Page 39 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
Annie didn’t own a computer. She used the library microfilm. She learned that on her birthday, a crisis in South Africa ended and a famous hockey player broke a league record. She wrote it down.
At the end of the week, the students were asked to report their findings. Annie rose and recited her meager facts, then quickly sat, glad that it was over. She gazed out the window, drifting, until she heard Megan, the girl who had ruined everything with Paulo, ending her report by saying, “Also, I used a computer, and I found out that Annie’s ‘accident’ was in an amusement park and that someone died because of her.”
Students gasped. One yelled, “What?” Annie flushed with chills. She began to cough. She couldn’t find her breath. Her mind was racing between the faces staring at her and that day at Ruby Pier, replaying fragments, thetrain ride, her mother taking off with Bob. She felt woozy. Her arm slid off the desk.
“Annie, are you all right?” the teacher said. “Come here, come here, let’s go...”
She rushed Annie out the classroom door.
***
When Annie came home that day, she marched into the trailer, slammed her books on a table, and started screaming about what Megan said in class. Lorraine, hovering over a pile of bills, froze for a moment, a pen in her hand. Then she resumed scribbling, looking down through her reading glasses.
“You knew it was an amusement park,” she said.
“What about the rest, Mom?”
“What?”
“Did I kill someone?”
“Of course not!” Lorraine capped the pen. “That’s an evil lie by an evil girl.”
“Are you sure?”
“How could you even think that?”
“Did someone die?”
“It was a big accident, Annie. There were workers.Operators. Riders. Lots of people were affected. You were a victim, remember? We could have sued. Maybe I should have. All these bills.”
“Did someonedie?”
“An employee, I think. No one that you knew.”
“What else happened?”
Lorraine pulled off her glasses. “Do you really need more details? Now, all of a sudden? Haven’t we been through enough?”
“We?” Annie screamed. “Really, Mom? WE?”
“Yes!” Lorraine screamed back. “Really, Annie. WE!”
“I haveno friends, Mom! I want to have friends!”
“I’d like some, too, Annie!”
“I’m never going back to that class!”
“You’re never going back to that school!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
Both of them were red-faced and breathing hard. Lorraine rose to the kitchen. She smacked the faucet and rubbed her hands vigorously under the water. “Honestly, what kind of learning is that? Looking up your birthdays? You’d be better off homeschooled.”
“I’m not doing THAT!” Annie yelled.
