I became angry too, when the alarm sounded, because nobody seemed upset, not even Mr. Emmitt. And I was angry because I had been promised by Mama, on the airplane to Philadelphia, as I violently chewed gum the stewardess had given me to keep my ears from bursting, that we would be safe in our new home. And look what was happening, on my very first day! So I decided to save myself. I wouldn’t be killed with a smile on my face like these fools. When you grow up in the camps and you see what I used to see—when you have a friend you tell your secrets to, and then a missile lands on her home, or the soldiers drag her into the shrubs as she walks home from school, then what? Then you learn to survive. Do you know this word, survive?

Everyone lined up at the front of the room, but I crashed through the door, into the hallway, and ran. The alarm was louder in the hallway and my chest started quaking, and I couldn’t breathe fully, couldn’t fill my lungs. But I still ran. Other people stepped out into the hallway, keeping in their useless lines, but I barely saw them because I was looking, of course, for a place to hide.

And then I saw it—an open door, and I ran in, and closed it. I pushed everything I could find in front of it, like a blockade; I used buckets, carts, cans, even a mop handle that I slid between the two bolts on the door. If soldiers planned to storm this place, I thought, sliding down to the ground and gathering my knees to my chest, they would have to take me after a battle.