Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO HOUR 15 HOURS AND 44 MINUTES

THE FIRST-GRADERS STOOD at the classroom window, their eyes glued to the billowing columns of smoke rising up in the distance from the direction of Clover Hill.

Behind them, their teacher, Miss Carla, wasn’t looking at the radioactive smoke. She was looking at the tiny six-year-olds and thinking of how their young, developing bodies were at greater risk of getting cancer from radiation than adult bodies exposed to the same doses. Of how alarming the rates of pediatric leukemia and thyroid cancer were after Chernobyl. Carla knew all the statistics, but her students did not, and if she had anything to say about how the rest of this day went, they’d never find out the hard way.

Pulling her desk away from the wall, she unplugged the power cord connected to her computer and hot-pink lava lamp. The lamp was a class favorite. Not that it was on. Nothing was on in the small, two-story schoolhouse except the neon emergency lights at the front and rear exits.

Outside her classroom, she heard a few teachers speaking in hushed tones in the hallway.

“—calls go through?”

“No. No calls. No texts. I don’t even have internet.”

“Me neither. Guys, I’m going to freak out. What if it is Clover Hill? Seriously. What if?”

“If there was a problem at the plant, the sirens would have gone off. They haven’t.”

Carla poked her head outside her classroom. “Did you guys unplug everything?”

“Why? Is the power back on?” Mr. Baker, a sixth-grade teacher, asked.

“No. But when it does come back, we don’t want to overload the system.”

The sound of footsteps running up the stairs made the teachers turn.

“Nichole?” Carla said to the frazzled woman appearing at the top of the stairs.

Nichole hurried down the hall clutching her purse as her work lanyard swung from side to side. “Miss Carla,” she said breathlessly. “Hi. I’m just… is he—” Before Carla could reply, Nichole stuck her head into the classroom. “David,” she said sharply to her son, beckoning him over with a wave of her hand. “Get your stuff.”

Mr. Baker whispered to the other teachers, “Doesn’t David’s mom work at Clover Hill?”

“Nichole, we saw the plane and heard the crash,” Carla said, keeping her voice low. “Everything all right at the plant?”

Before she could reply, David appeared at the door.

“Mommy, what’s wrong?” he said, giving voice to what they were all thinking.

Nichole looked from her son to the teachers as everyone waited for her answer. “Nothing, sweetheart,” she said, not even attempting a smile. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she spun him toward the stairs. As they hurried down the hall, David looked back with a wave to his teacher. Carla returned the wave, suddenly aware of how hard her heart was pounding.

“How many kids are left in your classes?” Carla said once David was out of earshot. “I now only have five.”

In a town of less than a thousand people, the school was small to start with. That day, attendance was particularly light because some families had left town for Easter weekend. And many of the students’ parents, like Nichole, had already come in and grabbed their kids. Carla thought this might be the one thing working in the teachers’ favor.

“I’ve got seven.”

“Four.”

“Just two.”

“Good,” said Principal Gazdecki, coming around the corner, walkie-talkie in hand. He’d been running the school for twenty-seven years and knew the name of every student and parent and sometimes even their pets.

“Get a head count,” he said, walking backward down the hall. “I bet we can all fit in one bus. Let’s start loading up.”

Most of the other teachers stared.

“For relocation,” Carla said, reading their confused expressions. “We’re in the ten-mile emergency planning zone. If they issue a relocation order, we’re paired with McMinn County. We relocate to Harriman High.”

All of this, it seemed, was news to the teachers. One of them was new to the area, but most of them had grown up in the shadow of the plant. Yes, the school’s nuclear incident preparedness training was only one thirty-minute unit done annually at the start of the school year. But still, Carla thought, they should know these things. Shouldn’t they?

“Just keep the kids calm,” Carla said. “Nothing’s confirmed yet. There’s been no siren. We’re just being cautious.”

They looked about as convinced as she felt.

“All right, my weasels,” Carla said with forced enthusiasm when she reentered her classroom. “We got an unplanned field trip! Grab your backpacks and line up at the door.”

The kids turned from the second-story window. Over their heads, Miss Carla could still see all the thick, black funnels of smoke that dotted the valley—the largest of which rose up from the plant. The kids looked confused and scared. Carla couldn’t blame them. But mainly, they looked small, so small. Plastering a big first-grade-teacher smile on her face, Miss Carla clapped her hands. “C’mon, adventure awaits.”

A handful of minutes later as the line of students made their way down the stairs, Leo, the sharpest kid in her class, asked Carla if the plant had blown up.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “If it had, they would have used the siren by now.”

“But how would they turn the siren on if they blew up?”

Carla drew a blank. Before she could make up an answer, Benjamin saved her.

“Miss Carla, am I going to grow a tail?” he asked, breathless as he hustled to keep up with the group.

Carla glanced over her shoulder. “A what?”

Benjamin was the smallest of the first-graders, the runt of the class, his thick glasses making his wide eyes look even larger. “Ronnie Darrow said we’re going to grow tails because of the nuclear plant.”

“Just because Ronnie Darrow is a sixth-grader doesn’t mean he knows everything. None of you are growing anything.”

“Miss Carla, is Mr. Levon at the plant?”

Carla’s stomach knotted at Sophie’s question. Just last week, Levon had come into class wearing all his fire gear to teach them stop-drop-and-roll and how to crawl under smoke to reach a door. But the highlight for the kids was getting to sit in the fire truck. Later that night, at home, Levon had beamed with pride at the news that most of the class now planned on being firefighters when they grew up.

Carla glanced over at Brianna, assuming the little girl was as worried as she was, since her mom was a firefighter too. Sure enough, Brianna’s dark brown eyes looked up at Carla for reassurance. Carla could envision Bri’s mom, Dani, braiding her baby girl’s ponytail that morning.

Brianna and Dani lived just up the road from Levon and Carla; Levon and Dani carpooled to the station, and Carla drove herself and Bri to and from school. Granddaddy Marion lived with Brianna and Dani, and since he was now retired, most days he cooked big meals for both families to eat together. They weren’t just neighbors, they weren’t just friends, they weren’t just colleagues, and they weren’t just teacher and student—they were as good a family as any of them had.

“He might be at the plant,” Carla said, answering Sophie but looking at Bri. “I don’t know. But wherever he is, he’s with his crew and they know what to do and how to help. Okay?”

Bri nodded.

“All right, stay together and sit as a class,” Carla said, counting heads as her students piled onto the bus. Just as the last went in, Carla saw a flash of red in the shape of a ’95 Dodge Ram pickup tearing up the road.

She had never seen Marion drive that fast. He never did anything fast. Brianna’s granddaddy was a man of few words, slow and methodical in everything he did. But moments later, after he parked and got out of the truck, Marion actually set off in a jog toward the bus.

Marion had been one of Clover Hill’s first employees. He’d spent the entirety of his forty-seven-year career there, retiring only three years ago. He’d helped build that plant; he knew it backward. So when he jogged up to Carla, pulled her aside, and looked her dead in the eye, a chill went up her spine.

“Get Brianna. Let’s go.”

“Well, but…” Carla noticed Bri watching them from a window in the bus. Carla waved for her to come out. “Okay,” she said. “But I need to stay.”

“You’re coming with us.” Marion was firm.

“I can’t. My students. I—”

“Noah, Eric,” barked Principal Gazdecki to two sixth-graders getting on the bus. “Check every window. Make sure they’re shut. Tight . Got it?” He turned. “Marion.” They shook hands. “No siren from Clover Hill yet,” he said. “You don’t think I’m overreacting?”

Just then, Bri appeared at her granddaddy’s side. She took his hand and looked up at the adults. Marion cleared his throat noncommittally.

“I think you got the right idea, Mr. Gazdecki. Now, Miss Carla,” he said, waving at her to come along as he walked to the pickup with Bri.

“Marion. My kids. I can’t…”

Mr. Gazdecki turned to Carla. “Where’s he want you to go?”

“With him.”

“But where?”

Carla could only shake her head and shrug.

Mr. Gazdecki watched Marion and Bri get in the pickup. “Go.”

“But my students—” Carla protested.

“There are fifty-seven students total with thirteen teachers, four administrators, and one lunch lady. That’s a three-to-one kid-to-adult ratio. We got this. And parents are going to keep coming for their kids all day. Because families need to be together. And that’s your family. You should be together. Go.”

As Carla hurried across the parking lot to the idling pickup, she zipped up her jacket. The guilt eating at her only got worse when she hopped up into the cab and saw the pile of gear Marion had secured in the bed of the truck. Zip-up full-body hazmat suits. Full-face breathing masks. Thick rubber boots. Long rubber gloves.

If Marion was that worried, she was terrified.

“Staying won’t fix anything,” Marion said, reading her expression.

“Doesn’t feel that way.”

“What’s wrong?” Brianna asked, sitting between them.

Marion put a gentle hand on her head and stroked her thick, black hair by way of an answer as the truck wound down the hill past the soccer field, past the oak tree, toward the main road. Suddenly, Carla sat up straight.

“Stop… stop!”

He did, and Carla jumped out, shut the door behind her, jogged back up the road, and peered down into the thicket of trees that lined the river. “Hey. Hey !”

The pack of sixth-grade boys clearly up to no good spun on their heels. Matt Tostig, the only fifth-grader among them, hastily zipped up the backpack they’d all been peering into and slung it over his shoulder.

“Absolutely not,” said Carla. “Get out of there. Go back to the school.”

“But Miss Carla—”

“Now.”

As they scrambled back up the embankment, a few protested. She’d have none of it. “A bus is about to leave, and you need to be on it. Not another word, Aaron,” Carla said, using a tone of voice she rarely used. “And Ronnie, stop scaring the little kids. No one’s growing a tail.”

The boys weren’t happy, but they didn’t argue.

Except Matt.

“But Miss Carla,” he said, “we were going—”

“Matt, I don’t care where you were going or what you were going to do.”

“But we were just—”

“ No . Get up there. Now!”

“God, you’re being such a bitch.”

Everyone froze. Matt looked over at his buddies, gauging if he had gained any cred, but calling a teacher the B-word was a step too far, even for a sixth-grader.

Carla’s heart broke. Matt was one of the sweetest kids she’d ever had in class. His mom, fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Tostig, had died a year and a half ago after a lengthy battle with lung cancer, and now his dad, Steve, the fire chief at the plant, was raising their only child on his own. Everyone knew it was proving difficult for both father and son. The alchemy of their grief and Matt’s preteen angst had the boy acting out rebelliously lately. Carla knew the last place he needed to be in this terrifying moment was alone.

“Your dad just called, actually,” Carla lied. “He said you needed to come with us. First-responder families are staying together.”

Matt eyed her skeptically. “He did not.”

“Yes, he did. Come on. Get in the truck.”

“He wouldn’t—”

But before Matt could say another word, the sirens went off.

Everyone flinched. The other boys scrambled up the road, gravel sliding out from under their sneakers, and took off in a sprint for the school. Matt climbed in the truck, taking Brianna’s place on the bench seat, putting his backpack at his feet. Carla set Bri on her lap.

With all four in the truck’s front cab, they sped off, the truck’s speed steadily increasing. No one spoke; no one asked where they were going. They trusted that Marion had a plan.

But after a few minutes, the guilt in the pit of Carla’s stomach turned to confusion… and then fear.

The truck was headed toward the plant.