Blink

Chapter 2

Mrs. Braswell-Martin droned out the role call, and to no one's surprise, everyone was in attendance. For all her many wonderful qualities, our teacher was getting older, and her eyesight wasn't what it used to be. Nor, apparently, was her memory of students' voices. We'd learned at the beginning of the year that so long as someone said "here" after a name was called it didn't particularly matter whether or not the person to whom the name belonged had graced us with their presence.

"Now," she said, clapping her hands after the last name. "You may have noticed that it is about to rain. Today's exercise will be a creative writing essay about rain. You may write about the storm itself, or the moments before and after, or how it makes you feel, or use it symbolically. It must be at least five hundred words long. You have thirty minutes, starting now."

The storm broke just as she said now, the rain suddenly thudding against the glass window of the classroom. I heard a rumble of thunder and shivered in my chair. Thunderstorms always made me feel vaguely uncomfortable, though I could never explain why. I'd asked my mom once if I'd had any trauma in my childhood relating to thunderstorms and she looked at me like I'd been hit on the head. I took that as a no.

Realizing that this train of thought would probably make Mrs. Braswell-Martin's essay loving heart very happy, I pulled out my laptop and began typing. The room was silent except for the tapping of keys and the thudding of rain and the occasional clap of thunder. A rare enough occurrence, given the sheer number of noises my classmates seemed capable of making when they were being quiet. It was more distracting than you'd imagine.

I fidgeted, having written everything I'd thought of and knowing I needed to write another hundred words, but how much is there to actually write about the rain? I'm not the sort to wax poetic about dewdrops and epiphanies and whatever else you're supposed to put in a five hundred word essay about rain. It's literally just water falling from the sky. Boom, everything you need to know about rain. I looked out the window for inspiration and jumped as another crack of thunder sounded, closer than before. Was it supposed to be that loud?

Across the room, Karsen Davidson raised his hand. "Mrs. Braswell-Martin?"

"Yes, Karsen."

"Is it safe to be in here? There are a lot of windows and that thunder was really loud. How dangerous is this storm going to be?"

"Don't be such a baby," she said brusquely. "It's just a storm, it can't hurt you."

"But-"

"Does anyone else feel threatened by the storm?" she interrupted with an air of long-suffering.

The class exchanged glances, confused. She usually wasn't quite this rude.

"Umm, I guess I am?" Kailey asked. She never seemed to know exactly what she thought, ending every sentence with a question mark. I occasionally wondered what her love life looked like; did she say 'I like you?' and 'you're hot?' and 'I guess I'll go on a date with you?'

"Well, in that case," said Mrs. Braswell-Martin with extreme condescension. "We absolutely must-"

But she didn't get any further than that. She was cut off by an extremely loud peal of thunder, accompanied by a lightening strike that hit the building. We saw the electricity run down the exposed steel of the walls, and, to my horror, across the floor and up my desk and into my body. I remember feeling like my organs were on fire, sliding down out of my chair and onto the floor, and, mercifully, hitting my head against my desk and blacking out.

Because I was unconscious, I don't actually know what happened next. Aimee narrated it for my benefit - apparently I'd screamed, and that had spurred the entire class into action. People were on their desks, on the floor, shouting over each other. Mrs. Braswell-Martin had made some effort at getting everyone back in their seats, but no one paid her any mind. Several guys rushed to my aid, but they had to take a step back.

According to Aimee, I was glowing. And white-hot. There's a scorch mark on the floor beneath my old desk, if you doubt her. I know I did. But my entire class can tell you about the glowing bit, and Robbie Landsworth has blisters on his hands that he says are from trying to pick me up off the floor. I scared them just as much or as more as the initial lightning strike, and it only took one person edging towards the door to send the whole class stampeding. Mrs. Braswell-Martin was the second person out.

There were paramedics, and a fire truck - the lightning had set the science lab on fire - and the insurance people somehow got there before the firemen did. It took Aimee a while to get the attention of a paramedic, and quite a bit longer to get the important bits of the story across coherently. He finally got the memo, and she dragged him inside to find me in the classroom where they had left me.

Somehow they managed to get me onto a stretcher and into the hospital. I was still fairly hot, and they had to find a fireman to carry me because he had heat protective clothing. Aimee had quite a lot to say about this fireman, how he was muscular but apparently still slim even though no one looks good in a fireman's suit and he seemed really concerned about me and when he took off his helmet she realized he was super cute. He'd promised to visit me, she told me later, and I was a bit disappointed that the visit never happened because, hello, what a way to meet a guy. The relationship definitely had potential.

They took me to the hospital, and Aimee insisted on riding along. She called my family and convinced the nurses that she was my adopted sister so they'd let her stay in the room with me. They did tests and whatever, and finally, after nearly twenty four hours and several shots of adrenaline, I woke up.