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Sahalia sighed with irritation and got to her feet

"Why do I have to do everything?" she couys nearly died and you didn’t," Mrs Wooly snapped

The grammar school kids went off to the Toy section

"Look," Mrs Wooly told us big kids after they had gone "The ER’s not too far I can probably walk it in a half hour to an hour I et a ride, which would mean I’ll be back much quicker Keep Josie hydrated and every so often ask her what year it is What’s her name? What kind of, I don’t know, pop does she like? Cookies That kind of thing"

She ran her hand through her wiry gray hair Her gaze drifted past us, to the entrance to the store and the broken sliding-glass doors

"And if people come, don’t leave here with anyone but your parents Prouys areto be--but if there’s any rioting or looting or anything, you guys get all the kids together here in this pizza area, and you just stay together Big kids on the outside and just stay together You got er kids away She didn’t want them to hear about a riot

"Now, Mrs Wooly?" Jake said "What do we do if the people fro in thecarts in the entrance foyer "They’re gonna be pissed"

"You’ll tell theency and the school board will take care of the daes"

"I can make us lunch if need be," Astrid said "I actually kno to run the ovens in the Pizza Shack because I had a job here last summer"

I knew she’d had a job at Greenway It had been a su for "

The little kids cao

I went to the Office Supply section and picked out an eight-dollar pen and the nicest, most expensive, executive-brand notebook on the shelf I sat down right there and started writing I had to get the hailstorm dohile it was fresh inso that happens seem okay I sit down to write, all jammed up and stressed out, and by the tiain

I like to write actual longhand, in a spiral notebook I can’t explain it, but I can think on the page in a way I can’t do on a tablet But I know that writing by hand for anything beyond a quick note is weird, seeing as we’re all taught to touch-type in kindergarten

Brayden stopped and watchedby hand, Geraldine?" he said with scorn "Real quaint"

We all lined up to say good-bye to Mrs Wooly at the entrance to the store The sky had returned to its nor shade of crisp blue clear Like my mom used to say, "Colorado skies just can’t be beat"

The hail was a foot deep most everywhere At places where there was an incline, the hail had run off soe drifts

You would think it would have been fun to play in--like the outdoors was a giant ball pit But the big chunks of hail, they had bus They were sharp and dirty, and no one wanted to go out and play We stayed in the store

There were a couple of cars in the parking lot They looked absurd, all crunched in, like a giant had taken a hae

"If all the cars in town look like that," Alex said to ht about walking hoht then I could have just waited until Mrs Wooly left and then went home But she’d told us to stay and I followed directions, and also, Astrid Heyman was at the Greenway, not at our dull, cookie-cutter house on Wagon Trail Lane

The naon Gap Trail, Coyote Valley Court, Blizzard Valley Lane …

I have to say that never once did I walk down our street and h some frontier prairie Who, exactly, did the developers think they were fooling?

I could hear distant sirens There were so up in other places A colu froood idea what the others were fro that our town had really taken a beating I wondered if we’d get soes of the San Diegans receiving boxes of clothes and toys and food after the earthquake in ’21 Maybe now that would be us and our toould be besieged by theh rain boots

Brayden stepped forward

"Mrs Wooly, e to hiet us"

I was probably the only one who rolled , Brayden," Mrs Wooly said in her gravelly voice "I’ll take it under advisement"

She looked us over