Mrs. Krimble was responsible for twelve students on this trip to AMNH, but only two of them spent the previous afternoon with her in detention. She found me and Murph in the ferry terminal as if she had somehow placed homing beacons on us. Murph chose a seat for us on the outside of the terminal, where you aren’t even supposed to wait for incoming boats, but Mrs. Krimble followed us out there. She hovered over us letting the wind blow her perfectly formed teacher-hair in directions I’m pretty sure it previously had no idea it was possible to bend in. “So, did either of you read the entire coverage of that solar storm yesterday?” my heart almost broke due to her extreme sincerity and curiosity.
“Nah, Miss,” I think Murph called all of his female teachers “Miss” whether or not they were married, “You know me. I was sketching,” he said tapping the messenger bag I never saw him without.
“Of course,” she sounded disappointed, and then she laughed adding, “Isn’t that why you had detention in the first place, Mr. Murphy?”
Murph laughed, “Like I said, that’s my thing,” and he shrugged.
She turned and looked at me, “What about you Abby? Did you see the article?”
“Just a little,” I confessed, hoping Murph wouldn’t think any less of me. He raised his eyebrows.
“And?”Mrs. Krimble nudged.
I said, “I didn’t get the big deal,” and the minute the words left my mouth I regretted it. Murph’s eyes grew wide and he bit his bottom lip. Mrs. Krimble’s entire posture changed. I had done it. She was about to lunge on a teachable moment. I had ruined everything. Nice job, Idiot! My inner voice roared as Murph and I both turned our full attention to Mrs. Krimble’s lesson on the sun. She began, “First you have to understand how powerful the sun is,” and, as she turned to point out the powerful beast in the sky, I stole a glance at Murph, who was doing the same to me.
That’s when I realized I didn’t ruin everything. He smiled, took a quick picture with his phone and then, very naturally placed his hand on top of mine. So, to be honest with you, even after fifteen minutes of Mrs. Krimble’s explaining what the big deal with the damn article was before our boat showed up, I still couldn’t tell you the significance of that solar storm. I was too busy regulating my own breathing and ensuring that the voice in my head screaming, That’s his hand holding my hand. Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh! Stayed in my head screaming and didn’t express itself out loud.
***
On the ferry, we sat together as a class on the outer benches on the “tourist side” of the boat. Mrs. Krimble started to tell some of the other kids about the solar storm and, surprisingly, a couple of them seem interested. Stella Malroney asked a lot of questions, but she is so polite that might have just been for Mrs. Krimble’s sake rather than her own curiosity. Idris Falcon, on the other hand, seemed genuinely interested. He asked about how anyone could actually look at the sun - something I hadn’t even thought about - and what a storm is like on the sun. Mrs. Krimble went on and on about the various instruments used so no one actually looked directly at the sun. And then she began to explain a solar storm, interjecting many times that she wished we were in the classroom where she had pictures and videos of such events.
“What about the Rose Center, Mrs. Krimble? Won’t they have videos?” Stella asked in her perfect, Aren’t I so clever? Voice. I don’t mean to hate on Stella. She is, hands-down, the sweetest person I have ever met. Have you ever had sweet potato marshmallow casserole? Just in case you haven’t, let me highlight the major ingredients: sweet potatoes, marshmallows, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, butter and - oh yeah - cinnamon sugar. This is a polarizing dish in my family. Some people love it, others can’t tolerate the sweetness. Stella Malroney is Staten Island Prep’s very own Sweet Potato Marshmallow Casserole. I don’t believe she has ever had any malicious intents and I don’t even think she was attempting to kiss up to Mrs. Krimble, she’s just sweet, sweet Stella.
“Oh yes, Stella, I’m looking forward to what they have to say about yesterday’s event and how it will affect us,” Mrs. Krimble was beaming, as if a solar storm had burst within her.
“Whoa, Miss K,” Rainbow Diaz, who I didn’t even think was listening, interjected, “affect us how? Am I going to get burnt out here?”
Mrs. Krimble laughed, “No, Rainbow, you’ll be fine. I meant how the storm will affect our planet.”
Rainbow looked at Mrs. Krimble skeptically just as the “All ashore” announcement was made. We diligently packed our belongings and joined the slow mob exiting the boat.
***
Mrs. Krimble herded the twelve of us like a metropolitan shepherd. She directed us out of the ferry terminal shouting various commands as she ran up and down the sides of the group ensuring that we stayed together as a group. It was masterful work.When the girls and I come to the city together we split up the moment we get off the slip in the ferry terminal. Mindy is sucked into the aroma of the bakery, while Tracie can’t walk past a Farmer’s Market table no matter where it is set up - even if it is a single table offering up butternut squash and apples that have been sitting in a ferry terminal all day, and Jess, well, she and I have the same problem: we’re suckers for the touristy crap even though we’ve both lived in New York our entire lives. There’s just something special about being in the city. Manhattan has its own personality that adds an aura of excitement to whatever reason you have to be there, even after you’ve lost count on how many times you’ve been there. Somehow, my crazy science teacher was able to control her mob of students from doing the same thing.
Of course, I wasn’t worried about getting lost anyway because Murph hadn’t let go of my hand yet and I wasn’t about to make the first move. We were herded onto a 1 train going uptown where Murph let go of my hand to let me get on before him. Our group packed into one car of the train. Not surprisingly it was one of the loudest subway cars I had ever been in in my life. Murph was snapping pictures left and right - of the subway stations we passed, of groups of students, of me and of weird little things like our hands holding the pole. Brenda McNeil was the first to say something about it, “Hey Murph,” she yelled while snapping her gum, “this your first time on the subway or something?”
“Funny Brenda,” he said, “of course I wouldn’t expect you to find the beauty in the mundane.”
She rolled her eyes, “Whadda ya mean?” she asked.
“Cause it’s hard enough for you to find it in the mirror!” and he pointed his camera to her face and clicked while laughing.
I gasped. Then Brenda laughed and biffed him on the head, “And people wonder why I date your cousin instead of you! You are such a dork,” Then she looked at me, “He’s a smart ass, Turner, you sure you can’t do any better?”
I knew she was joking, but how do you answer a question like that? If I assume it is rhetorical and let it sit unanswered, then I look like I’ve been struck dumb. If I defend my position with Murph then I am publicly admitting my affection for him - am I ready to do that when I haven’t even really let him in on my terribly held secret? If I agree with her, then I’m insulting Murph even though Brenda’s original comment was meant only as a joke.
In the end, as my mind squandered for a response, Murph answered, “She has no choice in partners on this trip,” he said as he pulled me closer to his side, “Turner is the subject of my latest piece!” I could tell these two were used to their sibling-like banter. I wondered how long Brenda had been dating his cousin.
Brenda looked me up and down and said, “Well Turner, you make sure you tell us all the tale on your tumblr page when he’s finished with you. Spread the good word about our budding artist.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said, because it was, but I was honestly shocked that Brenda was familiar enough with my page to mention it.
“I would love to be one of Turner’s Tales,” Murph said softly, smiling to me.
I knew both Brenda and Murph followed my page - everyone did - but I didn’t really think anyone was really following it, you know what I mean? I have always imagined that my posts were those things that everyone but Amy scrolled by in their feed. Amy commented, reblogged and gave me hearts every time I wrote, but that was about it from the people in my real life. Everyone else that participated consisted of the endless, faceless fans from the depths of the anonymous Internet. I knew them as avatars and usernames, not as real human beings. I felt an awkward wave of pride and insecurity wash over me as my previous writings flashed through my mind.
Didn’t Murph realize he was one of the main focuses of Turner’s Tales? I have written countless poems about my unrequited love for Murph, did I ever mention his name? I smiled back at him, sure my secret crush was not a secret at all and maybe just a part of game he was playing with me. I needed Amy to be here to tell me I was being paranoid. I needed her here in this scene with me, Murph and Brenda, to tell me what was really going on, because I was about to let everything unravel, or believe that there was nothing there in the first place to unravel. I stared at my feet and listened to the clacking of the train tracks beneath us. I allowed myself to fall into the rhythm of the subway, to meditate within the thunder and just pretend no one else was there.
But that wasn’t meant to be, because Princess Jones, a girl in my science class that I have never talked to even though we have been in school together since the fifth grade, overheard everything and joined the conversation, “Wait a second,” she tugged on my left shoulder so I was facing her, “you’re Turner’s Tales?”
I nodded, wondering why she had to be so physical about it.
“I follow you!” she was surprised. I was not. Like I said, everyone followed me. I followed everyone else back. That’s the way it was on tumblr, wasn’t it? “You’re funny, Girl.” She added.
“Thanks,” I replied with a smile, unsure of what else I was supposed to do. Was I now expected to be funny on demand, because that definitely wasn’t going to happen. My written me and my real-life me were two totally different people.
Princess was already turning to other classmates on the train and spreading the word. She was behaving like I was some sort of celebrity. I watched as my classmates as they leaned over each other’s shoulders nodding and smiling to each other making comments here and there. I even heard a couple of “Wow”s.
“Now you’re famous,” Murph said in my ear, “and every guy is jealous of me. Too bad they didn’t know how cool you were already.”
Everyone else in the train disappeared. My insides melted and I wanted to just savor this moment for all the juicy emotions it offered up. How could I translate all of this into the written word? How could I express my heart melting without using the cliche of “my heart melted”, because, let’s be honest, that’s been done too much. What was I feeling? Warmth, happiness, security.
Yes, that’s it. I felt safe and secure. In that singular moment my insecurities had slipped away into an unnamed abyss. I felt appreciated and worthy of affection. I always liked me, and I knew that Amy liked me, but now it was clear that Murph liked me and, as much of a feminist as I’d like to think I am, the knowledge that he liked me somehow validated everything else.
So I smiled. I know I said I smiled before, but before I was being polite and shy, this smile shone from within. It bore on it and air of confidence and self-worth that I normally only felt when attached to my laptop’s keyboard.
I lifted the veil covering the rest of the occupants in the train and nodded back to them and started talking to them. People had different posts they really liked and remembered. Some of the girls talked about the Barista Boys gifs I shared and created. I directed them to some other tumblr pages to become instant followers of if they wanted more. Others commented on poems - they actually remembered lines from some of poems. I was overwhelmed. I wanted to call Amy instantly, but I was in a train, underground and in the midst of a conversation with other people. She would have been amazed.
By the time we reached the museum, my secret was out. Not that I realized I was keeping a secret all this time. I started on Tumblr as a Barista Boys fangirl. After a little while I got into the fanfic, then before I knew it I started posting my own stuff. It was never planned. And I wasn’t expecting anyone in my real life to know about it. Now, it seems, that they always did. Somehow, everyone in my class was a fan of me. The thought was laughable.
***
Mrs. Krimble wanted go to the Rose Planetarium first. Last year we started at the big blue whale, but I guess since the big excitement at the sun wasn’t getting any of her students excited, she decided she wanted to surround herself with like-minded souls as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we had bad timing and the show wasn’t starting for another hour. We were stuck on the standard tour of the ancient dead things.
By the time the tour was done it was lunch time. This was the one upturn in the trip that I had been looking forward to for two years. Mrs. Krimble told us on both our freshman and sophomore trips that when we came back as juniors we would be permitted to have our lunch in Central Park, weather permitting.
The sun was shining. I said a silent thank you to the solar storms brightly burning above us. We were free.
As soon as we left the building, I wanted to at least send a heads up to Amy that I had a lot to tell her tonight, but I couldn’t get any service. Looking at everyone else’s looks of disappointment when checking their own phones for one reason or another, I quickly saw I wasn’t alone. I figured the area around the museum was just a cold spot.
“You can’t live without that thing, huh?” Murph said, pointing to my phone as I slipped it back into the back pocket of my jeans, distracted by the cacophony of the traffic’s blaring horns. We had plenty of traffic in Staten Island, but nothing quite so noisy.
“Huh? No - I-I mean yes! I think I could if I had to,” I said defensively.
“Hmm,” he said climbing up on one of the giant rocks and grabbing my hand pulling me up to sit next to him.
“What?” I said. I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. Everyone else with us was just as centered on their windows to their digital world.
“I don’t know,” he said, “I mean… don’t you just want to be here?”
I guess I had insulted him somehow. Was this a date? I thought. I tried to figure out if what I had done was rude. Before I could respond, or ask for clarification, he went on and took my breath away.
“Blinding screens - blazing thumbs - emoticons showing - we’ve gone numb,” he said.
I gaped. That was the beginning of one of my poems. One of my old poems. How did he know that?
“The screams of nothing - the loudness of the mundane - I sit back and see - how this world’s insane,” he knew even more! He stopped and looked at me, “Didn’t you write that?”
“Yes,” I said. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with my words exposed.
“Did you mean it?” he asked.
“Of course…” I didn’t know what to say. How could I begin to explain to him that my one friend in the whole world was torn away from me and the only means of communicating with her was digitally? Would he understand that? Would anyone? I felt childish in my need for connecting to Amy. The rest of my class milled around us. Couldn’t they be enough?
“Whatever,” he cut off my thoughts with a bit more of an attitude than he had any right to. That pissed me off - which is saying something.
“What do you mean, ‘Whatever?’” I blasted, “You’ve had your phone out more on this trip than I have!”
“I was taking pictures,” he retorted.
“I don’t get the difference, Matt. I didn’t even begin to do anything on my phone. There’s no service here,” I was getting flustered. I don’t like confrontation, but I felt like he was attacking me for no reason.
“The difference is that you live there and I live here,” he patted the gray stone in between us.
That hurt me more than I wanted to admit. “I do not live there.”
“Abby, honestly,” it was the first time he called me by my first name, “when was the last time you talked to anyone in this class before that train ride?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. It was with Amy. She talked to everyone and, since I was usually with her, I would get looped into the conversations. I don’t know how she did that. I didn’t know how to do it on my own.
“And how often do you write back to people on your Tumblr page?” he was looking right in my eyes, with pity. I hated it.
I stood up,“That’s different.”
“Maybe it is,” he said, grabbing my arm, “but that’s my point. I know how active you are online. I follow you.”
“Says the guy who ‘lives here’,” I said, pointing to our rock.
“Sit down,” he said raising his eyebrows, “Please?”
I sat down, wondering what would come next.
“I do live here,” he said with a smile, “I’ve been out there trying to find you.”
“What?” I realized we were all alone - the rest of the class had kept walking, exploring the park - when Murph stopped to sit.
“Abigail Turner, I like you, but you are hard as hell to get to talk to,” he said looking down at the space between us. I was sure I was hallucinating the entire thing. Then my butt buzzed.
And buzzed again.
And again.
“What the hell?” Murph said as he grabbed his own phone, “Bad timing, huh?” he laughed.
“Me too,” I said, grabbing my phone, happy to have a distraction from a situation I had no idea how to handle.
It was a text-plosion, which was weird, because I had no reception just a couple of minutes ago. It was Mindy, Tracie, Jess and Amy on my phone and Murph’s cousin Troy on his phone, and they all had the same news - a blackout at school!
As Murph went on and on about how he always misses all the coolest stuff and tried to figure out what Mr. Gideon would have done without his SmartBoard, I was stuck on one fact: Amy doesn’t go to our school anymore. I finally said it out loud, “You know, my friend Amy moved to south Jersey last semester.”
Murph’s face contorted in confusion, “And?”
“Yeah, well, she had a blackout, too,” I showed him the text.
“That’s weird,” he said.
I agreed.
***
After an hour outside in the clean crisp air of Central Park, Mrs. Krimble told us to meet her up in Rose Center. It was nice being a junior - we were given so much autonomy. I was torn between enjoying the freedom to find our own way and the terror of the darkened hallways. “This place can be creepy,” I told Murph as we walked through an exhibit with large, ancient masks and war uniforms.
“It seems darker than before,” he said, looking around, “I wonder if they had a blackout too.”
I noticed a couple of the artifacts had lights shining on them and pointed them out, “No, look over there.”
When we got up to the Rose Center, Mrs. Krimble was standing outside.She seemed preoccupied and sucked dry of all of her typical cheeriness. I found this particularly disconcerting considering our location: this was Mrs. Krimble’s dream locale. I wasn’t alone in my observation, our whole class stood silently in front of her waiting for direction, or just some acknowledgement that we had arrived. It was Rainbow who finally spoke up, “Mrs. Krimble? Should we go in?”
Mrs. Krimble, uncharacteristically, took out her cell phone, I imagined she was checking the time and then looked back at Rainbow, “No… I think we have to go.”
Murmurs erupted in the group, “Go?’ “Go where?” I was just as confused as everyone else, it was barely one o’clock, we had only been on one tour! If we went back to school now, surely we would have more classes to attend. No way. We were not going back. This was our trip, our day out of the building, our day at the museum. Why would Mrs. Krimble, of all people, suggest we leave before we had even begun to explore?
Two men - local to the museum, I was sure - came over to Mrs. Krimble. They stepped aside for a quiet conversation. The shorter man, wearing glasses and - I’m not kidding - a pocket protector - said to Mrs. Krimble, “It’s honestly the fastest moving CME I’ve ever seen. We expected effects on the Earth’s surface, but not until tomorrow, at least.”
The other man, much taller, lanky and good-looking in a geek-gorgeous kind of way, added, “Merle, let’s not forget that our prediction software hasn’t been truly tested. It’s still in beta and everything is up for questioning.”
Mrs. Krimble interrupted, bringing her voice down to a very low whisper while casting a sidelong glance at our group, “I’m sorry, guys, listen - I don’t want to seem alarmist, or anything - but I have kids here under my charge. Was there an EMP or not? I need to get them home.”
“Murph,” I nudged Murphy who didn’t seem to be listening to the hushed conversation, “do you know what an EMP is?”
“A what?” he said, looking half amused, “Isn’t that some kind of biological warfare or something?”
“What?!” I said, louder than I wanted to. Everyone knows New York City is a hot target for terrorist groups. While I am not as hyper about these things as my mother was. She had the unfortunate opportunity to stand across the water, walking to the Staten Island Ferry when tower One of the World Trade Center tumbled to is demise, and I was raised on the story. Terror by association. Any day could be another attack. This could explain Mrs. Krimble’s attitude, her lackluster stance, her frightened request of the science nerds.
“You are an idiot,” Brenda evidently overheard Murph’s explanation, “an EMP doesn’t have to be a weapon, plus, even if it is, it’s not biological warfare, it would be, well, I guess it would be technological warfare. It wipes out electricity. Like that show Revolution.”
Murph stared at her, “You watched Revolution? My grandmother watches Revolution!”
“Whatever, Murph. At least your grandmother wouldn’t go around sounding like a complete idiot, then!”
I asked Brenda, since it seemed Murph was going to be of no use to me, “Hey, Brenda, you have any idea why Mrs. K would think there was an EMP now?” I pointed over to her corner conversation.
“Oh shit!” Brenda said, “Did she say that?”
“Just a second ago.”
“There was a blackout at school. Maybe there was one in here too,” Brenda said.
Rainbow was listening in, “There was. I came in to use the bathroom and all the lights were out in here and on the street too. The cars were going crazy out there without the street lights.”
“The lights are on now,” I decided to point out the obvious, without alarming anyone with news of Amy’s blackout all the way down in Jackson, New Jersey.
Of course, because I had to go and open my big mouth, fate had to step in and put me in my place. The lights went out. There were a number of screams in our group even though we were standing next to a pretty bright window. I looked at Mrs. Krimble. She puled out her cell phone again and looked at it. The two men looked at it over her shoulder. Her expression can be explained in one word: dismay.
I pulled out my phone to see if I could understand what the problem was. No WiFi. No 4G. No Service. Okay, I thought, that’s typical blackout-scenario stuff, but then my phone began to flicker in my hand. I never saw it do that before. “Look,” I showed the group.
Everyone pulled out their phones as well. The same things were happening.
“We need to get them Faraday cages,” the taller man said.
Rainbow screamed, Brenda cursed and everyone in our group got louder. I looked to Mrs. Krimble. She clicked her phone, turned it to the man and said, “It’s too late.” I checked my phone - it was stone cold dead.