“No mother would ever get mad at her kid for that.”

I don’t know how Grace knew these things but I figured she was right. She usually was. I kissed her on the forehead. A few minutes later I crawled out of the clubhouse and made my way back to the house.

CHAPTER Fourteen

We survived the night, but the news reports say that it’s not over.
It’s like taking a Band-Aid off slowly.

GRACE’S DIARY

TUESDAY, OCT. 23

Joel was in the bedroom getting dressed when I climbed back in through the window.

“You been out back?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Are Mom and Dad up?”

“Mom is.”

I walked out to the kitchen. I soon learned that the crisis wasn’t over. That morning Khrushchev had a message for President Kennedy. It was printed in large type in the morning newspaper:

I hope that the United States Government will
display wisdom and renounce the actions pursued
by you, which may lead to catastrophic
consequences for world peace.

With the fate of humanity lying in the balance we went to school. Maybe half the kids stayed home; even some of the teachers didn’t come. I suppose Joel and I went to school just because we always did. We had to do something. My mom still had to work. In fact the store was even busier than usual because people were stocking up on staples.

That night, Grace, Joel, and I listened to the radio and played Chinese checkers in the clubhouse.

CHAPTER Fifteen

I once caught a moth inside our house. I took it outside and
tried to release it into its natural habitat, but it didn’t want to
leave the box. Finally I shook the box until it fell out.

I wonder if that’s what death is like.

GRACE’S DIARY

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 24

Two days after Kennedy announced the blockade, two Soviet ships, flanked by a nuclear submarine, had moved within a few miles of the U.S. flotilla. It was a global game of chicken with the whole world watching and wondering who would turn first.

By that afternoon no Soviet ships had crossed the blockade but twenty-three missile sites in Cuba had become fully operational. An American U2 plane was shot down over Cuba and the pilot was killed. Fidel Castro seemed to be the loudest and brashest of the leaders involved in the conflict, not surprising since he held the littlest stick. The Soviets were eerily quiet.

Every time we heard a plane we looked up and hoped that it had wings.

In chess there are more than a trillion ways to play the first ten moves. I suppose there were even more possibilities of how the crisis would play out. The next days passed in a kind of surreal slow motion. Suddenly, everyone was an expert on nuclear armaments. People talked openly and knowledgeably about isotopes, point zero, radioactive fallout, and, in general, death.