Six

The following day it poured. Everyone feared the rain, terrified of the fallout it carried with it from the nuclear plant. Rain had turned the land between Vermont and the Atlantic Ocean into a dead zone.

Mr. Perry, our principal, used a radiation detector, better than the one Gran had at home. He measured atmospheric radiation before he sent the school buses out for us each morning. He measured it again before he let us leave each afternoon.

Shortly before lunch, ten days after the accident, Mr. Perry came on the public address system.

“They capped the nuclear leak early this morning,” he said, relief rumpling his voice. “The air is safe now. The rain is safe now. We can throw away our masks.”

The dozen or so kids left in my class cheered. Some went straight to the trash and tossed their masks out. I didn’t. I took mine off, but I wouldn’t throw it away.

Muncie didn’t throw her mask out either. She had strict orders to wear it until her parents said she could remove it. Only Muncie’s face remained covered when we boarded the bus for home. Something else making her different. Well, maybe the Harrises would let Muncie ditch the mask after today.

I stared out the bus window at abandoned houses along the road. With the plant capped, people would come back. I wanted to feel soothed, to believe everything would be all right, even with Ezra. But after the things Mr. Sobel had said about radiation and waste, I couldn’t really relax.

At our stop, Muncie jumped off the bus behind me, laughing, rolling her big head on her shoulders. She let the rain beat down on her glasses, soak through her mask.

The door scissored shut behind us and the school bus pulled away.

“All safe, all safe,” Muncie sang.

Walking home through the steady downpour, my hair dripped, the icy trickle ran over my cheeks and down my neck. Drops of sleety rainwater skated along Muncie’s nose.

Clumsy in her bulky boots, she broad-jumped into a puddle and landed on a rock. It rolled out from under her, making her fall. Her breath sucked in with the shock of cold as she hit the water.

“You okay?” I bent over her.

Muncie made two fists and beat at the puddle, spraying a shower of frigid water over the two of us and laughing.

I shook my head. “Come on,” I said, helping her to her feet.

We continued up the hill past the close-packed sheep. The rain would be noodling its way down through the sheep’s thick wool. My socks squished inside my old boots.

When we reached my drive, we stopped while Muncie caught her breath.

“How about—my house—hot chocolate?” Muncie said.

I hesitated. “Can’t.”

Muncie pushed her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose. “Oh,” she said. Looking dejected, she started up the hill.

“You want me to wait till you get to the top?” I called to Muncie’s back.