Nine, Ten Read online

  He could remember Gideon’s face, his expression, his calm but commanding voice in the subway. How did he do that? How did he stay so focused with all the mess going on around him?

  Sergio turned away from the window. The teacher hadn’t shown up yet. Maybe she wasn’t coming. Maybe he should be going somewhere, like everyone else in the halls.

  Did Gideon have no fear, or did he just push it away?

  There was fear in the classroom now. It fed off itself, from one body to another, like heat shimmering off asphalt in the summer, undefined and blurry. No one knew what was happening, but somehow everyone now knew it was something bad. Really bad.

  The halls were filled with kids and teachers. Parents were starting to show up, running through the building, grabbing their children. Crying.

  Grown-ups were crying.

  Then the principal came over the loudspeaker, dismissing all the upper grades and telling everyone to go directly to their homes.

  Girls were crying in the halls. Boys were too. Their voices carried into the classroom.

  A plane had accidentally hit one of the Twin Towers. Accidentally? And then another one. Accidentally?

  Some kids said they had seen it happen.

  “It was a bomb.”

  “It’s an attack.”

  “It was a plane.”

  “It flew directly into the side of the building. That’s no accident.”

  Sergio walked over and turned on the television in the back of the classroom. He started flipping through every station. Or was someone else doing that, and he was just standing, just watching the screen? It didn’t matter. He struggled to stay inside his body. To focus and push away the fear.

  One of the TV reporters said there were giant, gaping holes in the sides of the Twin Towers, like a cartoon explosion. Someone else said it was the end of the world. Fear was like a cloud itself, threatening to suffocate him.

  Within minutes, it seemed—an hour, it seemed too—the school started to empty out; classroom doors flung open, glass windows cracking. The world was on fire, fierce yellow and angry red. The sky over Manhattan was gray with soot in a halo of blue and a shroud of black.

  Fifty-six minutes after the second plane crashed, with only a few kids—Sergio being one of them—still left in the classroom staring out the window, there was a horrible, cracking, popping bang-bang-bang-bang booming sound that lasted forever. He could hear it in his head, and like a crack in the fourth dimension, a fracture of the Euclidean plane, Sergio could watch it happening on the television.

  “Oh no. It’s going down. The whole building. It’s going down!”

  Someone in the room started counting the seconds, as if no explosion could last that long.

  It couldn’t, but it did.

  “Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.”

  Cracking. Popping. Exploding. Bang, bang, bang, as if each floor was falling onto the other, and when it finally ended, there was nothing but smoke. No red. No yellow.

  “I’m getting out of here.”

  “Holy crap, that’s it for me.”

  There were no thoughts left to think. Sergio’s body followed the rest of students into the chaos.

  Everyone started pouring out into the streets, some running away, and some headed, like lemmings to the sea, toward the waterfront. Running toward the river, trying to get a better look. Kids were climbing fences and scaling fire escapes of strangers’ houses, just to see what they could see. And from all angles, from in front and behind, came the wailing sound of sirens. First responders, Gideon had called them—the firefighters and police that arrived first on a scene and took care of the wounded.

  “We are the ones who have more training in medical emergencies,” Gideon had explained. “Not as much as EMTs, but more than your average first-aid course. You know what I mean?”

  Sergio had nodded. “Like you did with that guy on the train.”

  “Exactly.”

  It was clear that the world was about to blow apart, if it hadn’t already, and suddenly nothing else mattered but getting home. It was a primitive instinct, a drive, a need to find family no matter how far.

  Get home.

  Sergio started to make his way back to his apartment. His grandmother would be at work by now. So should he turn and head that way?

  Or would she be making her way to him? Would she be running home too?

  Home. He knew he should run home, and he listened to his footsteps hitting the sidewalk pavement, loud thumping, one after the other, in rhythm with his breathing, like he was inside of a wind tunnel. All sounds were exaggerated. The world was screaming out loud.

  Ambulances sped by on the street, one after another after another. His grandmother had taught him to pray, but he had long since stopped doing that when she wasn’t around. What good was it? But there was too much noise. Too much panic and fear, spilling into the streets and rising up into the sky. Sergio ran and he prayed.

  For his grandmother to be home when he got there.

  For himself to know what to do. And for Gideon to be safe.

  Police sirens were wailing, and cops were not paying one bit of attention to all the black teenagers loitering outside the school, running down the sidewalks and the middle of the street.

  Fire trucks.

  And more fire trucks, all speeding toward the bridge in a blur of red and white, a deafening, endless ribbon. Heading toward the bridge, heading directly into the chaos, the flames and sirens and smoke. Gideon was heading right into it. Sergio was running the other way.

  But what else could he do?

  Get home and hope that home was still there.

  There were a few boys from his school leaning over a metal fence and straining their necks.

  Sergio called up, “What do you see?”

  “Oh, God,” one of the boys kept saying, and nothing more. Nothing else. “Oh, God.”

  Sergio felt his feet leave the ground. He hoisted himself up. He gripped the metal bar at the top of the fence.

  “Hey, make room.”

  The boys scrambled over, and Sergio positioned himself as high on the fence as he could. From this vantage point it was a clear view, directly across the river to where the World Trade Center had once stood. Sergio could see people, hundreds of people, streaming off the island of Manhattan, and they were all white.

  Even the black folks were white. White like powder. White like ghosts. Running in slow motion. Walking across the bridge into Brooklyn. White with the ashes of a thousand dead covering their faces, their bodies. Covering the earth.

  September 11, 2001

  9:41 a.m. EDT

  Shanksville, Pennsylvania

  Will knew he would have to ride by Claire’s house on his way to school, which was most likely the reason he veered his bike to the side and took a little rest, hoping that by the time he got back on, she would be long gone. Then he wouldn’t have to face her. Not just yet. In fact, skipping school entirely seemed like it might not be a bad idea. For that reason, and for the fact that this day was probably the most perfect day Will could ever remember, even if he had ruined what might possibly have been his only chance at being with a girl that he really, really liked.

  Will lay faceup in the grass, his hands folded under his head. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky to dream about or make up stories about, but Will dreamed anyway. And as he often did, he imagined that his dad was still alive, that it had all been some horrible mistake, a mix-up in the hospital, mistaken identity. His dad would come home one afternoon after a really long, long haul gig, and he’d wonder what all the hubbub was about.

  Wouldn’t that be funny?

  No, that’s why they had had the funeral. The dark suit. The service and the burial. All those people and all that food. Will shook his head back and forth in the grass, shaking the thoughts out of his mind. Because there had to be something more than either the fantasy or horror.

  There had to be, and there was.

  Will closed his eyes and let himself j
ust remember his dad: his dad throwing him across his parents’ king-size bed, pretending to wrestle, doing a Jerry Lawler pile driver and then a Sgt. Slaughter cobra clutch. Then his father would pretend to get tired, or pretend to make a bad choice, leaving his arms exposed or his back wide open, and Will would bounce across the mattress, acting out a Randy Savage elbow drop off the top rope, and take his father all the way down, where his dad would flop around and beg for mercy.

  For the longest time, for years after he should have known better, Will really believed he had won.

  Sort of.

  A smile grew across his face as the warm memory took hold in his mind and then his whole body. Until Will felt the heat of the sun disappear and he heard a voice directly over his head. “What’s up, there, William Rittenhouse?”

  That was Claire.

  Will jumped to his feet, and his sneakers got tangled under him for a long second, but he made a swift, semigraceful recovery and stood upright.

  “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  She pointed back toward the road. “I recognized your bike.”

  “Oh.” It took Will a little while to put it together. “But why aren’t you in school?”

  “I decided I needed a personal day.” Claire smiled conspiratorially. “So I told my mom I wasn’t feeling well, and when she went to work—well, it was so beautiful out, you know what I mean? And then I saw your bike there.” She waited a beat and added, “I was hoping I’d see you.”

  “Me?”

  Without saying so, they both starting walking back toward the road. They picked up their bikes, but neither one of them got on.

  “We’re probably both going to get in trouble,” Will said, pushing his bike forward.

  “Well, you will for sure.” She laughed.

  Will knew this was exactly what he had hoped would happen yesterday when he asked Claire to ride bikes after school. Almost twenty-four hours and a couple of embarrassing moments later, but here they were. It was hard not to feel excited, excited but calm. Calm but happy. It felt right.

  “I’m sorry I was so mean to you last night,” Claire said.

  They rolled their bikes over the gravel, not in any hurry.

  “It’s okay. I deserved it.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Claire said. “You were just fooling around with your friends. I guess I just . . .”

  He didn’t want her to feel sorry for him. He didn’t want her to like him because his father had died and she thought he was fragile. He wanted her to like him.

  “I guess I . . . ,” Claire went on. “I guess I just like you, that’s all.”

  Claire took Will’s hand, and they walked that way for a long while without saying anything. Will wanted to reach out and stop their bikes from rolling. He wanted to lean over and press his lips against Claire’s, because he knew hers would be soft, and warm, and that it would be perfect. Like the crystalline blue sky over their heads, and the gentle wind that cooled them, and the expanse of green lawns that he had known all his life.

  And it was.

  Just like that.

  When he kissed her.

  Neither one of them heard the discordant sound of a jet engine coming near until it roared right above their heads. Then a huge flash of silver reflected in the sun. They both looked up to see a plane flying on its side, so near, so close to the tops of the trees, that later both Will and Claire would mention being able to see the metal rivets on the wings. And then it was gone.

  A few seconds later, at 10:03 a.m., the plane hit something so violently and with such force it shook the ground. Windows, wide open to the spectacularly beautiful fall day, would slam shut in homes along Lambertsville Road and as far away as the high school. Tiles in the ceiling of the elementary school would shift like they were made of paper, and for weeks after, debris would be discovered scattered across nearby backyards, roped off with yellow police tape.

  Flight 93, with thirty-seven passengers and seven crew members on board, had left Newark forty minutes late because of runway congestion. That gap of time might have allowed friends and family on the ground, who had been watching the horrifying news from New York and Washington, DC, to warn those on the plane of what was most likely, though unfathomably, about to happen. It was not, however, enough time to prevent the course of events, only to alter them; which the passengers and crew did bravely, even though it cost them all their lives.

  The plane dug a trench more than thirty feet deep into the spongy earth of the old strip cuts on Skyline Drive, directly between two hushed, abandoned pieces of mining equipment. It scorched the pine trees standing by in witness. It sent a plume of dark smoke up into the sky, charcoal black into the robin’s-egg blue of the once most perfect day.

  September 11, 2001

  10:45 a.m. EDT

  Columbus, Ohio

  What was happening?

  Why?

  Parents had started showing up to get their kids and take them home. Just a few at first, then a few more. One girl from Mrs. Salinger’s class got called down to the office, and another mom showed up right at the classroom door. She looked like she had been crying. She asked for her daughter, and they were gone. Something bad had happened in New York City, but why everyone was so upset, no one could really say. None of the teachers were interested in teaching anything, and after a while it felt oddly like a snow day, an in-school snow day on the warmest, clearest, most beautiful day of the year. Naheed moved from one period to the next with the rest of her classmates, who were mostly undisturbed, and mostly glad not to be taking tests or giving reports or whatever they had thought they were going to be doing that morning. No one was explaining what was going on until an announcement came over the PA that there was to be an entire-sixth-grade assembly in the library in five minutes. Seventh graders were to report to the auditorium. Eighth graders to the cafeteria.

  Immediately.

  “Did you hear anything?” Tommy came up next to Naheed as they were making their way down the hall toward the library.

  “I’m not sure,” Naheed said.

  “I think it’s about a bomb in New York City,” Tommy said.

  “It was a plane.” Another boy from their grade came up beside them. “Mr. Nemerofsky let us have the radio on in math class,” he said. “It was a huge plane, and it was on purpose.”

  “That’s a lie,” Tommy said. “That’s not true.”

  “Oh, yeah?” The boy kept walking forward but looked back over his shoulder at them. “Then why do you think we’re having this big assembly? Just to hear about some random accident a thousand miles from here?” He nearly bumped into the line of kids waiting to file into the library.

  “It wasn’t New York. It was Washington, DC,” another girl told them.

  Either way it was far away from here.

  At least they got out of class. And they were all standing here doing nothing, which was certainly better than having to go to PE.

  The nearly two hundred sixth graders poured into the library, and the teachers shouted out directions:

  “Blue group sits here.”

  “Fill in these spots up front.”

  “Everyone on the floor.”

  “No pushing.”

  “Sit still.”

  “And be quiet.”

  Kids were talking, shifting around, and slowly making their way to the carpet. At the far end, by the library office, a couple of boys were balling up paper and lobbing it over onto other boys’ heads, then ducking down and laughing. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary or too serious.

  Just a snow day in September, right?

  Naheed wanted to find Eliza. This would be a nice time to be nice. To sit with her and let Eliza know she was serious about being her friend. But there were so many people. It was hard to make out any one particular person.

  Naheed was scanning the room for Eliza, but she began to notice the teachers standing around the outside of the circle of students, their expressions solemn. They weren�
�t chatting with one another or looking for unruly boys. They were preoccupied, as they had been all morning, waiting for the principal to start talking.

  “Sit down, now!” It was Mrs. Salinger. Her face was strange. Her makeup was smeared and it looked like scary Halloween paint. “Everyone sit. And no talking.”

  Naheed decided to sit down right where she was.

  It was okay. She’d see Eliza later at lunch. Sitting with someone in the cafeteria was more of a statement anyway.

  Just a snow day in September, Naheed told herself again.

  The principal was standing at the front of the room, and one of the custodians was wheeling a podium across the floor. The teachers were still telling everyone to be quiet while the microphone was set up, and a loud screech from the amplifiers pierced the room. The principal began.

  “I am sure you are all wondering why we are having this unexpected assembly today. This is an unprecedented event, so there is really no, well, precedent for this. I mean to say, it is up to every school district to decide for themselves how to handle the events that have occurred.”

  There was the normal pushing and whispering and not paying attention.

  “But as I have always believed in treating you students with respect, it is my policy that you should be informed. I also believe that incorrect information can lead to rumor and panic. But before I go on, I will first tell you we have decided not to close schools today. The rest of the day will proceed on a regular schedule. I repeat, we will follow a regular school schedule, and dismissal will be routine. However, all after-school activities have been canceled.”

  The noise in the room lessened. Naheed could feel her chest tighten. Maybe this wasn’t a snow day, or a free day, or a broken septic system like the one that had closed school for a whole week last year.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  “There have been three attacks on the United States this morning.”

  Movements and the rustle of clothing, the tapping of feet, the ambient whispering, suddenly stopped.

  “One in New York City at the World Trade Center. One in Washington, DC, on the Pentagon. And another somewhere in rural Pennsylvania. We are safe here.”