My Stupid Girl (31 page)

“What happened to you?” Evelyn sneered at
me.

“Extensive plastic surgery.” I answered.
Isaiah snickered and then looked down when Rachel look over at him and
glowered. 

“Well, you almost got him where you want
him, Lucy.” Rachel winked at me and walked off with her friend. 

I was starting to suspect that the prettier
those two got, the nastier they acted. 

“What is wrong with those two? Do they even
go to this school? I never saw them before I went to your church.” I put
emphasis on the word “your,” feeling frustrated by what Rachel had said about
Lucy almost having me changed. I felt like a sell-out.

“No, they are homeschooled. They come to
all the games and dances and things.” Lucy looked embarrassed. 

“Oh, well, that’s why I never noticed them.
I mean, they are hard to miss.” I was allowing myself to feel a little mean for
a moment. Lucy grabbed my hand and hauled me out to the dance floor again for
another slow song. She put her arm around me but didn’t get as close as last
time. 

“I know you just said that because of what
Rachel said. You know that’s complete nonsense, right?” She spoke bluntly,
which always made me feel stupid because she was always right when she did
that. 

“Yeah.” I spoke unconvincingly, holding her
tighter and kissing her forehead. She melted into me again, careful not to put
her face on my suit and not mess her makeup. I was suddenly glad she wasn’t one
of those girls where I had to worry about messing all her makeup up. I took a
deep breath and said the words I should have said a while ago.

“I love you.” I spoke softly in her ear. 

Instead of a response from Lucy I heard a
loud crack and a blood-curdling scream from one of the front corners of the
barn. On the right side of the room a wooden beam fell from the roof. It
demolished a giant speaker before it exploded onto the floor. 

18. STOP, DROP, AND ROLL

My first reaction was to put Lucy behind my back. I
wanted to wait and see what the heck was going on, and not have her get hit by
any splinters or anything in the meantime.

Like a flock of birds changing directions,
everyone on the dance floor skittered away from the front exit where the beam
had fallen. It wasn’t a giant chunk of wood, but very long and slender. There
were about thirty of them spanning the length of the barn’s roof. The place
where the beam had fallen from was marked by a black chunk of ceiling, a stark
contrast from the white globes that blanketed the rest.

“Is that what you had in mind when you
thought of Prom? I think my idea was better.”  I winked, poking Lucy in her
ribs. 

“Actually, it was almost perfect.” She
stuck her tongue at me because she knew what I was talking about. A group of
teachers came over to the side of the barn where everyone at the dance, all
three hundred and something of us, were standing. They held up their hands for
silence.

“We are going to get you all out of here
safely. We are going to take you out in small groups.” I looked around and saw
that some kids were starting to panic. I guess lack of an incredibly easy exit
freaks some people out.

I inspected the little corner where we
stood and then started looking for the other exit. There were always two exits,
right?

When I finally saw it, I groaned. Some
genius had blocked the second one with decorations - big wooden boxes and huge
bales of hay. Perfect. It was going to take forever for us to get out of here.
I considered sitting down on the floor, but respected the zoot suit too much for
that. Then I thought it might be good to try dancing again, but shot that down
as I imagined everyone freaking out at me. “How can you joke around at a time
like this?!”

I leaned against a table, folded my arms,
and watched the show. Teachers would get a group of ten people from our crowd,
then walk them slowly across the barn, under the empty space the fallen beam
had created, to the exit it had tried to destroy. It seemed like one group a
minute was getting through.

I gazed around to see were Johnny and
Jennika were but I couldn’t find them, which worried me. They were probably
just behind someone, I thought. There were a lot of people. I saw Isaiah in the
back of the group, looking around like he was trying to find us as well, his
face uncharacteristically concerned. The teachers came back for more people
every few minutes, and each group behaved the same way, cowering in fear when
they walked under the gap in the ceiling, through the barn’s wide open doors. 

After twenty minutes, a quarter of the
group was out of the barn. The initial excitement of the fall had worn off and
now everyone was just antsy to get out. We spent a bit complaining about the
small groups they were taking through the door. It had been almost a half hour
– obviously nothing else was going to happen. With the dance done, we were all
just bored, waiting to go. No one was dancing; most guys were sitting on the
floor now, with their dates leaning on the wall or perched on the boys’ legs.
No falling beams were going to ruin prom dresses.

Yet another group was walking through the
doors when a groaning noise cut the air. It sounded dull at first, then got
louder. Those of us still waiting stopped talking, waiting to hear more. The
group near the door rushed out, a few high-pitched shrieks from panicky
females.

There was another loud crack that broke
through the still air. From the gaping hole in the ceiling, we spotted a row of
lanterns separating from the blanket of lights that carpeted the ceiling. The
beam next to the one that had already fallen peeked past the lanterns, rested
for a moment, then plummeted toward the ground in a rush of air we could feel
across the room.

It hit the ground with an even louder crash
than the first one. Maybe it was just because we were all paying attention, but
this one seemed to make the ground shake. It fell onto the speakers on the DJ
platform. The high pitched screech of protest from the exploding equipment on
stage made us cover our ears and cringe. 

Hardly any time that passed from the second
beam falling until the third one fell. It crushed the food tables to pieces,
throwing punch up into the air. That would have been funny if we weren’t at the
other end of the domino reaction that was inevitably heading towards us. We all
crowded the far side of the barn, where the beams were still up. Teachers came
hustling over to us, not bothering to look calm for our benefit. Another beam
fell and we realized that that whole side of the barn was going to start caving
in. 

I grabbed Lucy’s hand and tried to drag her
to the exit but there was a sudden mad dash of people climbing over others
trying to get to the doors before the next beam came down. Just as quickly as
people started climbing over one another to get out, they were climbing back
over us to come back. I looked up and saw that a small fire had started where
the wood had hit the DJ equipment.

Orange flames licked up the side of the dry
wooden beams that had already fallen with threatening speed. The pieces of beam
that were hanging from the ceiling caught the flames, as did the remains of the
beams that had already fallen on the floor. For the fourth time, another beam
came crashing down. 

It wasn’t going to be long before the
falling beams reached where we were standing. That and the fire.

“David, what are we going to do?” Lucy
whispered to me. We were both hunched on the ground. People around us kept
trying to crawl along the most stable wall toward the door, trying to escape.
They were all running into each other. Hadn’t these people heard of a fire
drill were you walk out in a single file line? I know I had done practice
drills with over half of these people in elementary school, and every year since.
Their stupidity and panicking was making it impossible to move. If we tried to
force an exit like they were, we were just going to get even more hurt. 

I got a flashback from the lake. Dummies
were going to get someone killed.

“I don’t know, Luce, we just need to get
out.” I scanned around for our friends and saw Johnny alone with Isaiah, both
looking terrified. I didn’t see Jennika anywhere, which made my stomach do a
summersault of fear. 

The flames were getting big. They were
climbing up the little part of the wall that was next to the PA system. It was
hot, even though the flames were all the way across the room. I started making
my way to the farthest corner from the flames, dragging Lucy with me. Everyone
in the place was getting even more scared; you could feel the tension and fear
in the air. We found ourselves being stepped on and half drug if we got caught
under anyone’s feet. I pulled Lucy along beside me, kicking out at people who
were coming near us.

Fortunately, we found ourselves next to a
long table of food that was still standing. It wasn’t a sturdy table and would
probably collapse if the roof fell, but it was better than getting hit
point-blank with something sharp. There were only a few people underneath it,
which made it easy to climb under. 

“Where is everyone?” Lucy said, under her
breath, looking around like I was, hoping to spot someone. 

“There's Isaiah and Johnny.” She pointed to
the two boys about twenty feet from us, who were looking around, lost. She
called out for them but her voice was swallowed by the uncontrollable crowd
around her. My heart leapt when I saw Michelle and Jennika crawling together
towards us; they had obviously seen us. They were getting stepped on and I
could see Jennika getting more and more frustrated each time she got knocked to
the ground by someone stupid. Her chin stuck out determinedly as she forced her
way through the crowed. Her arm was thrown protectively around Michelle’s
shoulders. They finally reached us, both looking madder than wet hens.

“What idiots! They are going to get
everyone killed!” Jennika exploded as she folded herself under the table. She
kept sputtering as Lucy ensured all her limbs were protected by the flimsy
table.

“What are we going to do? Everyone is
blocking the exit and that fire is getting bigger. I can’t find Johnny!” She
was talking so fast it was hard to calm her down. 

“Johnny is over there, Jennika.” I spoke
clearly and pointed to Johnny and Isaiah, who looked like they were getting
farther away from us. Jennika’s shoulders slumped in relief when she saw them.
Then her lip curled in frustration again.

“What is he doing?”

He was crawling with the rest of the
panicked crowd, stepping on people.

“He’s probably looking for you. He isn’t
all that far away, I’ll get him.” I crawled out from under the table
cautiously, but stopped when I saw that Lucy was crawling right next to me.

“No way, Luce. You stay here with the
girls.” I pushed her back under the table as I spoke, harder than I normally
would have. 

“I’m going to help.” She spat, trying to
crawl ahead of me. I pulled her arm back again, hard, so that she was facing
me, and looked her straight in the eyes. 

“Lucy, no. You’re going to make it worse.
Just stay here.” My hands clenched in annoyance. 

“I’m not useless, David. I can help people,
too.” She looked just as mad as I felt.

“Lucy, you can’t go out there with me! I’m
going to be distracted from getting Johnny by making sure you stay safe. Please
stay here!” I was getting really angry. It was difficult to keep my temper
while I was afraid for her like this. Especially with giant wooden beams
crashing and fire licking up walls.

“I’m not allowed to do anything because you
want to protect me?  Oh, ok Edward!” 

“What?” I asked, totally lost. 

“Edward, Edward Cullen. Like, I’m Bella,
and you’re Edward.” She looked like she was making perfect sense and I was a
moron for not knowing what she was referring to.

“What are you talking about?” 

“Like Twilight.” Michelle spoke with her
arms tight around her legs, rocking slightly.

I shook my head and yelled at them both, so
infuriated I couldn’t breathe.

“Are you guys talking about that vampire
book right now?” I spoke so harshly that Lucy flinched. I spun around without
another look at her and went as quickly as I could over to the middle of the
room, where my friends were. That stupid girl stayed by my side the whole
time. 

Isaiah saw me first and started migrating
towards me, trying to pull Johnny, who was still looking around desperately. 

“Jennika is over here you moron!” I roared
at his general direction. Johnny looked like all he caught was the name of his
girlfriend, but that was enough to get this head to snap around in the
direction my thumb was pointing. Johnny started struggling toward the tables
where he had finally spotted her.

As he made his way toward us, another beam
cracked and fell. This one already had a burst of flames burning from the end
of it. It pounded its way through flames licking up from the floor, bringing
even more destruction than the beams before it. The right side of the roof was
starting to sag under the weight of the conflagration. Awesome.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Evelyn
and Rachel hunched together in a corner of decorations, trying to hide from the
turmoil that was going on around us. The one exit was almost completely covered
in flames. The people still trying to get out were hurdling over each other,
making their way to the front then backing away when they felt the intense heat
of the blaze in front of them. From inside this barn, we had no idea how big
the flames were. It could be a simple jump out the door, but I doubted it. This
was a big barn and that fire was getting closer and closer to us. Trying to
make it through the blanket of flames was a bad idea that no one wanted to try.