October winds seep through my blouse and I can’t help looking up at the overcast sky for a particular angel with bat-shaped wings and a corny sense of humor. I swipe my foot at the overgrown grass and make myself look away.

The class windows are full of posters and notices about college entrance requirements. Another window displays shelves of student art. Clay, wood, and papier mâché figurines of all colors and styles cover every inch of shelf space. Some of them are so good that it makes me sad that these kids won’t be making art again for a long, long time.

As we move through the school, the twins are careful to stay behind my family. I fall back, thinking it’s not a bad idea to have Paige in front where I can keep an eye on her. She walks stiffly as if she’s still not used to her legs. I’m not used to seeing her like this either, and I can’t stop staring at the crude stitches all over her body that make her look like a voodoo doll.

“So that’s your sister?” asks Dee in a quiet voice.

“Yeah.”

“The one you risked your life for?”

“Yeah.”

The twins nod politely in that automatic way that people do when they don’t want to say something insulting.

“Your family any better?” I ask.

Dee and Dum look at each other, assessing.

“Nah,” says Dee.

“Not really,” says Dum at the same time.

OUR NEW home is a history class. The walls are filled with timelines and posters of the story of humanity. Mesopotamia, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Ottoman Empire, the Ming Dynasty. And the Black Death.

My history teacher said that the Black Death wiped out thirty to sixty percent of Europe’s population. He asked us to imagine what it’d be like to have sixty percent of your world dead. I couldn’t imagine it at the time. It seemed so unreal.

In weird contrast, dominating all of these ancient history posters is a picture of an astronaut on the moon with blue Earth rising behind him. Every time I see our ball of blue and white in space, I think it must be the most beautiful world in the universe.

But that seems unreal now, too.

Outside, more trucks rumble into the parking lot. I walk over to the window as Mom starts pushing desks and chairs to one side. I peek outside to see one of the twins leading the dazed newcomers into the school like the Pied Piper.

Behind me, my little sister says, “Hungry.”

I stiffen and stuff all kinds of ugliness into the vault in my head.