Emmy Laybourne - Monument 14

Jake Simonsen then grabbed my arm and pulled me down the aisle and put me into a seat. Then I got dizzy and my vision got all sparky, and before I knew it, I threw up on Jake Simonsen. Football star. King of the beautiful. And the vomit was, I am not kidding you, black like tar. Oatmeal and tar.

“Sorry,” I said, wiping my mouth.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Sit down.”

Mrs. Wooly’s bus was in much better shape than ours. There were giant dents in the ceiling. Her windshield looked nearly opaque, it was so crosshatched with cracks, and most of the back windows were broken from the hail flying in; but it was Air Force One compared to our bus.

Josie was slumped next to a window. Astrid was trying to stop the flow of blood from Josie’s head. Brayden had his tablet out of his backpack and was trying to power up.

Niko started coughing up gunk up in the first seat.

And that was us.

There had been at least fifteen kids on the bus. Now it was Jake, Brayden, Niko, Astrid, Josie, and me.

Mrs. Wooly put the bus in gear and it lurched toward the Greenway.

The hail was changing now. Changing into a heavy, frozen rain. The quiet of the rain was so strong I felt it in my bones. A steady, heavy whoosh .

They say that your ears ring after you listen to something loud, like a rock concert. This was a continuous GONGONGONGONGONG . The quiet hurt as much as the hail.

I started coughing hard. Sort of a cross between coughing and vomiting. Black gunk, gray gunk, brown gunk. My nose was running. My eyes were pouring tears. I could tell my body was trying to get the smoke out of me.

Suddenly everything got orange and bright. The windows and the thin window frames stood out, illuminated against a silhouette of fire and… BOOM , our old bus exploded.

Within seconds the entire behemoth was engulfed in flames.

“Well,” Jake said. “That was close.”

I laughed. That was funny, to me.

Niko just looked at me like I was crazy.

Brayden stood up and pointed out the window at the flaming wreckage that had once been our bus.

“Class A friggin’ lawsuit, my friends,” he said. “Right there.”

“Sit down, Brayden,” Jake said.

Brayden ignored him, and stood, counting us.

“The six of us,” he continued. “We’re suing the Board of Education! Where my dad works, they have plans for this kind of stuff. Emergency plans. There should have been a plan. A drill!”

I looked away from him. Clearly, Brayden was a little crazy at this moment in time but I couldn’t blame him. He had every right to be unhinged.

The bus reached the store. I thought she’d stop it outside and we’d walk in, but no, just as she had before, Mrs. Wooly drove it right through the hole where the glass doors had been and then we were inside the Greenway, in a bus.

Surreal upon surreal upon surreal.

There were no Greenway employees around so I figured they must not have come to work yet.

The elementary and middle school kids were grouped together in the little Pizza Shack restaurant-within-the-store area.

I saw Alex through the bus window and he stepped forward, squinting to try to see me. The bus sputtered to a stop on the shiny linoleum. Mrs. Wooly got off, then Niko, then me. I stumbled over to Alex, my legs still weren’t working completely right, and then I hugged him hard. I got char and vomit all over him but I didn’t care.

He had actually been pretty clean before I hugged him. They all were. The little kids were scared, of course, but Mrs. Wooly had gotten them out of harm’s way in a hurry.

One thing that bears explaining is that the middle school and grammar school in Monument were right next to each other, so for some of the little pocket neighborhoods, like ours, they had one bus collect the kids for the two schools. That’s why there were eighth graders and kindergarteners mixed together on Mrs. Wooly’s bus.

From the five-year-olds to the eighth graders, the kids from her bus looked fine.

Not us. We looked like we’d been in a war.

Mrs. Wooly started barking out instructions.

She sent an eighth grader named Sahalia and a couple little kids to the Pharmacy section of the store to get bandages, first aid cream, that kind of thing. She sent two kindergarteners to get a cart full of water, Gatorade, and cookies.

Niko said he’d go get some thermal blankets to help prevent shock. He was looking at Josie when he said it and I could see why.

Josie was definitely looking worse for the wear. She was sitting slumped on the steps of the bus, keening and rocking back and forth. The bleeding on her forehead had slowed, but the blood was thick and clumpy in her hair and dried on her face in patches. She looked totally terrifying.

The remaining little kids were just standing and staring at Josie, so Mrs. Wooly sent them off to help Sahalia. Then she looked at Astrid.

“Help me get her into the Pizza Shack,” she said.

Together they lifted Josie to her feet and led her to a booth.

Alex and I sat together at one booth. Brayden and Jake and the rest just kind of slumped at their own tables.

We all started talking. It was all along the lines of I can’t believe what just happened. I can’t believe what just happened. I can’t believe what just happened.

My brother kept asking me, “Dean, are you sure you’re okay?” I kept saying I was fine.

But my ears were funny. I heard this rhythmic clattering sound and the boom-boom-boom of the hail was still in my bones.

Sahalia and the little kids came back with a cart loaded with medicines and first aid stuff.

Mrs. Wooly came and looked at us one by one and gave us whatever she thought might help.

Josie took the most of her attention. Mrs. Wooly tut-tutted over the gaping cut on Josie’s forehead.

The chocolate hue of Josie’s skin made the gash look worse. The red of the blood was brighter, somehow.

“It’s gonna need stitches, hun,” she told Josie.

Josie just sat there staring ahead, rocking back and forth.

Mrs. Wooly poured hydrogen peroxide over the cut. It bubbled up pink and frothed down over Josie’s temple, down her neck.

Mrs. Wooly blotted the cut with gauze and then coated it with ointment. She put a big square of gauze over it and then wrapped Josie’s head with gauze. Maybe Mrs. Wooly had been a nurse in her youth. I don’t know but it was a professional-looking job.

Niko returned with some of those silver space blankets hikers use. He wrapped one around Josie and offered me one.

“I’m not in shock,” I told him.

He just looked at me calmly, his hand outstretched with the blanket.

I did seem to be shaking somewhat. Then it occurred to me that the strange sound I was hearing might be the chattering of my own teeth.

I took the blanket.

Mrs. Wooly came over to me. She had some baby wipes and she wiped off my face and neck and then felt all over my head.

Can you imagine letting your grammar school bus driver wipe your face with a baby wipe and look through your hair? It was absurd. But everything had changed and nobody was teasing anybody.

People had died—we had almost died.

Nobody was teasing anybody.

Mrs. Wooly gave me three Advil and some cough syrup. She also gave me a gallon bottle of water and told me to start drinking and not stop until I hit the bottom.

“How are your legs?” she asked. “Seemed like you were walking funny before.”

I stood up. My ankle was sore, but I was basically fine.

“I’m okay.”

“I’ll get us some clothes,” Niko volunteered. “We can change and get cleaned up.”

“You sit down,” Mrs. Wooly ordered him.

He sank slowly into one of the booths, coughing black gunk onto his sleeve.