The Blast

Chapter One: When the World Ended

Mr. Timmons and Henry greeted me at the bottom of the staircase. "No Ellie?" Mr. Timmons asked.

"No, she's playing in her room."

"Would you like me to talk to her?"

"No, it's okay. We'll be outside at my house if she changes her mind," I said, reaching a hand out to Henry.

"Okay, see you soon," Mr. Timmons said as we walked back to our house.

"Why can't we play with Ellie?" Henry asked, crossing the street into our field.

"She wanted to stay inside. It's okay, Henry. Me and you will play," I assured him.

"Can we play toy soldiers?" he asked excitedly.

I didn't want to—I wanted to play in the woods—but I took care of Henry so much while our parents worked on the farm that I was used to putting his needs first. I was 6 years older than Henry, so at 10, I was his unofficial babysitter. I loved him, though, so I usually didn't mind. What I minded were the toy soldiers, boring and unadventurous. Henry would set them up, only to push them all down with his fists moments later. He loved this game, though, and hadn't yet realized that he didn't need me to play.

"Sure." I sighed.

As soon as the sound left my mouth, Henry jumped into a sprint, running ahead of me and up to his room for the army men. My dad, who was pulling weeds from the garden around our porch, turned back to me. "He looks happy." He wiped the sweat from his forehead, leaving a line of dirt over his bright green eyes.

"I'm letting him play with his army toys... again..."

"Ellie didn't want to play?" I shook my head. "You're a very good big sister, you know that?" I smiled and nodded.

Henry ran back outside, his arms full of little plastic men, spilling over the sides of his grasp with his gait. He dropped the rest on the porch and scurried to gather them all in front of his crossed legs, when my mom pulled into the driveway, gravel shifting beneath the tires of her truck.

"Mommy!" Henry called. She parked the car, and hurried over to us, kissing the top of my dad's head on the way.

"Hello my babies," she sang, scooping Henry in her arms, and planting a kiss on my forehead. "How is everyone?"

"Good," I said, kicking all of the plastic men into a pile.

"Excellent," she said mindlessly, scanning my dad's work in the garden.

"How was the market?" he asked.

"Oh, same as usual." She put Henry down with a kiss. "I'm going to start unloading what's left."

Henry sat back down, and we began lining them up on opposite sides between us when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head eastward.

In the distance, I could see a cloud of white light and dust rising over Philadelphia, but this wasn't an ordinary cloud. Of course, to a child, it looked incredible, like a second sun on the horizon. At first, I thought maybe it was a firework left over from the 4th, so I laughed. "Dad, look! A firework!" I called.

He looked into the eastern sky. I'll never forget that moment, how his whole face melted. "Get in the house," he mumbled. Then, as if some invisible force slapped him across the face, he shook his head and yelled, "Get in the house!"

"Hon?" my mom asked.

"Get in the house!"

My mom raced from the truck and scooped me and my brother up in her arms. "Where are you going?" she yelled after my dad, who had sprung from the garden and started up the street toward Ellie's house.