She’ll have a better idea of what to do than we will.”
“They just killed McArthur!” Jeff bellowed this at his sister. He let go of her and tried to get a grip on himself. “We can’t run. They’re standing around the building.”
“And where would we go?”
“Right. Nowhere. We could hide,” he gestured over at the now-closed closet behind Ms. Hacking’s desk. Shen and Ramon were no longer visible, and there was a pile of school-supply debris next to the door. “But THAT’s not going to work for long.”
Jeff glanced over at Phil, who was now trying to pull himself up into the space left by the removed ceiling panel. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Suzy looked skeptical. “No, look,” Jeff rushed on. “If they’re trying to kill everyone, that’s probably the best hiding place, and if they’re not trying to kill everyone, we can just come back down.” She looked skeptical, but Jeff now felt sure. He grabbed her hand and pulled her over to Phil.
Jeff got a hand under one of Phil’s flailing feet and gave a little boost. It was enough; the boy got his elbows up and hoisted himself into the ceiling space above the tiles.
Jeff couldn’t see well what the boy was squatting on, but behind him, Jeff could see a confused jumble of pipes, wires, and shiny metallic tubes. Phil looked back down and made eye contact with Jeff. A moment of understanding passed between them, and Phil nodded. He would help them up.
Jeff started to climb onto the desk when something hit him sharply in the chest – a fist. “Me first,” said Aiden. The boy climbed onto the desk and reached up to Phil, not even looking at Jeff, which was almost more annoying than the punch itself.
Jeff considered kicking the desk out from under him.
Aiden had more trouble lifting himself into the hole than Phil, and Jeff felt a savage pleasure watching him kick and thrash. Then he remembered their urgency, and he grudgingly reached under Aiden and gave him a boost.
Aiden pushed off of Jeff’s hand, then his shoulder, and he jumped up into the ceiling.
Without warning, there was a sharp PING, and the metal grid around the open ceiling tile buckled and gave way. Aiden fell past Jeff and landed on his side on the edge of a desk, which flipped over under his off-balanced weight.
Phil’s footing was gone, and he tried to catch himself on something in the ceiling space but then shouted out in pain and fell through the next tile over.
Phil landed comically, in sitting position on top of a desk, but then, un-comically, blood began to gush from his hand, down his arm and onto his lap. He clutched the hand to his chest, closing his eyes and moaning.
In the hallway, still distant, but growing closer, was the sound of alien voices.
FOURTEEN
Jeremiah watched the screen as a dozen figures strode out through the open front doors of the castle. The view zoomed in on their flat, serpentine faces, their greyish, scaley skin, their primitive warrior garb. They looked somehow fierce and afraid, simultaneously.
The group of them moved toward the army ambassador who was standing his ground near the edge of the school parking lot. They fanned out as they approached him, leaving one man on point to talk while the rest covered him with what looked like raised wands.
When the lead alien was still a dozen paces away, he halted and shouted something. The cameras were too far away to catch it. Jeremiah squeezed an arm through the group to the laptop and mashed down the volume-up key.
The human may have responded; Jeremiah could only see his back. He was holding his empty hands up before him.
The alien shouted something inaudible again, and one of the scientists by Jeremiah muttered, “Come on! The guy’s got to be wearing a microphone!”
The group of aliens and the human stood motionless for several long moments, apparently conversing. Jeremiah thought
