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Jack scrambled out of bed and opened his door a careful inch to try to catch the conversation Mom was having on the phone. She was in the big room down the hall, the one she and Dad used as the farm office.
“Is she okay? God, Steve, tell me she’s okay!”
Those words froze Jack to the spot.
He mouthed the name.
“Jill . . .”
“Oh my God,” cried Mom, “does she need to go to the hospital? What? How can the hospital be closed? Steve . . . how can the damn hospital be—”
Mom stopped to listen, but Jack could see her body change, stiffening with fear and tension. She had the phone to her ear and her other hand at her throat.
“Oh God, Steve. What happened? Who did this? Oh, come on, Steve, that’s ridiculous. . . . Steve . . .”
Jack could hear Dad’s voice but not his words. He was yelling. Almost screaming.
“Did you call the police?” Mom demanded. She listened for an answer, and whatever it was, it was clear to Jack that it shocked her. She staggered backward and sat down hard on a wooden chair. “Shooting? Who was shooting?”
More yelling, none of it clear.
Shooting? Jack stared at Mom as if he was peering into a different world from anything he knew. He tried to put the things he’d heard into some shape that made sense, but no picture formed.
“Jesus Christ!” shrieked Mom. “Steve . . . forget about, forget about everything. Just get my baby home. Get yourself home. I have a first aid kit here and . . . oh yes, God, Steve . . . I love you, too. Hurry!”
She lowered the phone and stared at it as if the device had done her some unspeakable harm. Her eyes were wide, but she didn’t seem to be looking at anything.
“Mom . . . ?” Jack said softly, stepping out into the hall. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
As soon as she looked up, Mom’s eyes filled with tears. She cried out his name, and he rushed to her as she flew to him. Mom was always so careful with him, holding him as if he had bird bones that would snap with the slightest pressure, but right then she clutched him to her chest with all her strength. He could feel her trembling, could feel the heat of her panic through the cotton of her dress.
“It’s Jilly,” said Mom, and her voice broke into sobs. “There was a fight at the school. Someone bit her.”
“Bit—?” asked Jack, not sure he’d really heard that.
Lightning flashed outside and thunder exploded overhead.
5
Mom ran around for a couple of minutes, grabbing first aid stuff. There was always a lot of it on a farm, and Jack knew how to dress a wound and treat for shock. Then she fetched candles and matches, flashlights and a Coleman lantern. Big storms always knocked out the power in town, and Mom was always ready.
The storm kept getting bigger, rattling the old bones of the house, making the window glass chatter like teeth.
“What’s taking them so damn long?” Mom said, and she said it every couple of minutes.
Jack turned on the big TV in the living room.
“Mom!” he called. “They have it on the news.”
She came running into the room with an armful of clean towels and stopped in the middle of the floor to watch. What they saw did not make much sense. The picture showed the Stebbins Little School, which was both the elementary school and the town’s evacuation shelter. It was on high ground, and it had been built during an era when Americans worried about nuclear bombs and Russian air raids. Stuff Jack barely even knew about.
In front of the school was the guest parking lot, which was also where the buses picked up and dropped off the kids. Usually there were lines of yellow buses standing in neat rows, or moving like a slow train as they pulled to the front, loaded or unloaded, then moved forward to catch up with the previous bus. There was nothing neat and orderly about the big yellow vehicles now.
The heavy downpour made everything vague and fuzzy, but Jack could nevertheless see that the buses stood in haphazard lines in the parking lot and in the street. Cars were slotted in everywhere to create a total gridlock. One of the buses lay on its side.
Two were burning.
All around, inside and out, were people. Running, staggering, lying sprawled, fighting.
