This is Not a Test

“Sure.”

Grace’s locker is on the first floor, close to the administration office. We walk there wordlessly. Cary’s, Rhys’s, and Harrison’s voices drift back to us from somewhere nearby, but it’s hard to tell what they’re saying. It sounds effortless though. I hang back at her locker when we get there, unsure of what to do while she thumbs at her combination, straining to see in the poor light. After it’s unlocked, she stands in front of the door like she’s afraid of it. It’s a while before she opens it and when she does, I glimpse cutouts of actors and musicians taped to the door and I wonder what they’re doing now, if they’re dead. I wonder if they’ve saved all the celebrities. When this is over, society will need entertainment to get past it. We’ll make movies about it, hundreds of movies, and in every one of them, we’ll be the heroes and the love interests and best friends and winners and we’ll watch these movies until we are so far removed from our own history, we’ll forget how it really felt to be here.

Grace grabs her purse. It’s a designer purse. I watch her unzip it and riffle through it until she finds what she’s looking for. As soon as she does, the purse slips from her grasp and hits the floor. Clutched tightly in her fingers is a piece of paper. She unfolds it and then presses it against her face, breathes it in.

“Look at this,” she says. She kisses the note once before she gives it to me. As soon as my fingers curl around it, she says, “Be careful—”

I stare at the bubbly handwriting.

Daughter dear, I didn’t manage to throw something together for your lunch—I’m a flake! Here’s some money instead. Buy something healthy! Remember, Miss President, the student body looks to you to set a good example!

Love you, xo Mom

The first thing I think is, Mrs. Casper still makes Grace’s lunch? And then I cross that thought out until it’s not even there anymore because it’s the kind of thing Mrs. Casper would do and besides—it’s a note from Grace’s mom. This is what has value. This is the new money.

“Lucky,” I say.

“I know. I knew it was here … but I couldn’t—I mean I just couldn’t. Until now,” she says. “I just woke up and I really wanted it today. I miss her.”

She takes the note back and runs her thumb over it. My throat is so tight and there’s a weight in my chest that’s hard to breathe around. Memories of my mother are hazy things. They feel like a kid’s blanket, fuzzy and soft but mostly insubstantial. Grace’s note doesn’t make me wish for a woman I spent most of my life not having. It’s not that …

She looks at me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Neither of us moves or says anything for a long time. It’s like—suspended animation. I don’t know. We could stand here for hours and not say or do anything because there’s nothing to say or do. Grace looks at her note and I cross my arms, once again fighting the urge to ask her if she remembers the sleepover. I don’t know why I want to but I won’t let myself do it.

“Hey!” We turn. Trace makes his way down the hall, twirling LaVallee’s keys around his fingers like they’re a trophy. Grace picks up her purse, hastily shoving the note inside it. He grins. “I want to show you guys something cool.”

We end up in the teachers’ lounge.

Cary, Rhys, and Harrison come with us after piling a bunch of their locker finds in the auditorium. Their company makes Trace pissy but as Cary points out, Trace doesn’t own the school. They’re still bickering when we step into the room. It’s on the second floor. The big joke is—was—all the money went here. The lounge has a fridge and flowers (tacky fake bouquets, but still, it’s a splash of color), soft couches, chairs, and nice lamps. Storage cupboards and desks. A microwave, a water cooler. Magazines.

“Check this out.” Trace rummages in one of the cupboards and when he faces us, he’s holding a generous bottle of whiskey. “The rumors are true. I knew they kept good shit in here.”

“Alcohol?” Harrison asks, and like that, I can tell he’s never drank anything, let alone been drunk before. “Holy shit.”

“What’s that doing in here?” Rhys asks.

Trace sets the bottle on the table in front of the couches and flicks a tag wrapped around its neck. “Read that. There was an ice-cream cake in the fridge, but it melted.”

Grace peers at the tag. “Enjoy your retirement, Vick. We wish we were you.”

Vick Bergstein. Our graying world history teacher.

“Think he’s enjoying his retirement?” Trace asks, and I laugh before I can stop myself. He soaks it up. “I know, right? He’s probably dead. And then I got thinking about the teachers here that I wished were dead, like over and over—like Mrs. Good—and it’s funny because now they probably are dead and it’s like—like that’s what I—”

His eyes go wide, almost like he’s thinking to himself I wanted this. I wanted them dead and now it’s happened because I wanted it.

“They weren’t all bad, though,” Grace says. “I liked Mr. Ford. And Mrs. Lafferty. Mrs. Tipton was kick-ass. I bet she survived. Some of them were great at what they did…”

My head is full of faces, faculty members, and I wonder where they are now and if it’s a given, like Trace said, that they’re all dead. I wonder if I ever wished them dead—if something as simple as that would be the reason I’m here and they’re not. But then I think they must’ve wished us dead at some point. They must have. What teacher wouldn’t?

Trace stares at the bottle. “So do we open this because we’re still alive or do we open it when we’re sure we’re going to die?”

“We’re not going to die,” Cary says.

“Didn’t you say the same thing to my parents before you sent them in that alley?”

“Give it a rest, Trace.”

“Oh, did I hurt your feelings, murderer?”

“They offered to go down that alley first,” I say, because for some dumb reason I think that will help. But then everyone stares at me and I wish I could put the words back in my mouth. Trace looks like I’ve gutted him.

“No one asked you, Sloane,” Grace says. “And Cary told them it was clear.”

“But they offered to do it.” My voice gets small. “Cary didn’t force them.”

“You know what? I’m fucking tired of all of you,” Trace declares abruptly, but his voice cracks and I think he’s going to cry because he leaves the room with his head down.

Because of me.

How to salvage a moment: Rhys suggests we move whatever we can from the teachers’ lounge to the auditorium to make it more livable. No one talks as we fight the couches down the stairs and position them in the corner of the room. We find a lone lunch table we missed for the barricade under the stage, set it up, and steal chairs from the main offices for it. Grace uses the fake bouquets as centerpieces. I feel so sick watching her. I have to make things right. I walk over to her. She fiddles with the flowers. I stand there and try to think of what to say while she ignores me.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, just that Cary wouldn’t send them there to die,” I tell her. “You know he wouldn’t.”

She looks at me and she’s so student government president. Her posture is diplomatic but her tone is frosty. “But he did … and they did.”

“But—”

“Look, it’s hard enough for Trace right now,” she says. “If it’s how you feel, fine. But I want you to stay away from my brother if you can’t keep it to yourself.”

She walks away. At first I think I’ll cry, but I don’t. I’m too jealous of the way she guards Trace to cry and I hate that she thinks of me as someone she has to protect him from.

Eventually, Cary calls us over to the stage. He shows us the locker haul. They found toothpaste—we take turns passing the tube around and dabbing microscopic globs on our fingers—floss, deodorant … there are some clothes, which makes Grace happy. I spot a pink sweater with a name written on the tag: CORRINE M. Corrine Matthews.

I remember her curly black hair and smile and then I don’t want to touch it.

There’s lots of candy and gum. Some lighters and cigarettes. I look at Rhys, expecting him to be happy about it but he doesn’t look happy about it

We settle in for the night. The room is … the word home crosses my mind, but it’s not the right one to use. Lily and I used to play house. I was eight, she was ten, and Mom was dead, but Mom had been dead for a while by then, so I guess that’s not an important part of this memory. I had dolls and an old box. She had paper, pencils, and erasers and she’d ask questions while I leaned Barbie up against a flimsy cardboard wall and tried to figure out what to do with Ken.

How big should the bedrooms be? Should we have a guest bedroom? Okay. Separate bathrooms for sure. No, Dad doesn’t need a room, Sloane. Because he’s not going to live with us. This is our house.

FOUR DAYS LATER

“Grace! GRACE! Dad’s alive! He’s outside! He’s ALIVE!”

Trace bursts into the auditorium screaming these words at the top of his lungs and then we’re awake like we were never asleep.

Mr. Casper. Alive.

Trace is breathless and crying as he leads us to the second floor. The flashlight jerks in his hands as he tries to explain. “I couldn’t sleep—I was wandering around and I heard him, he was calling for help—I went to the window and I saw—”

Mr. Casper. He’s alive, in the parking lot, calling for help.

Rhys is going are you sure? Are you sure you’re sure? Maybe you were sleepwalking. Trace is so beside himself he doesn’t even tell Rhys to fuck off.

We sprint down the halls and up the stairs so fast my lungs feel like they’re going to explode. My heart is numb. I don’t believe this. I can’t believe in this.