“Drop!” Mrs. Adams yells, signaling yet another nuclear bomb drill. I slowly kneel under my desk. I don’t bother to place my hands around my neck and head--it wouldn’t do much; a nuclear bomb doesn’t care if your hands are over your head or not. “It’s clear,” Mrs. Adams says. “It was just a drill --don’t panic children.” She says that every day, yet she still doesn’t seem confident.
We all return to our seats just as the bell rings for the end of the day. The other students rush out the door with their belongings barely in their hands. I shake my head and place my math textbox in my book bag.
When I walk out of Mrs. Adams’s classroom, the halls are deserted: no students, no teachers, no noise. Everyone has already rushed out to the shelter of their cars--as if the car will protect them. I roll my eyes and walk to my station wagon.
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I give up on finding a different radio station and turn the radio off.
On my way home, I take the new interstate highway. It isn’t the shortest way to get to my house--really it’s the longest way--but I still take it.
I watch the people driving on the highway. They honk at each other. They’re all in a panicked rush; they don’t care that the person next to them could actually have an emergency.
The lady in the car next to me doesn’t honk her horn or yell--she just sits there and stares at the chaos with wide eyes. I imagine she is just as bored and tired with the monotonous panic as I am. Just for the fun of it, I name her Susan--she looks like a Susan.
Sadly, Susan and I split ways as she turns left on the next exit, and I turn right. I try to find another person like Susan--a Jeff or a Paul maybe--but everyone else is in too much of a rush. It doesn’t matter anyway: I am almost