“Like I said, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why?”
“It was scary,” I said.
“It was scary,” Max said, chiming in.
“You look okay now,” Terrence said.
“She had to talk to Mrs. Martin.”
“The school counselor?” Terrence said, making a face. He had to see her too after the great affair became known to the whole school/town.
“Stop talking like I’m not here,” I said.
“Well, are you cured?” he asked.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I’m going to take that as a no.”
“Yeah, no. There is no cure for nucleomituphobia. You just have to deal with the symptoms and hope there are no consequences.”
“There’s not going to be a nuclear war,” Terrence said.
“You don’t know that. There could be…”
“There could be a nuclear accident,” Max said, nodding. “There was one before. There could be another.”
“Helpful, Max, helpful,” Terrence said. “Laura, you need to get your mind on something else, that’s all.” He grabbed my notebook. “Now, don’t forget to describe the boobs.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Not everyone felt the same way I did about the thought of being blown off this planet. But a few did. And what do people say about grassroots? They grow with only one person—and that was me. I wanted to stay on planet Earth for as long as I could. I didn’t want any outside forces deciding it for me. Besides, Mr. Truitt owed me. (For Kevin Barnes.) I stood at the front of the room and asked the class one simple question: “Do you want to die?” By the look on Mr. Truitt’s face, he didn’t like the direction my question was going.
“Yes, I had a panic attack. Yes, I am afraid of nuclear war. I have nucleomituphobia. It is a condition with no cure. And yes, I am embarrassed by it,” I said.
Mr. Truitt’s brow literally had sweat dripping from it. My little desire to talk to the class about my little episode yesterday made him nervous.
But I continued. “The whole idea of mutually assured destruction is a useless figure of speech that politicians use to scare the bejeebers out of everyone on this planet who has access to modern technologies. If you think about it, if a thermonuclear bomb destroys half the world, sending it back to the Dark Ages, we as a planet would be on even footing. No one would be better than the other. I’ll ask y’all three questions. One: What would happen if a bomb exploded over Griffin Flat? Two: What would we do? And three: How would we survive? Don’t kid yourself; no one wants to live through a nuclear war. Who would want to be around after? It would be easier to sit down on the couch and patiently wait to be vaporized than live during the unknown.”
“Laura,” Mr. Truitt said, standing up from his chair.
“Mr. Truitt, I’m almost done,” I said.
He nodded, sitting back down.
“Just some thoughts. Imagine this scenario: a blinding flash outside your home is followed by a blast that shatters every window and wall. You are probably hurt pretty badly. Cut, broken, and bruised. A first aid kit will help, but only so far. You try to turn on a TV or radio, but who knows if there is a signal. But that will only help if there’s not an EMP. If there is an EMP, then you’re SOL. And I wouldn’t try the phone—it’s probably dead too. If you’re getting an Emergency Broadcast System message, you’ll be one of the lucky ones, so congratulations. You just lived through the first wave of a nuclear attack. But there’s one problem… you’re dead. By the time help gets to you, radioactive fallout will already be in your system. Not to mention the burns that cover your body, with the flash of light that you probably immediately looked at—remember to keep your eyes closed and covered—you’ll be blind possibly have first-, second-, or third-degree burns. Wear white—it saves lives. And even if you lived through that—blind and patchy—then you’ll have to deal with winds up to one hundred plus miles per hour and a firestorm that burns for hours on end. And sad to disappoint you, we’re not turning into Firestorm. True, this is only speculation. No one knows what living hell is waiting for us if or when this actually happens. We’re not prepared. The USSR has courses in their high schools. They know what to do to survive a nuclear war.”
“So what’s the point of doing homework? We’re all going to die of radiation sickness,” Rodney said.
“That’s a pretty great outlook on something that’s never, ever going to happen,” Mr. Truitt said.
“You optimist, you,” I said. “Not many people worry about a world war that goes nuclear, but what about one that gets started by mistake?”
“And on that note,” Mr. Truitt said, interrupting me and my train of thought, “thanks, Laura, for your informative and yet dismal look on the outlook of—”
Mr. Truitt was interrupted by the sound of a boom. We as a group jumped. Someone ominously said, “It’s the bomb,” and then the sirens blared. It wasn’t a Thursday.
We moved out into the hall and sat by the white lockers and waited. It was stupid. It was idiotic.
“What’s the point?” I heard Kevin say across the hall. “Laura’s right. We’re all going to die.”
He reached into his pocket and retrieved one of his clove cigarettes. And right there in front of teachers and his fellow classmates, he lit a match and blew smoke in his neighbor’s face.
Coach Brooks pulled the cigarette from Kevin’s mouth and stomped it out on the floor. But that made him grab another.
“No, Kevin’s right,” I said, not realizing I was speaking. The brain worked that way sometimes. “Come on, they’re lying to us. Sitting here with our arms over our heads is not going to save us. This so-called drill won’t save us. If this was real—if there were bombs coming right at us, it wouldn’t matter anyway—what would we do? Hide under a desk like our parents did? Fallout shelters?” I stood up. The teachers stared at me. “Don’t just sit on the floor with our arms over our heads as they tell us to do. What they don’t tell you is that in the case of extreme apocalyptic disaster, there is nothing they or we can do. If you manage to survive, your very own neighbors will shoot you and steal your food—but that’s if the radiation doesn’t get you first. First comes headaches and the continuous vomiting and hair falling out, skin falling off—”
“Laura, you’re not serious,” Kathy said.
“I am serious,” I said.
“You’re scaring us,” Dana said.
“You should be scared,” I said. “We will be praying for death.”
Coach Brooks was walking toward me now. He grabbed my arm and dragged me down the hall.
“The Soviets are coming! The Soviets are coming! America is under attack—America is under attack from within.”
I was in a lot of trouble. I was suspended from school again, this time for inciting a “riot.” Suspended for telling the truth. I guessed truth equaled fear. And that made Principal Parker and Mrs. Martin nervous. Whatever. They’d probably die in the first wave anyway. Heartless? Maybe. Honest truth? Absolutely.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pops sat at the dining room table drinking his black coffee and eating leftover brownies from last night’s dessert while reading the morning newspaper.