No Ordinary Day (15 page)

Lucy just blinked. “Nothing—nothing makes sense,” she said, “but I think I understand.”

“I’m gonna take Sloane first,” Ace continued. “There are medics on the roof, waiting, and she needs attention first.” Lucy nodded. “Then Elisa, Grace, Sarah, and finally Corinne, who I judge to be the most fit and whose stamina is likely to last the longest.”

“OK.”

“Then I’ll be back down for you.”

“You had better be,” she said flatly, “since you unhooked yourself from me yet again. So much for never letting me go. Hmph.”

The National Guardsman smiled his slight smile again. He turned and looked out the window.

As he had said, a rope was dangling outside, two harnesses attached to it.

While Ace pulled his legs through the harness’ loops and fastened it around his waist, Lucy gently separated Sloane out from the shivering pile of little girls clinging to one another.

“Now’s your time to play princess, Cinderella,” she said softly in the little girl’s ear, feeling how cold her skin was. “Prince Charming’s about to get you out of here, and all you have to do is hug him tight. Do you think you can do that?”

Sloane said nothing, staring blankly in front of her.

Lucy took her in her arms and kissed her, then brought her over to where Ace was holding a small safety harness. Together they put the little girl into it; Ace clipped her to himself and took her from Lucy.

Then he handed her the radio.

“Simple to use,” he said. “Press the button and talk—that’s it. Tell the guys on the roof we’re ready.”

Lucy nodded sharply, her eyes locked on him, gleaming.

“Get up there safely,” she said.

Ace smiled a little more broadly. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he nodded at her and took the rope in his hand.

Lucy pushed the button on the radio. “He’s ready,” she said.

“Copy,” came a voice in return.

Ace continued to smile at her as the rope went taut, then began to lift him and Sloane out through the emergency window and up the side of the building. His feet came to rest against the edifice, and he walked up the face of it.

Lucy leaned out and watched from below until they disappeared over the edge of the roof.

“Clear,” the radio squawked. “Got ’em.”

Lucy sighed brokenly, more relieved than she remembered ever feeling.

After a few moments, the radio squawked again.

“Go,” the voice said.

She looked up.

Boots were approaching from above.

Lucy stepped back to the huddle of girls and peeled off Elisa, as Ace had instructed, and brought her the two steps over to the window where he was appearing again.

“Clear,” she said into the radio as he came back into the room.

“Listen to you,” he said, grinning. “You’re a pro—you’ll be in the department in no time.”

“My life’s goal,” she said sourly as she took the little harness from him and started helping Elisa into it.

The little girl balked suddenly, panicking as if she had just awoken, twisting away and screaming raggedly.

The reaction caught Lucy by surprise. “Elisa—”

“It’s just like a swing, honey,” Ace said quickly. “Like we’re playing on the playground. Come on; I’ll make sure you’re OK.”

Something about his voice,
Lucy thought as the little girl’s tight face went slack.
So different when he’s working than in regular life
.
He barely talks when he’s not running a rescue
.

For what seemed like an agonizingly long time, they worked together with the unseen firefighters on the roof, hauling each child up, until finally he returned for Corinne.

“All right, sweetie,” Lucy said as Ace came back through the window. “You ready?”

The little girl, who Lucy was holding in her arms, sat up straight, as if hit by lightning.

She glanced rapidly around the room.

Her eyes coming to rest on the aquarium several feet away on the shelf near the window.

“Sebastian!” she said, her voice raspy. “We—we have to save him!”

“Corinne,” Lucy said quietly as the athletic little girl squirmed in her arms, “you have to go with Sergeant Evans now—”

“No!” the little girl screeched. “No—please—!”

Ace’s eyebrows drew together. “Sebastian?”

“The turtle,” Lucy said, struggling now to keep Corinne from falling into the frigid water. Her arms, weak now from the cold, were throbbing with the effort.

“I’m not going! I’m not going without him—”

“Corinne,
stop
—”

“OK,” Ace said, striding through the deep water and putting his arms out. “You’ve been a good sport, Corinne. Let’s get him and get out of here.”

Lucy’s mouth dropped open. She stood in amazement as the soldier snatched the little girl from her and, in a few long steps, reached the aquarium. He shoved the cover aside, snatched the startled reptile out, and tucked him into the pocket of his fire pants.

Then he carried the child back to the window.

“Now step into the harness,” he ordered as he put her on the shelf. The comforting tone was gone, replaced by one that was all business.

Corinne’s eyes opened wider, and she quickly obeyed.

“You OK, ma’am?” he asked Lucy as they fastened Corinne’s straps. The teacher nodded.

“I will be right back,” Ace said as he hooked himself to the little girl and both of them to the rope.

“You had better be,” Lucy replied, shaking from the cold and nervousness now. “I will haunt you if you let me go.”

“That’s incentive to hurry, then,” Ace said. “Wouldn’t want that. Let ’em know we’re ready.”

Lucy complied, then felt her stomach drop as the soldier and the last of her students were pulled up the side of the building toward the roof.

She glanced around her drowning classroom, watching the water cover the desks, the bookshelves, the toys and everything that, only this morning, seemed safe and normal. The clock on the wall had stopped exactly at 10:12, probably the time when the electricity had shorted out, she thought. She rubbed her hands briskly up and down her arms, but could barely feel her fingers any more.

“Clear,” came the voice over the radio.

She held the radio up in front of her mouth, her eyes still locked on the dead classroom clock.

“Copy that,” she said.

After that, for what seemed like forever, Lucy had no idea what time it was. The sky was still gray-black as it had been that morning, so she had no idea whether it was even the same day.

She was still staring blindly at the clock when Ace returned.

“Knock knock.”

She spun around as quickly as she could. Her skirt swirled in the floodwaters, and she winced, knowing it had been doing so most of the day.

And, to make matters even more embarrassing, Ace was handing over a harness with leg loops to her.

“Do you need help getting it on?” he asked, watching her take it doubtfully.

“No,” Lucy said. She slipped it up over the skirt, anchoring it in place, somewhat uncomfortable but better for her dignity.

“Give me your hand,” the soldier said, extending his own. When Lucy did, he hauled her easily out of the water until she was standing beside him on the shelf over the long heater.

Then he clipped their waist harnesses once more.

“Together again,” he said jokingly, taking the radio back.

“Good—you’re safe from haunting for the moment,” she said. “Is the turtle still in your pocket?”

“No, he’s most likely in the chopper by now. Come on, ma’am. Put your arms around my waist and hold on.”

The world grew dark as Lucy heard him call the firefighters on the roof, telling them they were ready. Then he seized the ropes with both his gloved hands. Her sodden hair was wafting around in the wind outside the window, so she tucked her head down against Ace’s suspenders and held tight as the winch on the roof above began to turn, pulling the rope up.

As they started the final climb up the edifice of the school.

‡

L
ucy stumbled onto
the roof a few moments later as Ace shoved her up over the top, scraping her knees against the rough pebbling atop it, her hair suddenly spinning in a roaring sound of wind and helicopter blades.

Then looked around at a scene she could never have imagined.

A large rescue helicopter was hovering above the school, ripping torrents of wind around and stirring up clouds of debris in the center of the roof. The last two girls, Corinne and Sarah, were being strapped to a long, flat basket in preparation for being lifted into the chopper.

Even through the currents of air she could see that Corinne was clutching an object that must have been Sebastian.

Ace took her elbow and had her walk beside him, since they were still hooked together, to the two firefighters and a pair of soldiers in military fatigues operating the winch, a much smaller machine than she had expected. They conferred with each other and, over the radio, to the ground below, again in jargon that made no sense to her exhausted brain. Then Ace turned to her once more.

“Come on, ma’am,” he said. “We’re almost there. Cover your head with your arm.”

She walked beside him, stooped over as he was, until they were standing beneath the chopper.

The flat basket was rising now into the belly of the helicopter.

“Do you feel comfortable going up the rope on your own?” Ace asked, watching the crew of the chopper pull the basket aboard.

“Lying down in the basket?”

Ace blinked. “Not unless you’re injured, usually,” he said. “I think they expect to pull you up in your harness.”

He swallowed at the sick look that overcame Lucy’s face.

“Or I could go up the rope with you,” he said.

“I think I would prefer that.”

Ace nodded, disconnected himself from her and stepped away from the area directly below the chopper, speaking into the radio again. He returned a moment later.

“Sorry to ask, ma’am—how much do you weigh?”

“One twenty one, at my last physical,” Lucy said. “It’s been three months—”

“That’s fine,” he said. He waited in silence until the rope was dropped down again.

“The helicopter also has a winch,” he said as he hooked them together for what she expected was the last time. “It should be a pretty smooth ascent.”

“Wonderful. Are they ready? I’d like to get this over with.”

Ace checked the cables and the carabineers. “All set. Grab hold.”

Lucy put her arms around him again, and Ace radioed their readiness.

The wind tugged at her skirt, anchored by the leg loops of the harness, as they were lifted slowly into the hovering helicopter.

Heavy clouds of fog were hanging over the school. Lucy felt the moisture against her face as she was dragged upward through the mist, a strange sensation in the strangest day she had ever known.

Then, just beneath the opening in the bottom of the chopper, the mist dispersed and she could see the school, the playground, the football field and the river from above.

She gasped so harshly that Ace’s grip on her tightened.

The gentle Hudson River, normally a picturesque ribbon of water no more than fifty feet wide, closer to twenty at its lowest point, laughing over visible rocks in the spring and fall, winding its way quietly in summer, was roaring angrily to the east, having swallowed everything between it and the school. And to the west of the school was the overspill, another river, less wide but equally angry, swelling around the bottom of the monkey bars and swingsets of the playground, digging big ruts in the football field beyond.

Where no one remained who had been there when she dashed into the school again.

Ace was being pulled into the helicopter. For a few terrifying moments, Lucy was hanging alone, suspended over the destruction of her workplace.

Her hometown.

A soldier in a helmet and goggles was shouting instructions at her, but she couldn’t hear him.

She tried to put her hand to her ear, but when she let go of the rope, she swung from side to side.

Her National Guardsman compatriot was staring down at her from above. Lucy had the uncomfortable realization that he was in the direct line of sight of her breasts, the tops largely exposed by the snapping wind.

As the rope continued to swing, she felt her stomach rush into her mouth and she spat out a foamy stream of liquid.

From within the helicopter’s hold, Ace reached out and snagged her rope, pulling her, along with the winch, into the chopper.

As her legs flailed helplessly he seized her backside and upper thigh and dragged her over the edge of the opening. She scrambled as far into the center of the hold as she could, humiliated, as he let go.

Inside the tight quarters of the chopper, two medics were examining the girls, all lying on the floor of the aircraft.

“What about the guys on the roof?” she asked foggily as the helicopter rose into the air and started away from the school.

“They’re OK,” Ace said, looking out the open door. “They’ll wait until you and the kids have been offloaded and put into the ambulances, and then the aircraft will go back for them.”