Margaret's Ark (5 page)

“We're pretty much spread all over the place,” Carl said at one point. “How's God going to make that much rain? Flood the oceans?”

“God’s not doing it,” one girl countered, then shrank away from the discussion behind the veil of her long black hair.

“Melt the ice caps!” another suggested.

“Pretty boring waiting a million years for that,” Margaret suggested.

The girl with the hair blushed and said, “I read a story once where the Earth stopped turning and everything flew out into space. Maybe something like that?”

“More than likely,” Margaret said. “Without he centrifugal force of the planet's rotation, we'll be slowly crushed to death by gravity.”

“Well, that's no good,” Carl said. “Can’t have both.”

“Nothing's impossible with God.” Margaret tried to smile when she said this, make the comment sound lighter than she intended.

“We have flooding with rain all the time,” argued another. “A hurricane, like they had in Louisiana and Mississippi. Or another tsunami. A really big one.”

“It's not going to happen!” This spoken by the girl who’d been sparring earlier with Carl. The discussion moved on, as these usually did, to people. Those claiming to have been visited by God, by angels or demons, all predicting the same doom.

“They’re just a doomsday cult.”

“All across the country?”

“They're planted to cause chaos. They’re no better than terrorists.”

“Mass insanity.”

“Maybe they're telling the truth.” This one was ruled out too quickly. By that point, Margaret was out of her seat and leaning against the front of her desk. Suggestions were offered to round up the “prophets” and send them to an island or even jail. More than a few agreed. Like a concert fan stuck in the midst of a crowd pressing closer to the stadium doors, Margaret watched the atmosphere change. Those against the “prophets” spoke louder. Those more compassionate grew quieter. Carl Jorgenson, she noticed, was doing more listening, looking with unbridled interest to both sides of the discussion. Weighing his options, or waiting for a chance at a good joke.

Then someone said, “My parents said that anyone who claims God talked to them is nuts, or a new kind of extremist, or just plain jerks with nothing better to do than scare kids.”

“Or they're your science teacher,” Margaret said. Her breath raced out of her.
Dear Lord, did I just say that
?

“What was
that
supposed to mean?”

Everyone in the room shut up and looked at their science teacher. Smiling, waiting for the punch line. Carl wasn't smiling. He looked stunned, probably remembering the parking lot incident earlier in the week. It was
his
face that Margaret locked onto. Carl's eyes softened, but did not look away, brows raised in an unspoken plea.

She wondered for a moment if David the angel had something to do with this unexpected admission. She thought of his anger.
Get off your ass,
wasn’t that what he'd said? This was really happening. She was falling, having stepped too far off the ledge.

She looked away from Carl and scanned the room. Half the group still smiled; the rest waited with neutral expressions. Waiting for her to laugh, say
April Fool’s
. Anything.

Margaret took a deep breath, and said, “God has spoken to me through his angel David and told me to build an ark. Fifty-five days from now, the flood will come. I don't know how. Those who don’t take a place on one of the ships, built by the people He has chosen to do so, will not survive.” Some of the words she'd improvised from listening to callers on the radio, but the point was the same. She felt dizzy, in a mental free-fall.

A few of the teens began to sob. Others laughed. The rest brought the volume of the classroom to ten times its loudest point in the day. Words, some supportive, but most spiteful, flew at her. Too many at once to hear. Margaret moved unsteadily behind her desk, collected her purse and briefcase, then left the room without turning back.

It was only one-fifty in the afternoon. She didn’t know what to do. By the time she got to her car, having seen two of her students in the hall run in the direction of the main office, Margaret knew she needed to collect her daughters from school before word got to them or, worse, their teachers.

*     *     *

She closed the bedroom door, careful not to let the click of the latch wake the girls. It took a while for them to fall to sleep, even at this late hour. Little Robin had asked the bulk of the questions, sweet, innocent curiosity about her mother's visions and God's warning to the world. Katie was able to ask a few of her own, but for the most part simply cried out her fear - of what Margaret told them after supper and the fact that her mother was actually saying these things at all.

The world to a seven year-old is frightening enough to a little girl, without her mother saying the world was about to be destroyed. Margaret had played out the day mostly as a ruse, explaining that she wanted to surprise the girls with a short school day and take them to McDonald's, then the latest Disney flick. This she did. In truth, she was hiding, not wanting to face anyone from school in person or on the phone. She’d turned off her cell after leaving work and it remained off. As the day wore on, she became increasingly uncertain. How was she supposed to sit her children down and explain that God had chosen her for such a frightening thing? Maybe she really
was
insane.

They’d been sitting at home watching
Wheel of Fortune
, Margaret wondering how to talk with the girls, not wanting to begin at all, when the evening's false calm was shattered by a phone call from Robert Kaufman, the high school principal

“Margaret, what was that all about today? I had two girls come into my office crying, saying Mrs. Carboneau is telling everyone that they’re going to die.”

“I'm sorry, Bob. I really am.” Again, she felt on the edge of some abyss, waiting to see if she'd have the guts to step off, to see how much she trusted herself.

“And?” Margaret wondered if the principal had waited to call until now to let some of this anger dissipate. She glanced over at the answering machine - something she'd avoided doing all evening. The red light was flashing, and above that the number '12'. Since the chip had a storage limit, she guessed the number of unrecorded calls was even higher.

He continued, “Is what they said true? Not that I didn't try to find this out as soon as the girls came in. No, ma’am. I called you into the office, and you know what?”

Margaret didn't think he was done, so she remained quiet.

“I'll tell you what. I found out from Irene that Mrs. Carboneau had
left the school
. That you left your students alone, in an emotional mess. A lot of them were crying when I showed up, Margaret. Some weren't scared about what you'd told them, just that you said it at all. 'Is Mrs. Carboneau having a nervous breakdown?' they asked me. Margaret are you there?”

“I'm here. Are you done?” Her voice was stronger than she'd expected, a tone that meant she'd already taken that last fateful step into whatever chasm these dreams had laid in front of her.

“Yes, for now. I apologize for shouting. It's been a rough day and I haven't been able to reach you.” He didn't
sound
sorry. Kaufman was simply trying a new tact.

“I took the girls out of school early,” she said. “I needed to let some of the heat blow over.”

“You mean you wanted to let
me
take all the....” He sighed. “Listen, how much of what they said is true? What happened?”

She felt lightheaded. “The other day,” she began, “I had a dream. But it wasn't a dream after all. An angel informed me that the world will be flooded in two months, and everyone will die, unless I and others receiving these visions build a boat – he actually used the word
ark
--  and bring on board thirty people. No animals, just people. Everyone aboard the boats, wherever they might me, will be spared, and the rest will not.” She said all this calmly, like giving directions to a wandering motorist.

Silence on the other end of the phone.

She leaned one hand against the door jamb between the kitchen and the living room. “I've had more than one dream, and now I know that it wasn't just me. A lot of others have been given this warning as well. We don't have a lot of time - “

“Are you completely insane? I heard something like that on the radio, and assumed it was just a few psychopaths. Are you telling me one of them was you?”

“No, I haven't called anyone.”

“You decided to spread this mania to your students instead!” Now he was shouting.

“I had to make a decision, Bob. What if it's not a dream? What if I do nothing? I've only been given the right to save thirty people, and yes, maybe I
am
having a nervous breakdown, but it doesn't feel like that. It feels right!” Now
she
was yelling. She stopped, closed her eyes. Why was she wasting her breath with this man? She should be -

Oh, no
. Margaret turned around. Robin and Katie were staring in horror from the couch in the living room. Someone shouted “R” from the television, and there were “two of them”.
Ding. Ding.

Margaret couldn't pull her eyes from her daughters' faces.

“I assume you aren't returning to your classroom, Mrs. Carboneau. Not until you and I have met, and you've given me certified proof from a licensed psychologist that you're able to -”

Margaret wasn't listening. She hung up the phone, and walked slowly to her reserved spot on the couch.

“S!”.

“No S's. Amy, it's your spin.”

She reached for the remote and shut off the television. The phone rang. She ignored it. “Come on, girls, let's talk in your room.”

Eleven Fifty-Six. Coming on midnight and the girls had been sleeping for nearly two hours.

Eleven Fifty-Seven. Three more minutes until a new day. Fifty-four days and three minutes until a billion souls were lost. Or saved. Maybe. Maybe not. How many people would actually do this thing?

She'd stepped into a new world, one which terrified Katie but filled her younger daughter with excitement. God had spoken to her Mommy, just like the people they talk about in Sunday School. That was how Robin had phrased it. Margaret didn't think girls her age ever paid attention in those classes. Serves her right for never volunteering to teach them.

Midnight. Time floated away. Margaret leaned on the couch in the darkened living room and stared out through the picture window to an empty street. She played out what David the angel had shown her. Even to her previously untrained mind, the design seemed flimsy. Most of the ship would be constructed of plywood, material she could get at any home supply store. She turned her head and gazed out at her Taurus station wagon. She played out the dimensions of the wood. There was no way even
one
sheet would fit in the back. She’d have to measure the tailgate, see what might fit. There were the support beams, two-by-fours, and the glue, and tape and... she needed to build the thing in the middle of the town, in front of everyone.

So many things, all of them nuts. She was a middle-aged women in the twenty-first century in the same position that Noah found himself in... how long ago... five thousand years? Ten? Depends whom you asked, she supposed.

Margaret buried her face in the crook of her arm and cried herself to sleep. She awoke in the same position, early morning light casting the former nightscape into sharp detail. After a few minutes of staring at the houses across the street, now and then a neighbor hurrying off to work, she realized she hadn't dreamt. In a way, she missed talking to David. If anything, for those few moments when he visited her, what was going to happen next felt like the right thing to do.

Fifty-four days. She’d fallen down a rabbit hole into some new world. No climbing out now, so she might as well get to work. Margaret got stiffly up from the couch and wondered what time the lumber store opened.

54

The rock sitting in Margaret's stomach lessened somewhat as the morning waned. After checking that her phone's battery was juiced up and the signal clean, Margaret had to believe her daughters weren't having too bad a time of it in school. She'd made a decision to let Katie and Robin go in, if for no other reason than to free her to do some initial errands with minimal distraction. She left her cell number with both girls, along with a note for their respective teachers. If anyone bothered them, they or the school were to go to the office call her and she'd come get them. Margaret asked the girls not to talk to anyone about what she had told them the night before. She wasn't certain if word had reached Katie's class or Robin's preschool. Doubtful, but gossip traveled fast in that environment.

Al l she wanted was this one day before the weekend started. Margaret rolled the shopping cart down the home supply store's wide aisles. The second errand would come after lunch. Father Nick Mayhew had been more than happy to meet with her, even on such short notice. The priest had taken extra steps to stay involved in Margaret's family since Vince's death, keeping a quiet eye on them, asking questions after Mass. She wondered how much he had heard about the “crackpots” and their end-of-the-world preaching, and almost smiled, expecting his concern for her would blossom again by the time they were done talking.

She had no list for shopping. Whenever she entered an aisle, she would think of the dream and recall every detail. Already her cart was filled with three large gallon-drums of shipper’s glue, nails of various sizes, wood putty, and some smaller boards and lumber. A portable rotary saw weighed the cart down, and the duel folding plastic saw horses jutted at odd angles making navigation of some aisles problematic. Still, these she could wrangle these into the tailgate once she got outside. It was the lumber she worried about.

A man sporting an orange nametag turned and smiled as she rolled into that department. She had to act rational. This was going to be an interesting order - more so if the man listened to the radio.