No Ordinary Day (13 page)

Then he shook his head, pulled the last two kids out of the water, into the arms of the waiting rescuers on the side of the swollen river.

And made his way angrily into the water, heading after her.

He unclipped his radio as he crossed back toward the school, waving it over his head to keep it out of the water and alert the other firefighters that he was going back in.

“Miss Sullivan!—
Miss Sullivan
—stop—”

Lucy had seized the door, and was dragging back on it with all her strength.

And making little progress.

Her struggle gave him the chance to catch up with her. Ace took his safety strap and clipped it to the end of hers, then exhaled.

“Never letting you go again, ma’am,” he said.

“I have to go back in,” she growled, pulling with all her weight on the right side of the double door. “There are five of my students still in the school—”

The Sergeant was shaking his head.

“We’ll get ’em,” he said. “We’ll do a sweep once every hall is clear—which they just about are.” He reached out for her again.

“You don’t understand,” Lucy said, still pulling on the door, her teeth chattering from the cold water and fear, dodging. “I had five kids out on a special—to one of the music rooms. I saw their parents—they haven’t gotten out. And you don’t know where they are—I do. Now
help me open this damned door!”

‡

T
he National Guardsman
stared at her a second.

“Let go and stand back, ma’am,” he said.

Then he braced his foot against the left door, seized the handle of the right door and pulled, dragging the door open a crack.

The water fought back, swirling and eddying around the opening.

Ace adjusted his position and tugged again, the muscles of his back and neck bulging before Lucy’s eyes, even beneath his fire coat.

As the door opened wide enough for her to slip through.

Ace followed her. He stopped as she darted blindly into the water running down the dark hallway, his weight dragging her, without having to touch her, to a stop, because they were tethered together.

“We need a plan of action before you go off half-cocked, Miss Sullivan,” he said calmly over the noise of the rising water. “Where is the music room?”

Lucy, standing outside her classroom now, pointed south down the western corridor. “The east and west corridors are like the legs of an H,” she said nervously as she struggled to keep upright. “The interior corridor is the crossbar on the H. That’s where the music room is. I think they may be in there.”

Ace turned on his flashlight and held it up, casting shadows around the dark halls of the school, then handed it to her. He hit the
TALK
button on the radio and informed the command of where they were and what they were doing. Then he rested his hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

“All right. You have to stay calm, ma’am. They are going to need us to be confident; they’re terrified for sure.”

“That makes six of us,” Lucy said as Ace started forward again.

“Seven,” the National Guardsman said as they hurried down the corridor. “But two of us have to be the adults, since the five little kids can’t.”

“Are you telling me you’re terrified, Sergeant?”

“Completely. I’m always terrified when someone else is in harm’s way, especially kids. But I’ve been trained not to let it get the better of me.”

Lucy nodded, grateful.

They hurried around the corner into the horizontal interior corridor, lashed together, Ace’s greater size and strength providing some stability for Lucy, who was being tripped up by the cold floodwaters. She flashed the beam around the hallway, looking in the open doors of classrooms for anyone still trapped inside.

“There are four stairs down ahead in the hallway,” she shouted over the increasing noise of the water.

Ace, an architect and engineer, had already made note of the declining slant of the building, but just nodded.

He knew, given that the water into which he was descending was already up to his knees here in the connecting hallway, that the eastern corridor would be vastly deeper.

Certainly chest high, over a child’s head.

He shook off the thought and took Lucy’s arm as they went down the four steps she had indicated.

Lucy was pointing agitatedly at a door in the middle of the hallway.

“There,” she said, her fair face red with exertion.
“There!”

“Hang tough, ma’am,” Sergeant Evans said as they reached the door. “I’ve got you.”

“And you’re never gonna let me go. Yeah, I know—I heard you say so when you tied us together.”

The National Guardsman smiled slightly.

“I’ll get the door,” he said. “Be careful of the backwash—it should be lower in the classroom than in the hallway, so a lot of water is going to head that way when we open the door.”

He took hold of the handle. Beyond the door, to his relief, he could hear the sound of sobbing.

Up until that moment he was not certain there would be anyone inside still alive to rescue.

“Remember, we’ve only got about twenty inches of give between us,” he said, bracing his shoulder against the door. “Don’t dash in too fast—you could pull us both down.”

“Open the door,”
Lucy growled through gritted teeth.

Ace pushed forcefully against the door. It snapped back, then yielded to his strength, spilling a large amount of water into the room.

Lucy ran past him, her long golden curls hanging in streams behind her.

The little girls
had actually managed to be rather brave at first. When Mr. Daniels had not returned as promised, they had remained silent, looking at one another and the rising water on the floor, perched as they were on the heater behind the upright piano.

Grace, the pastor’s daughter, had retreated as far against the wall as she could, shuddering, but saying nothing. Elisa had followed her, pulling her little legs up to her chest, her enormous eyes wide with fear and glinting in the fading light. Corrine had hung close to Sarah, who sat immediately behind the top of the piano, both of them watching the door intently, while Sloane was making plans and sharing them, to almost no response from the other girls.

“See? It would be better to be princesses,” she had said nonchalantly, her voice quavering in spite of her brave words. “When you’re a princess, Prince Charmin’ comes to rescue you when you need help.”

“Or the angels,” said Corrine.

“I don’ think we want the angels yet,” said Sarah. “They bring you to heaven. I don’ think we will get back home if they do.”

At that moment, the lights in the school had shorted out, sparking and snapping.

Plunging the room into almost total darkness.

All five of the girls screamed.

Then Grace and Elisa began sobbing.

“No me gusta la oscuridad,” Elisa wept. “I no like the dark. Tengo miedo.”

Sloane moved closer to her, trembling violently, and held up her play wristwatch, a Cinderella one her father had given her for her fifth birthday. She pushed the button on the side, and the pink watch glowed.

“Here, Elisa,” she said. “Here’s some light. Don’t be scared.”

Corinne, who was also shaking, took Sarah’s hand and interlaced their fingers.

“Look,” she said, glancing down at the keyboard of the piano below them, “our fingers look like the piano keys.”

Sarah smiled slightly and squeezed her hand, but said nothing.

They remained, clutching each other’s hands, Elisa holding on to Sloane’s arm near the glowing watch, and Grace backed up as far against the wall as she could be, watching helplessly for aid that did not seem to be coming.

Finally, amid the muted sirens they could hear in the distance, and the sounds of planes and helicopters flying overhead, then disappearing, they all succumbed to despair and cried as if their hearts would break.

Only to hear the sound of the heavy door of the classroom screeching open.

And a familiar voice calling their names.

And what appeared to be an angel, with long golden curls, holding a light in her hand.

“Sloane! Corinne! Elisa,
Grace, Sarah! It’s OK—we’re here to get you out.”

Lucy had instinctively known that the terrified girls would be at least somewhat reassured by the sound of their own names, so she shouted them the instant she got into the flooding classroom.

A rush of water swept in from the hallway as Ace struggled to brace the heavy door open, the backwash slapping her above the waist for the first time since she had entered the school again.

She spun the flashlight around the dark room and immediately found five little faces, three pale, two dark, all pathetically frightened, hiding behind the piano atop the heater. Lucy did her best to smile encouragingly.

“It’s an angel,” Sarah said nervously to the others.

“No, it’s certainly not,” Lucy said wryly. “It’s Miss Sullivan, girls. Don’t be afraid.”

Ace was already speaking into his radio, informing the command center that they had located five kindergartners. He looked questioningly at Lucy, who nodded, then he went on to describe where in the flooded school they were located.

The radio crackled with a message in return.

“Copy that, Sergeant. Be advised the eastern corridor inside the building has flooded at a depth of over five feet, and the western side of the building outside is sustaining flood depth of more than four feet. You won’t be able to open the exit door again—get to the closest classroom in the western corridor and prepare to evacuate to chopper via emergency windows.”

“Copy,” Ace replied. “Will alert when we are at the windows or as necessary.” He turned to Lucy as he put the radio away.

“Can you carry two, one on each hip?” he asked. “If the water is high enough, it will help a little. They’ll be easier to carry
in
the water, believe it or not. Buoyancy and all that.”

“Absolutely,” Lucy said, still smiling bravely at the girls.

“All right, then.” He passed Lucy by a foot or so, getting closer to the quavering little girls.

“Hello, ladies,” he began when Sloane gasped and interrupted him.

“Look!” she said, pointing to the Army Corps of Engineers shirt. “He’s wearing a
castle!
It’s Prince Charmin’!”

“Well, yes,” Ace said humorously. “I was just about to introduce myself like that. Can you show me your guns, ladies?” He lifted his arms in a bicep curl.

Three of the girls managed to imitate him. Ace’s eyes wandered over their arms, noting their musculature, then turned to Corinne.

“Do you have brothers, miss?”

Corinne nodded. “Four. All bigger than me.”

“Do you wrassle ’em?”

“Sure do.” The little girl grinned slightly.

“Do you ever win?”

“Sometimes.”

“Good—then you’re gonna put your arms around my neck and ride on the back—OK? Can you do that without letting go? Like you’re gonna flip me, but just pretend?”

“OK.” Corinne exhaled audibly.

“Very good,” said Ace gently. “Let me get two more, and then you can climb on. We’re all stickin’ together. Come’re, ladies.” He nodded his head at Sloane and Sarah, the two next closest.

The redheaded little girl climbed nervously over the piano and came quickly into his outstretched right arm, which he wrapped around her as he set her against his hip. Then he turned to Sarah, who followed Sloane’s example, hanging her legs over the front of the piano and slipping forward to stand on the open keyboard. Ace wrapped her quickly onto his left hip.

“Help her get on,” he said quietly to Lucy, nodding at Corinne. She put her arms out and assisted the little girl over the heavy instrument which had formed an impressive barrier between the floodwaters and the children.

Ace backed up, Sarah and Sloane in his arms, their feet dangling in the water, and stood at an incline while Lucy helped Corinne onto his back.

“Can you get the others?” he asked.

“Yes,” Lucy said. She looked at Elisa, terrified in the light of the flashlight in her hand. “Come on, Elisa—your turn. Ven conmigo. Don’t make me look bad, now. We can do this.”

Elisa swallowed hard, then crawled slowly over the piano, shaking like a leaf, and into Lucy’s outstretched arm.

Lucy exhaled and kissed Elisa’s forehead. “Good job. All right, Grace—come to me.”

The child, staring wildly, shook her head.

Lucy cleared her throat. “Grace—come on.”

The little girl couldn’t move. She reared back against the windowless wall, frozen.

Lucy willed her pounding heart to slow down, and tried to keep her voice steady.

“What’s the matter, Grace?” she asked softly, trying to mimic Ace’s voice when he had spoken to the children inside and outside of the school during the evacuation. “It’s OK—we’re getting out of here now.”

Grace shook her head violently. “Can’t,” she croaked.

“Why, Grace?”

Grace looked around her, panic-stricken.

“The faces,” she whispered. “I can
see
them. They’re watching.”

“Faces—what faces?”