Everyone was in the street. Everybody had to be outside. They were all talking on the sidewalk. Daniel stepped around them to keep walking home.

A lot of parents were coming from the school. They raced there when the explosion happened. They picked up their kids off the blacktop before they had even gone back to class. Even Chad’s mom came from her job at the bakery and Daniel saw just how scared Chad looked when he finally saw his mommy. Chad—what a dick, Daniel thought to himself. But nobody came for Daniel. His parents were dead. And his grandpa would never come all the way out from the house for anything. No, Daniel had to take care of himself. He walked home like he always did.

He walked past the public commissary and the grocery. He walked past the pharmacy where the old men gathered and smoked and talked. And he walked past the Library where the older kids hung out—the kids who had not gone off to service yet. He liked the Library and spent a lot of time there. When he wanted to get away from his grandpa and his chores and just escape he would go there and read the books about the Great Fight. He would watch the older girls studying. He would watch the older boys meet those girls as they snuck off to the stacks. One time he hid himself so well, he saw Ashton James take Kelly Strang to the stacks. He watched as they kissed. He watched as Ashton put his hands under Kelly’s skirt. He saw her face make that happy, painful look. He remembered her quiet moan. Both those kids were gone now—off to the Fight. He wondered what happened to them but he mainly wondered what Ashton was doing underneath that skirt that day.

But today the Library was closed. A hand-written sign hung outside saying: “Due to the crash, government offices will be closed this afternoon.” Daniel stopped dead in his tracks. He managed to forget about what happened for a few moments but now it was back. He hoped that no one knew what he had done. He looked around but nobody was even looking at him. He ran up the street toward home.