“No, I mean my other class,” said Allison.
“What other class?”
Allison thought a moment. “I don’t remember …” she said.
After putting numbers in alphabetical order for eleven hours, her brain had turned into spaghetti.
“Time’s up,” said Miss Zarves. “Everyone back to work.”
g
Chapter 19 (third)
Forever is Never
Allison was still stuck on the nineteenth story.
Fourteen two-minute breaks had passed.
“It’s dictionary time,” said Miss Zarves.
Everybody got out a dictionary. Allison found a dictionary in her desk, too.
“What are we supposed to do with it?” she asked.
“Memorize it,” said Nick.
“But that’s impossible!” said Allison.
“No, it’s easy,” Virginia assured her. “You memorize one word at a time, until you get a whole page. Then you go on to the next page.”
“How many words have you memorized?” asked Allison.
“I’m almost finished with the B’s,” Virginia said proudly. “And I’ve only been doing it for thirty-two years!”
Allison opened her dictionary. Mrs. Jewls’s class! she suddenly remembered. She sighed with relief. For the last six days she’d been trying to remember where she came from.
In her mind she went through everybody in her former class. She didn’t want to forget again. As she thought about each person, tears filled her eyes. She missed them very much. Even Jason. They were all so wonderful in their own special ways.
When the two-minute break came, she talked to Mark again. He was the only person in the class who still seemed to have a brain.
“How did we get here?” she asked.
“Maybe we’re dead,” said Mark. “Maybe we died and went to—”
“This isn’t Heaven!” said Allison.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” said Mark.
Allison felt a chill run up her spine. She looked at Miss Zarves. Miss Zarves smiled back at her.
“But she seems so nice,” said Allison. “Could someone as nice as her really be the devil?”
“I don’t know,” said Mark. “She always gives good grades.”
“What would happen if we didn’t do our work?” asked Allison.
“We have to do our work,” said Mark.