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Chapter Three

Today, we really shouldn't have even gone to school. None of the teachers were taking attendance, but my friends were going, so I did to. We were ordered by the principal to stay in homeroom and watch Polar Express. I have homeroom with Rae and my friend Henry. We sat together, coloring on Christmas worksheets printed out for us. When the movie was over, we stayed in homeroom until the ninth and eleventh graders ate lunch, then it was finally our turn to eat.

As usual, I'm the first one at the table, but they were serving bag lunches, so everyone should be here relatively soon. Henry sat with us today, because most of his friends weren't at school. Jason and Clara got at the table complaining about the lunch. "Why can't they give us regular food?" Clara asks rhetorically. When everyone sits down, Clara pulls out a binder.

"Since we are working on this extensively, I've made it into a binder, but not just for me!" She pulls her book bag on to the table and hands everyone a one inch binder with the plan written in it. "Now you guys can have your own, just in case this does happen." She looks at Henry and says, "Sorry, I didn't know you'd be here." He nods his head. "What is it anyway?" "Oh, we are making a plan for the apocalypse," Rae answers him.

"And you guys believe it's going to happen why?" he asks. Clara's eyes widened. She points at him and said, "Shun the nonbeliever! Shun!" "Relax Clara. He doesn't understand," Jason says. "Okay, okay call me a skeptic. I don't believe in zombies. It's like the same thing as Santa Claus and the Easter bunny to me," Henry said defensively.

"It's fine," I say to him. He looks at his unpromising sandwich and takes a bite. "What time is it?" I ask Clara. "It's twelve fifty five. I'm so glad it's a half day today." "We leave at one, right?" Rae asks. I nod. Then the assistant principal walks out to make an announcement. "I think he likes to think of disrupting lunch as part of his job," I whisper. I hear Rae laugh.

"Excuse me, excuse me, um I would like to announce that school will be over in five minutes," he said in a very southern accent. "If you have ANYTHING in your locker that you're very uncomfortable with leaving here, you can go get it now. Everyone please line up; let's show the lower levels what a straight and quiet line is, huh." He said. Unexpectedly, the table in the far corner erupts with laughter.

"Is something funny?" the assistant principal sassed. One "brave" kid said no and that was that. "How does he expect teenagers to line up and not talk?" Jason asks. "I have no clue," I say. "I brought all my stuff with me, I'm good to go. How about you guys?" "We're good too," Rae said.

Half of the cafeteria walks with the assistant principal and they did not leave quietly. Some attendance lady had the microphone now and was speaking until a student came up to her and turned it on.

"Thank you. Hello, I am Mrs. Jenkins if you don't know me already. Um... what you are going to do is car riders line up at that door and bus riders line up at that door." She says pointing. "No one is waiting on anyone. That's why you have cell phones. Ride the bus if you are supposed to, no last minute plans. I hope you all have a great Christmas break." She then struts across the cafeteria.

I look at Rae. "Well, I'm riding the bus because I'm lazy today." I pull out my phone and text Austin. "Cool. Well I'll see you guys at the Christmas party." She picks up her book bag, grabs her binder and walks to the car rider line. Henry looks at me, "You're finally riding the bus again. Gosh, it's been a week." "I like walking home with Austin. It's nice," I say. "I told you guys that you'd be together," he said.

I rolled my eyes and walked to the bus rider line with him. Jason and Clara say bye to me and walk to the car rider line. I look in the hall way that leads to a rotunda. In the rotunda, three halls branch off from it. The one on the left is the RELATED ARTS/ GYMNASIUM/ BUS ZONE hall. The one to my furthest right is the 9, 10, 11, AND, 12 GRADE HALLS, and the one to my closest right is the MAIN OFFICE hall. The one I'm on now is the CAFETERIA hall. Well the reason I'm telling you this is because all of these halls are going to be filled with screaming children in less than thirty seconds. Pray for me.