thirty-six
The blaring high-pitched whine of sirens. A terrible pounding inside her head. Raw, rhythmic waves of pain. Nicole clamped her hands over her eyes and moaned. It was as if her mind were swimming through muck, coming up from another place. Who she was and where she was, and what had happened, returned to her slowly, like faces materializing on a developing photograph.
“Nicole? Nicole?” Someone was calling to her from very far away. “Nicole? Nicole?”
The voice came closer, far too loud, reverberating like exploding bombs, punctuated by an insistent whup-whup, whup-whup.
“Nicole, can you hear me?” Whup-whup, whup-whup.
“I hear you,” Nicole mumbled through parched lips. She recognized that voice, didn’t she? Yes, she did. Ms. Zooms, her English teacher.
“Nicole?” Ms. Zooms repeated. “I couldn’t understand you. What did you say?”
Nicole licked her lips and forced her mouth to form distinct words. “Stop. Calling. My. Name.” She tried to get her bearings. She was lying on her back. On something hard. “Am I alive?”
“Yes. Very much alive.” Ms. Zooms’ normally bombastic voice was surprisingly soothing.
Whup-whup, whup-whup. What was that noise?
“What’s her name? Can she open her eyes?”
“Can you open your eyes, Nicole?” Ms. Zooms asked. “There’s a paramedic here.”
Nicole shook her head, which sent waves of pain coursing through her body.
“Too much sensory input, too fast,” she heard the paramedic explain. “It’s not uncommon after something like this.”
What was he talking about? What had happened? A breeze tickled Nicole’s face. She smelled burning leaves.
I must be outside. But how did I get out here?
“Where am I?” Nicole managed.
“Outside the state museum,” the paramedic replied. “Your vitals are fine. We called your mom, and she’s meeting you at Memorial.”
“Memorial what?”
“Memorial Hospital. The doctors need to check you out. Think you could open those peepers now, nice and slow?”
Her eyelids felt leaden. She covered them with her hand, then forced them open, squinting between her fingers into the too-bright morning sun. Her view was partly blocked by a red-haired man with a stethoscope around his neck.
“Welcome back, Nicole. I’m Sam. How many fingers do you see?” He held up two.
“More than one, less than three.”
He grinned and turned to Ms. Zooms. “Other than having the mother of all headaches for a while, it looks like she’ll live. We’ll take her to Memorial just to be on the safe side. Don’t let her move around too much.”
“I’ll see to that, thank you,” Ms. Zooms agreed, as Sam hurried toward a man with a walkie-talkie. Nicole craned her neck carefully, looking around.
She was on a bench in the plaza. There were scores of police, heavily armed SWAT teams running to and fro, and many ambulances. Overhead, she counted two—no, three—helicopters. That accounted for the annoying whup-whups. But what was happening? She felt off-kilter, caught in someone else’s skin. Suddenly, something essential deep inside of her shifted, an earthquake of the self, pieces falling not out of place but rather into it. And she remembered.
The state museum. An exhibition about Anne Frank. Doom with a gun. Gunshots. Terror. Panic. Bodies crushing bodies. Bodies falling. Mimi. Oh, God, Mimi—
“Nicol”
Suddenly, Mimi was flying toward her. Nicole hugged her. “I had to wait forever for the paramedics to tell me I’m fine, which I could have told them but no one would listen to me,” Mimi reported. “Are you okay?”
“Miss Baker, good to see you in one piece,” Ms. Zooms said. “Can I count on you to stay here with Miss Burns until the paramedic comes back?”
“Absolutely.”
“If Miss Burns’ condition changes, scream.” Ms. Zooms gave Mimi one last look for emphasis, then hustled off.
“What happened, Mimi? The last thing I remember, we were in a crush trying to get out—”
“I hyperventilated and we fell into this mosh pit. You got slammed into the door—bam! You were out cold. God, it was scary. I managed to drag you out of there.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Whup-whup. Nicole looked up. Another helicopter, this one bearing the logo of an all-news cable network, joined the three in the skies above them.
“It’s like we’re in a movie,” Mimi said.
“Only we’re not. It’s real.” Nicole’s head pounded. “How many people did Doom get?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they catch him?”
Mimi cocked her chin toward a paddy wagon surrounded by a sea of blue uniforms. “In there.”
“How does a person get that twisted?” Nicole wondered.
Mimi shrugged. “Who knows. How’s your head?”
“I plan to live.”
Mimi looked at her quizzically. “Odd thing to say, but good to know”
Sam the paramedic loped back over to them. “Hey, how ya doing, Nicole? Double vision? Vomiting? Fainting?”
“None of the above.”
“Great. We’re kinda shorthanded. Think we can get you into an ambulance under your own steam?”
“Sure.” Sam and Mimi helped Nicole up. For a moment she felt dizzy, but it passed. They guided her toward an ambulance as Mr. Urkin’s amplified voice reverberated through the air.
“All West students not receiving medical attention are to line up by class in front of the Assembly building for a head count. Immediately.”
“That means me,” Mimi said. “I’ll come to the hospital as soon as they let me.”
Nicole hugged her again. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Right back at‘cha.” Mimi headed for the Assembly building. Nicole saw Suzanne catch up with her, Jack at her side.
It came back to her like a sucker punch to the gut. Jack. The bus ride. He’d saved her a seat. Put his arm around her.
It’s about Suzanne. I’m crazy about her.
“Hey, you’re looking a little green around the gills all of a sudden,” Sam said. “You okay?”
No. Nothing was okay. She nodded anyway, and he helped her into the ambulance.
“Mom, I’m fine,” Nicole insisted. “Can’t we just go home?”
“Soon, sweetie.” She trotted along as a hospital orderly rolled Nicole into an antiseptic-looking room at Memorial Hospital. “It’s just for observation.”
“Did you hear any news while you were waiting in the ER? Did anyone die?”
“I don’t know. Everyone was saying it was that Hayden boy. How did he just slip through the system?”
“You need help getting into the bed?” the orderly asked Nicole.
“No, thanks. I don’t even need to be here.” Nicole climbed off the gurney and got onto the bed. She eyed the TV bolted to the wall. “I’ve got to know what’s going on. Can we turn it on?”
The orderly shook his head. “Not without a requisition.”
“Who do I have to see to do that?” Mrs. Burns asked.
“Accounting.” He hesitated. “I’m not supposed to do this, but ...” He went to the TV, punched a code into the cable box, and clicked on the power.
“Thanks.” Nicole’s eyes were already glued to the screen as he wheeled the gurney out of the room. An aerial view of the state capital government plaza, still a mass of emergency vehicles, filled the screen, with the word LIVE superimposed on it.
“Recapping our top story,” said the news announcer. “At a traveling exhibit called Anne Frank in the World, gunfire evidently erupted while the state museum was filled with high school students. It has been confirmed that some students have been taken by ambulance to local hospitals. A male juvenile is reportedly being held by police as the suspect.”
The newscaster narrated as taped footage was shown. It was surreal. Nicole saw people she knew outside the museum, hugging and crying. At any moment, she expected to see the aerial camera zooming in on herself.
“We have a new development,” the anchorwoman cut in. “We’re going live to a press conference being held by Chief of Police Shanika Brown, and the head of security for the Anne Frank in the World exhibition, Moshe Ben-Ami.”
The cameras cut to the steps of the museum. A crowd of reporters shouted questions.
“Chief Brown, how many dead?”
“Was this an anti-Semitic hate crime?”
“Any truth that foreign terrorists might be involved?”
Chief Brown, a petite African American woman, stepped to the mike. “I have a brief prepared statement.” She waited for the crowd to quiet, then began to read from a note card. “Today, students at the state museum were the victims of a cruel and dangerous prank. No weapons were involved, and fortunately, no one died.”
“What?” Nicole yelped. “There were shots, I heard them!”
“This morning, at approximately nine-forty-five, three students from East High School threw lit firecrackers at students from West High School. In the resulting panic, two dozen students were injured. Fifteen were treated and released at the scene, eight are hospitalized in satisfactory condition, and one student is still in surgery with a compound fracture to his right leg. Police have released a student who had been detained on suspicion of having used a weapon. I give you now Moshe Ben-Ami, chief of security for the exhibition.”
“It wasn’t Doom,” Nicole said, dazed. “We were all so sure.”
On TV, a burly man stepped to the microphone. “I am Moshe Ben-Ami,” he said with a slight accent. “First let me assure you that our excellent security precluded a gun from ever entering the museum. Moreover, the entire exhibition is under video surveillance, so we were able to review the tapes and quickly identify the perpetrators. Chief Brown has informed me that they are now under arrest. Thank you.”
Chief Brown came forward to take the barrage of questions that followed. “Amazing.” Mrs. Burns clicked off the TV. “You should rest now, sweetie.”
Nicole slumped back against her pillows. One thought kept playing in her mind: Doom hadn’t done anything wrong at all.
