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He slows, looking for a place to pull over. We round another bend, and HP comes into view, except now …
Ester screams, which starts Top whimpering in her lap. Nelinha presses her hands against the glass. ‘No. No way. No.’
I yell, ‘Bernie, stop! Stop here!’
Bernie pulls into one of the scenic overlooks where tourists can snap pictures of the Pacific. The view is clear all the way back to HP, but there’s nothing scenic about it now.
Kids are crying. Their faces press against the windows. My insides twist with disbelief.
A second shock wave hits us. We watch in horror as another massive wedge of earth calves into the bay, taking the last of those beautiful sugar cubes with it.
I shove my way down the aisle. I hammer on the doors until Bernie opens them. I run to the edge of the cliff and grip the cold steel guardrail.
I find myself mumbling desperate prayers. ‘Three-Eyed One, Lord Shiva, who nourishes all beings, may He liberate us from death …’
But there is no liberation.
My brother was on that campus. So were 150 other people and an aquarium full of marine animals. A square mile of the California coast has crumbled into the ocean.
Harding-Pencroft Academy is gone.
Some of my classmates stand at the guardrail and cry. Others hug one another. Others desperately search for a phone signal, trying to text friends or call for help. Eloise McManus howls and throws rocks at the ocean. Cooper Dunne paces like a captive lion, kicking the bus’s front tyres, then the back ones.
Mascara traces down Nelinha’s cheeks like dirty rain. She stands protectively over Ester, who sits cross-legged on the gravel, sobbing into Top’s brown-and-white fur.
Gemini Twain says what we’re all thinking: ‘This is impossible.’
He waves his arms, pointing to where our school used to be. ‘Impossible!’
I’m not really present. I’m floating about six inches above my body. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest, but it’s a dull, distant beat, like music coming from a stereo system in the dorm room below mine. My emotions are wrapped in gauze. My vision flickers around the edges.
I realize I’m dissociating. I’ve talked with the school counsellor, Dr Francis, about this. It’s happened before, when I got the news about my parents. Now Dev is gone. Dr Francis is gone. My house captain, Amelia. Dr Farez. Colonel Apesh.Dr Kind. The baby otters I nursed just yesterday in the aquarium. The nice cafeteria lady, Saanvi, who always smiled at me and sometimes made coconut-filled gujiya pastries almost as good as my mom’s. Everyone at HP … This can’t be happening.
I try to control my breathing. I try to anchor myself in my body, but I feel like I’m going to drift away and evaporate.
Dr Hewett lumbers off the bus. He mops his face with a handkerchief. Bernie follows, lugging a big black supply case. The two men have a hushed conversation.
I read Hewett’s lips. I can’t help it. I’m a Dolphin. My training is all about communication. Gathering intelligence. Codebreaking. I make out the wordslandandattack.
Bernie responds:Inside help.
I must have misread. Hewett couldn’t have meant Land Institute. Our high schools have been rivals forever, but this isn’t some prank like them egging our yacht or us stealing their great white shark. This is annihilation. And what did Bernie mean byinside help?
I breathe. I gather my shock and compress it into my diaphragm, the way I do with oxygen before a free dive.
‘I saw the attack,’ I say.
Everybody is too distracted to hear me.
I say it again, louder. ‘I SAW THE ATTACK.’
The group falls silent. Dr Hewett peers at me.
Gem stops pacing, and I don’t like the way he’s glaring at me. He clenches his fists. ‘What do you meanattack?’
‘It was some kind of torpedo,’ I say. ‘At least, I think it was.’
I describe the wake line I saw heading towards the cliffs, the way it split into three parts just before impact.
