“I THOUGHT YOU WERE NEVER getting out of there!” Black Shoes shouted.
Rashid had too.
For a second, Rashid couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He just stayed flat on his back, staring up at the wires dangling from the ceiling as his heart thudded.
Finally, he choked out, “Thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome, man.” Black Shoes extended his hand to Rashid. “I’m Tad. Now, what do you say we get the hell out of here?”
Rashid stared at the guy’s face, then looked down at the hand offered to him. Tad Hunter—who for some reason was wearing dress pants and a tux shirt—had just saved him. Football player. Track, too. And he hung with the guys who lived for hurling insults at Rashid whenever he was nearby.
Towel head.
Traitor.
Terr-ab.
Mosque man.
He waited for Tad to recognize him and for his hand to drop away. But Tad just stood there waiting. That’s when Rashid remembered. His beard was gone, and without it, Tad didn’t recognize him.
Slowly Rashid clasped the outstretched hand and let Tad pull him to his feet. Then he leaned down and picked his bag up off the floor, sending bits of dust and wood and tile flying. “Thank you,” he said again. “I wouldn’t have been able to get out of there without your help.”
“Well, let’s help each other get the rest of the way out,” Tad said. “Dying at school isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”
“I can agree with that.” Rashid adjusted the bag on his shoulder and turned to look at what they were facing. There were cracks in the hallway walls, wet floors, and twisted lockers. Wisps of black smoke snaked around a pile of debris at the end of the hall.
The school was badly damaged but it was still standing. For now.
Rashid swallowed hard as he spotted a man lying near a partially opened door at the other end of the hallway. There was blood on the floor, and the man wasn’t moving. “Look!” Rashid took a step toward him, and Tad put a hand on his arm and held him back.
“He’s dead.”
“He might just be unconscious,” Rashid said, stepping toward the man. “We have to make sure.”
“I did.” Tad shook his head and turned so he wasn’t looking in that direction. “I checked for a pulse just before I heard you yell. We can’t help him. The only thing we can do is look for a way out of here and save ourselves. When we get out, we can let someone know he’s up here. Okay? Where’s your phone? We should call 911 again and tell them where we are in the building.”
Rashid pulled his eyes away from the dead man and dug his phone out of his bag. Carefully, he swiped the cracked screen, dialed the number, then put the phone on speaker so Tad could hear.
“Due to the high volume of calls, our operators are busy and working to get to your call as quickly as possible. If this is not a true emergency, please dial 311.”
“Are you kidding me?” Tad grabbed the phone.
Rashid backed away from him. “Everyone in the area must be calling 911.” His father would be the minute he heard about the explosions.
Tad stared at the phone, then let out a loud breath and nodded. “Okay. Well, then I guess we have to find a way out of this mess ourselves.” Tad stepped over a fallen beam and headed to the left. Rashid considered his options, then followed Tad as the message from the emergency line repeated, accompanied by the sound of running water and the buzz of broken electrical lines overhead.
After a minute of silence, the message played again.
“Maybe we should call someone else,” Rashid said.
“Like who?” Tad kicked at a board and ran a hand over his buzzed hair.
“Actually,” Rashid said, “I was thinking we could call someone near a television.” Tad looked at Rashid as if he had lost his mind, and Rashid quickly explained, “There will be television cameras outside. No one at my house will be watching television, but if we can call someone who is watching the news, they can tell us what parts of the school have been damaged and what looks to be the safest way out.”
Tad flashed a grin. “That’s smart. My mom was home when I left. I can call her.” Tad’s finger hovered over the screen.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m trying to remember the number.”
Rashid stared at him. “You don’t know your mother’s phone number?”
“It’s stored in my phone, so I don’t normally have to think about it. Just give me a second.” Tad took a deep breath, and Rashid clenched his fists and waited. Finally Tad nodded. “Okay, I think I remember it.” He punched in a number, then hit the speaker button.
“Hello?” a woman demanded on the other end. “Who is this?”
“Mom?” Tad yelled.
“Tad? Oh, thank God.”
“Mom, I need you to—”
“Sam.” Tad’s mother’s voice was muffled. “Your brother’s on the phone. He’s fine. Just like I told you he would be.” Her voice got louder as she asked, “Tad, where are you? Did you hear about the school?”
“Mom—”
“So far two bombs have gone off, and when you didn’t answer your phone, Sam thought—”
Two bombs.
“Mom. Mom. Stop.” In a slow, very clear voice, Tad said, “A friend and I are trapped on the second floor of the school.”
Tad’s mother gasped and made a choked noise.
Tad’s jaw clenched. “We tried to call 911, but the line is busy, so I need you to look at the TV and tell me where the fire is or where the damage is the worst so we don’t try to get out that way.”
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, Mom. We’re both okay.” Tad looked up and shrugged. Which Rashid understood. No, they weren’t really okay, but there was no point telling her that. Tad’s mother started talking again, but Tad interrupted. “Mom, listen, we’re fine, but we need you to tell us what’s happening here so we can get out. Can you turn on the news and tell us what you see?”
“Okay. Okay. Just give me a minute to get to the television. Okay.”
Rashid could almost imagine her bumping into things as she hurried to do as Tad asked. His family didn’t have a television. His father said they were a distraction from the true purpose of life—although Rashid and his sister had noticed that whenever the Nationals were playing a big game, Father always wanted to take the family out to eat in a restaurant with a television. Without a television or radio, Rashid wondered if his family knew what was happening here at the school or if his message had been listened to.
“Mom?” Tad asked. “Are you there?”
Water dripped. Something creaked and groaned overhead. Rashid could hear Tad’s mother breathing hard and saying “Oh, my God,” over and over again. Suddenly, a loud but mostly garbled voice floated through the receiver.
“What’s going on, Mom?” Tad asked.
“It’s a commercial. I’ll find another channel. Wait, here it is. They’re talking to a teacher who was in the parking lot when the first bomb went off. Tad, they aren’t showing the building. Why aren’t they showing the building? There’s a fire. They said before that there was a fire. They think a terrorist set off the bombs. You have to get out of there.”
A terrorist.
“Just keep watching, Mom.” Tad looked at Rashid, who nodded. “It’ll be okay. Right now, we’re okay and you’re going to help keep us that way.”
Tad kept talking to keep his mother focused. When Tad’s mother began to panic again, Rashid turned and studied the long hallway. It was in shambles, but he’d seen worse this summer on the sightseeing trips his cousins had taken him on. Gaza was filled with buildings that had been bombed.
“They’re showing the school now!” Tad’s mom shouted. “A lot of fire trucks are in the parking lot. And it looks like the fire is on the back side of the school, or maybe on the side? I can’t tell. But I see smoke on the screen. Wait. The front entry doesn’t look like it’s on fire. Go out that way. Go now, Tad. You have to get out.”
Fire on the back side of the school and maybe on the first floor in the hallway to their right. He and Tad were in the hallway nearest to the front of the school right now, but both sets of stairs leading down were blocked.
Tad ran a hand over his head and cut off his mother’s panicked words. “We can’t get out the front, Mom. If you can’t tell where exactly the fire is, maybe we should just wait for the firefighters and—”
“No. Don’t wait. There’s something wrong. The reporters are saying that the police think the bomber is still inside the school. Oh, Lord. You have to get out of there.”
“What?” Rashid turned and hurried back toward the phone.
“Mom?” Tad yelled. “Where is the worst damage? Can you see?”
“Oh, God. The woman is saying that the police got a message from the bomber. He says there are other bombs that are going to go off. If anyone tries to enter the school, he’s going to set them off. You have to get out right now, Tad. The terrorist is still—”
Her voice disappeared. Tad looked at Rashid with wide eyes, then back down at the phone display. Tad yelled, “Mom?”
Still nothing. “The call must have been dropped.”
“I’m calling her back,” Tad said as he hit REDIAL. Nothing. Tad tried again and looked as if he was going to throw the phone when the call still didn’t go through. “What the hell, man? No service.”
Rashid grabbed the phone and looked at the cracked display.
No bars.
They hadn’t changed locations, but something had changed.
Rashid hurried down the hall, looking for a zone where they could get a signal. But there wasn’t one. The cell-phone signal in the school was never reliable. Everyone was always complaining about it, but he had a feeling this was due to something else. “The police must have jammed the cell-phone signal for the school. They must want to cut off any contact the bomber would have with the bombs or anyone outside who might be helping him.”
“So they think the person behind the bombings has more bombs and is trapped in here with us?” Tad kicked a bent piece of metal, and it skittered down the hall and slammed into the door of an open locker. “What kind of terrorist takes out a school when school isn’t even in session? It’s not like we’re some kind of major military target or a church or—” Tad went completely still. “Hold on a sec.” His eyes narrowed as he turned his head and looked at Rashid. “I know who you are.”
Rashid stepped back and balled his hands into fists at his side. Everything inside him tensed. Heat built inside him. He replayed all the insults in his mind as distrust twist Tad’s face. Distrust that had become more and more a part of Rashid’s life from people who thought they understood him. They thought they knew what he was. Was it any wonder he did what he did today? It was because of Tad. Because of Tad’s friends and all the people like them.
Normally at school he turned away when the distrust surfaced. This time he lifted his head to look Tad straight in the eyes. Rage and humiliation burned hot as the floor shuddered beneath him. “No. You don’t. You don’t know me at all.”