| General Fiction posted January 8, 2017 | Chapters: |
...6 7 -9- 10... 
|
  |
Be Prepared
A chapter in the book The True Test
Venturing Out
by jusylee72
| Background Teachers have to stay late to attend mandatory STAAR test. The students were all sent home on Buses. About twenty minutes into the meeting a huge Earth Quake hits the area. |
After our discussion, we all agreed to form a search party in the morning. We need to know if there are other survivors and if they need help.
"We can go by the computer rooms." Doug was anxious to find Patty. "The only people who weren't in the auditorium when the shaking started is our office staff. We need to find out what has happened to them. I also heard from some of you that people saw Patty and Sherry leave during the vignettes. We need to find out if they are ok."
The next morning we awoke to cool temperatures and a fresh breeze. It was the perfect morning to venture into the outside world. Several of the coaches joined Doug on the exploration. The computer hallway was damaged and dangerous. None the less, the young men cautiously stepped through it. As they approached the office, the floor became unstable. To go further could cause another cave in. Nothing but rubble could be seen on the floor below them.
"Carolina. Anyone. Can you hear me? Are you okay?" The men spoke with loud clear voices. They couldn't get any closer. They would just have to hope they could make contact. "Carolina, anyone, where are you guys?" A head peeked out the side door of the teacher's lounge. It was Patty.
"There's ten of us in here. We can't get out to you yet. We may be able to go around the building out front and make our way around now that the rain has stopped. Are you all still in the auditorium?"
Doug was relieved to see her. "No, the auditorium is destroyed. We will try to send a group around to you and help you to join us. We are in the band hall. Do you have food and water."
"We are okay, some minor injuries but overall we are okay. We have a few supplies, at least enough for today. Can you come around from the outside? The front steps are still intact. I think we can get to them."
"Okay, it will take us a while, but we will find a way."Doug sighed with relief. "Sorry about missing our date, Patty. Something came up, or should I say down."
Doug's attempt at humor made Patty laugh. Even though the last two days were stressful, she somehow felt stronger. She now had true friends she could trust. Sometimes disaster does make good people act better than they knew they could."
"No, problem, Doug," Patty yelled back at the group. "Let's make that date for tomorrow."
She watched the men turn around before she went back in the lounge with the wonderful news, there were other survivors.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The rubble in the parking lot made the trek difficult but not impossible. The search party made it around to the front in about 30 minutes.
Patty and the others were sitting on the front steps waiting for them. An hour later we welcomed them to our makeshift home. None of us wanted to tell them about the deaths in our group but we had to be honest. Carolina took the death of our principal, Tommy, extremely hard.
We were tired of staying indoors. Most of us ventured out and sat in the sun.
So much to do now. Being outside gave us a new sense of freedom.
I picked out Sherry from the front office group. "So happy to see you, Sherry. Are you truly alright?'
Sherry and I had been friends for years. We weren't as close as Krissie and I were, but we had a deep respect for each other. She asked me to go for a short walk with her. We slowly walked to an open spot where we could see the expanse of the parking lot. We sat on two large cement blocks that were probably remnants of the gym.
"I'm fine."
Her words contrasted with her face. I asked her to walk over to one of our newly built sitting areas. We sat on two concrete blocks. They were probably part of our former gym.
"So much has happened to you in the last few years. Now, we are facing a whole new challenge. Are you sure you are okay."
"Grief is a strange horse to ride. The last two days I have learned a few new things about myself and life. Of course, I am not all that happy, but today I feel a little more content."
She told me a little about the young girl, Patty. "I would have liked for someone like her to meet my son. She is smart, funny and athletic. He would have really liked her." The old sadness returned to her eyes.
Abruptly she stopped, "What is that?" She pointed in the distance to a small figure in the middle of the parking lot.
"Where?" then I saw movement. "It looks like a child, but what is she carrying?" We both called for help from the others.
"Coach Neil, Is that a child out there?" She was all the way on the street at least five hundred yards away from us. Coach grabbed a couple of the young men and headed out. The image stood still. If it was a girl, she was wearing a backpack and holding a doll. It took twenty minutes to reach her. They knelt down so as not to scare her. We could see one of the young men gently lift her into his arms and head back to us. The child refused to put down the doll.
"Someone run in and get Doug. She may be hurt."
Doug rushed out. He looked directly at me and asked me for help. "Get one of the water bottles. She may not have eaten in three days."
He ran out to meet the group. The first thing he noticed was that the child was silent, refusing to talk. The second thing he discovered is that the doll was a living baby.
What we thought was a backpack was actually a diaper bag. A small can of formula and a bottle were in the bottom pocket.
Sherry offered to help with the two children. Years ago she had thought of stopping teaching to become a children's counselors. She followed the young coach still holding both children into the building.
We all wanted to greet the child but our instincts told us to back off and give her the space she needed. With her background in child pshchology, Sherry was the best person to help.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jimmy knew it was time to leave and try to find his much-needed medicine. Five men volunteered to go with him.
I would have loved to be one of them but I was in my fifties and my knees would slow them down. Their plan was simple. They would go to Sam's car first and get the weapon. Then they would head down the main street in front of the school. They planned on going to the pharmacy at Walmart. We had no idea what else they would find. We hoped there were other survivors who would be willing to help.
We tried to come up with scenarios. Would they need money? Right now credit cards were useless. They might be able to find the Pharmacy but how would they get in? Would there be people vandalizing? Would we have to bribe them? Would they recognize our medical needs and help us or would they have to fight to get what we needed?
Some of the band students left backpacks in their instrument lockers. Mr. Statistics, as we now jokingly called him, kept track of who it might belong to by the names written on the front covers of the school books. We didn't want to steal but we did want to use anything that might help us. We found some old plastic bags and put drinks and sandwiches in them for the explorers. It felt good that someone was leaving for a little while. We craved outside knowledge.
The parking lot looked like it was passable by foot. Many of us stood on the small porch at the top of the steps. It was as if we were asking them to climb Mount Everest. We waved goodbye and expected to see them again that evening.
True to our words we started working in smaller committees.
One of our science teachers was an avid camper. He came up with a makeshift outhouse. At first, we all wandered into the bathrooms across from the band hall, but they quickly became unusable and stuffed. We had plenty of concrete outside. Some of the men carried it in. We made one practice room for women and one for men. We made a square structure with a whole in the middle. We put a large garbage bag around it. We would use a trash can for our liquid waste and the bags for our other functions. For now, we had enough bags to replace them every day with a new one. None of us planned on being here forever. We could tie them up and take it to a designated dump zone outside. It might not become our favorite job, but necessity made it one we could all share.
We were all wearing the same clothes we came in school with. I had a few spare shirts in my office and a sweater. We didn't have water for bathing. However, a few blocks away was a gym with an inside swimming pool. We fantasized about jumping in and washing our hair. One of our science teachers ruined the dream when he pointed out that the pumps wouldn't work and that soon that water would be full of bacteria.
Some of us wanted to explore the rest of the school. I especially wanted to go to my choir room. "It's just down the hall on the right." I talked Maggie into going with me. My room had no windows or outside doors. I was almost sure it could be a safe place to expand our new home. It would really help to have more room for everyone. We also needed to go back to the cafeteria and see what else we needed now that we had been there a little while. On our first venture, we were rushed out of there by the storm. Now we realized we needed things like dish soap, plastic trays, more garbage bags, cooking pans.
The weather felt pleasantly cool. Some of our science teachers built a fire pit. The walk in freezer was no longer a freezer but some food was still cold enough to save. I remembered seeing large cans of chili and cheese in the pantry. Maybe there were hot dogs in the back of the cooler that were still good. I'm sure they have a can opener in there. A barbecue sounded wonderful.
As a group, we decided to have a least one other person with us if we went anywhere. We didn't want someone to fall into a hole or have something fall on them without anyone knowing. It wasn't a demand, it was an expectation. Funny the way we all threw out teacher language when we wanted to get our points across. In teaching the word expectation is softer than a demand. It simply means - "This is what I want you to do in order to succeed in my class and to get a good grade." We simply wanted to live in our temporary new world. Our expectations were to make that happen.
I loved that word - Temporary. Surely by this time next week, we would all be back with our families. There was no guarantee but there was hope.
We still didn't have an official leader though some tended to lead more than others. There were still many tears at night especially from the young mothers missing their children. We tried to comfort them. We will know more tomorrow.
Most of us jumped into work finding our own little niche to clean up or organize. It sounded silly but I was so proud of my little push broom. I cleaned the hallway outside. I turned the corner toward my room. I asked Maggie to go with me. We made a pathway to my door. It was still locked. I used my key to open it hoping I would find a new little oasis.
There were no emergency lights in my room. It was so dark. Too dark to enter without a flashlight. I should have brought one. Why didn't I think this through? Then I heard it- a snarl, a nasty snarl. There were four eyes staring at us. Raccoons. Several years ago we knew some raccoons inhabited the attic in the school. The school system called animal control and we had been assured none were left. Raccoons may look sweet but they can be terrifying if cornered and hungry. These guys were both. They must have fallen through the ceiling tiles during the explosion. Maggie and I backed off. Before I could slam the door shut they came screaming out into the hallway. I must have looked like a strange little old lady battling raccoons with a push broom. They scampered away from us toward another part of the building. I had let the beasts loose.
Maggie and I started laughing uncontrollably. Three days ago I could not imagine myself battling forest monsters in my school. Now I was armed and dangerous and giggling so hard I slightly peed my pants. Maggie was no help she thought the whole thing would have looked great on America's Funniest Home Videos.
It felt good to laugh even though my heart was in my throat by the sudden appearance of critters. We went back to the band hall to get flashlights and some extra people just in case there were more of them. We returned better equipped and were able to see the state of my room. It did smell bad. The raccoons had been there for three days. They had left droppings everywhere. Except for the fallen ceiling tiles the room looked as if it might be usable. It would have to be cleaned up but it would be worth the effort.
Note to self from now on, go back to the girl scout days and always be prepared. Well, I really didn't know if I was qualified to call myself a girl scout. I got kicked out of girl scouts when I was eleven years old.
I know that sounds really bad but the true story is somewhat ridiculous.
I went to the first meeting of Troop 243. The other girls liked me and I was elected to be the troop leader. I was super excited and immediately started to plan a hiking and camping trip. However, the troop leader had anther idea. Mrs. Irvin wanted us to sew. She decided we were going to make potholders and napkins. The idea of sewing was appalling to me. Instead of acting mature about it, I quit going to meetings. About four weeks later, Mrs. Irvin's daughter knocked on my door. I had my sister open the door.
"This is to inform you that Judy Coleman is no longer a member of the Girls Scouts of America."
The next day I was walking home from school and another little girl stopped me.
"You're Judy Coleman aren't you." She smirked, "You can never be a girl scout anywhere in America again. You are on the girl scout blacklist!"
It took me years to realize there really is no "Girl Scout Black List."
Maggie enjoyed the story as I told it to her.
We had a brief moment of silliness before devastation hit us once more. Our "Explorer Team" was back. It was only about two in the afternoon. They made it down the main street. There was no way to get to what used to be the Walmart. The earth had split. There was a large chasm between us and that side of the world. Now we were sure it had been an earthquake. The chasm was at least 200 feet across and 300 feet down. The huge rainstorm had filled it with water. We might eventually be able to cross it if it dried up but we didn't have the right equipment right now.
Jimmy looked tired and beaten for a moment. Then he looked at us. "Tomorrow, we will go the other way. I think there is a pharmacy on old 1560. It will be about four or five miles from here. We did find a seven eleven. Several people were dead in there. There were no signs of vandalism. We were able to get batteries, painkillers and cold medicine. We brought back as much as we could in our backpacks. Next time we need a better plan. We need ways to transport things back for us."
My mind drifted, "Be Prepared." What the heck did that have to do with Pot Holders?
"We can go by the computer rooms." Doug was anxious to find Patty. "The only people who weren't in the auditorium when the shaking started is our office staff. We need to find out what has happened to them. I also heard from some of you that people saw Patty and Sherry leave during the vignettes. We need to find out if they are ok."
The next morning we awoke to cool temperatures and a fresh breeze. It was the perfect morning to venture into the outside world. Several of the coaches joined Doug on the exploration. The computer hallway was damaged and dangerous. None the less, the young men cautiously stepped through it. As they approached the office, the floor became unstable. To go further could cause another cave in. Nothing but rubble could be seen on the floor below them.
"Carolina. Anyone. Can you hear me? Are you okay?" The men spoke with loud clear voices. They couldn't get any closer. They would just have to hope they could make contact. "Carolina, anyone, where are you guys?" A head peeked out the side door of the teacher's lounge. It was Patty.
"There's ten of us in here. We can't get out to you yet. We may be able to go around the building out front and make our way around now that the rain has stopped. Are you all still in the auditorium?"
Doug was relieved to see her. "No, the auditorium is destroyed. We will try to send a group around to you and help you to join us. We are in the band hall. Do you have food and water."
"We are okay, some minor injuries but overall we are okay. We have a few supplies, at least enough for today. Can you come around from the outside? The front steps are still intact. I think we can get to them."
"Okay, it will take us a while, but we will find a way."Doug sighed with relief. "Sorry about missing our date, Patty. Something came up, or should I say down."
Doug's attempt at humor made Patty laugh. Even though the last two days were stressful, she somehow felt stronger. She now had true friends she could trust. Sometimes disaster does make good people act better than they knew they could."
"No, problem, Doug," Patty yelled back at the group. "Let's make that date for tomorrow."
She watched the men turn around before she went back in the lounge with the wonderful news, there were other survivors.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The rubble in the parking lot made the trek difficult but not impossible. The search party made it around to the front in about 30 minutes.
Patty and the others were sitting on the front steps waiting for them. An hour later we welcomed them to our makeshift home. None of us wanted to tell them about the deaths in our group but we had to be honest. Carolina took the death of our principal, Tommy, extremely hard.
We were tired of staying indoors. Most of us ventured out and sat in the sun.
So much to do now. Being outside gave us a new sense of freedom.
I picked out Sherry from the front office group. "So happy to see you, Sherry. Are you truly alright?'
Sherry and I had been friends for years. We weren't as close as Krissie and I were, but we had a deep respect for each other. She asked me to go for a short walk with her. We slowly walked to an open spot where we could see the expanse of the parking lot. We sat on two large cement blocks that were probably remnants of the gym.
"I'm fine."
Her words contrasted with her face. I asked her to walk over to one of our newly built sitting areas. We sat on two concrete blocks. They were probably part of our former gym.
"So much has happened to you in the last few years. Now, we are facing a whole new challenge. Are you sure you are okay."
"Grief is a strange horse to ride. The last two days I have learned a few new things about myself and life. Of course, I am not all that happy, but today I feel a little more content."
She told me a little about the young girl, Patty. "I would have liked for someone like her to meet my son. She is smart, funny and athletic. He would have really liked her." The old sadness returned to her eyes.
Abruptly she stopped, "What is that?" She pointed in the distance to a small figure in the middle of the parking lot.
"Where?" then I saw movement. "It looks like a child, but what is she carrying?" We both called for help from the others.
"Coach Neil, Is that a child out there?" She was all the way on the street at least five hundred yards away from us. Coach grabbed a couple of the young men and headed out. The image stood still. If it was a girl, she was wearing a backpack and holding a doll. It took twenty minutes to reach her. They knelt down so as not to scare her. We could see one of the young men gently lift her into his arms and head back to us. The child refused to put down the doll.
"Someone run in and get Doug. She may be hurt."
Doug rushed out. He looked directly at me and asked me for help. "Get one of the water bottles. She may not have eaten in three days."
He ran out to meet the group. The first thing he noticed was that the child was silent, refusing to talk. The second thing he discovered is that the doll was a living baby.
What we thought was a backpack was actually a diaper bag. A small can of formula and a bottle were in the bottom pocket.
Sherry offered to help with the two children. Years ago she had thought of stopping teaching to become a children's counselors. She followed the young coach still holding both children into the building.
We all wanted to greet the child but our instincts told us to back off and give her the space she needed. With her background in child pshchology, Sherry was the best person to help.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jimmy knew it was time to leave and try to find his much-needed medicine. Five men volunteered to go with him.
I would have loved to be one of them but I was in my fifties and my knees would slow them down. Their plan was simple. They would go to Sam's car first and get the weapon. Then they would head down the main street in front of the school. They planned on going to the pharmacy at Walmart. We had no idea what else they would find. We hoped there were other survivors who would be willing to help.
We tried to come up with scenarios. Would they need money? Right now credit cards were useless. They might be able to find the Pharmacy but how would they get in? Would there be people vandalizing? Would we have to bribe them? Would they recognize our medical needs and help us or would they have to fight to get what we needed?
Some of the band students left backpacks in their instrument lockers. Mr. Statistics, as we now jokingly called him, kept track of who it might belong to by the names written on the front covers of the school books. We didn't want to steal but we did want to use anything that might help us. We found some old plastic bags and put drinks and sandwiches in them for the explorers. It felt good that someone was leaving for a little while. We craved outside knowledge.
The parking lot looked like it was passable by foot. Many of us stood on the small porch at the top of the steps. It was as if we were asking them to climb Mount Everest. We waved goodbye and expected to see them again that evening.
True to our words we started working in smaller committees.
One of our science teachers was an avid camper. He came up with a makeshift outhouse. At first, we all wandered into the bathrooms across from the band hall, but they quickly became unusable and stuffed. We had plenty of concrete outside. Some of the men carried it in. We made one practice room for women and one for men. We made a square structure with a whole in the middle. We put a large garbage bag around it. We would use a trash can for our liquid waste and the bags for our other functions. For now, we had enough bags to replace them every day with a new one. None of us planned on being here forever. We could tie them up and take it to a designated dump zone outside. It might not become our favorite job, but necessity made it one we could all share.
We were all wearing the same clothes we came in school with. I had a few spare shirts in my office and a sweater. We didn't have water for bathing. However, a few blocks away was a gym with an inside swimming pool. We fantasized about jumping in and washing our hair. One of our science teachers ruined the dream when he pointed out that the pumps wouldn't work and that soon that water would be full of bacteria.
Some of us wanted to explore the rest of the school. I especially wanted to go to my choir room. "It's just down the hall on the right." I talked Maggie into going with me. My room had no windows or outside doors. I was almost sure it could be a safe place to expand our new home. It would really help to have more room for everyone. We also needed to go back to the cafeteria and see what else we needed now that we had been there a little while. On our first venture, we were rushed out of there by the storm. Now we realized we needed things like dish soap, plastic trays, more garbage bags, cooking pans.
The weather felt pleasantly cool. Some of our science teachers built a fire pit. The walk in freezer was no longer a freezer but some food was still cold enough to save. I remembered seeing large cans of chili and cheese in the pantry. Maybe there were hot dogs in the back of the cooler that were still good. I'm sure they have a can opener in there. A barbecue sounded wonderful.
As a group, we decided to have a least one other person with us if we went anywhere. We didn't want someone to fall into a hole or have something fall on them without anyone knowing. It wasn't a demand, it was an expectation. Funny the way we all threw out teacher language when we wanted to get our points across. In teaching the word expectation is softer than a demand. It simply means - "This is what I want you to do in order to succeed in my class and to get a good grade." We simply wanted to live in our temporary new world. Our expectations were to make that happen.
I loved that word - Temporary. Surely by this time next week, we would all be back with our families. There was no guarantee but there was hope.
We still didn't have an official leader though some tended to lead more than others. There were still many tears at night especially from the young mothers missing their children. We tried to comfort them. We will know more tomorrow.
Most of us jumped into work finding our own little niche to clean up or organize. It sounded silly but I was so proud of my little push broom. I cleaned the hallway outside. I turned the corner toward my room. I asked Maggie to go with me. We made a pathway to my door. It was still locked. I used my key to open it hoping I would find a new little oasis.
There were no emergency lights in my room. It was so dark. Too dark to enter without a flashlight. I should have brought one. Why didn't I think this through? Then I heard it- a snarl, a nasty snarl. There were four eyes staring at us. Raccoons. Several years ago we knew some raccoons inhabited the attic in the school. The school system called animal control and we had been assured none were left. Raccoons may look sweet but they can be terrifying if cornered and hungry. These guys were both. They must have fallen through the ceiling tiles during the explosion. Maggie and I backed off. Before I could slam the door shut they came screaming out into the hallway. I must have looked like a strange little old lady battling raccoons with a push broom. They scampered away from us toward another part of the building. I had let the beasts loose.
Maggie and I started laughing uncontrollably. Three days ago I could not imagine myself battling forest monsters in my school. Now I was armed and dangerous and giggling so hard I slightly peed my pants. Maggie was no help she thought the whole thing would have looked great on America's Funniest Home Videos.
It felt good to laugh even though my heart was in my throat by the sudden appearance of critters. We went back to the band hall to get flashlights and some extra people just in case there were more of them. We returned better equipped and were able to see the state of my room. It did smell bad. The raccoons had been there for three days. They had left droppings everywhere. Except for the fallen ceiling tiles the room looked as if it might be usable. It would have to be cleaned up but it would be worth the effort.
Note to self from now on, go back to the girl scout days and always be prepared. Well, I really didn't know if I was qualified to call myself a girl scout. I got kicked out of girl scouts when I was eleven years old.
I know that sounds really bad but the true story is somewhat ridiculous.
I went to the first meeting of Troop 243. The other girls liked me and I was elected to be the troop leader. I was super excited and immediately started to plan a hiking and camping trip. However, the troop leader had anther idea. Mrs. Irvin wanted us to sew. She decided we were going to make potholders and napkins. The idea of sewing was appalling to me. Instead of acting mature about it, I quit going to meetings. About four weeks later, Mrs. Irvin's daughter knocked on my door. I had my sister open the door.
"This is to inform you that Judy Coleman is no longer a member of the Girls Scouts of America."
The next day I was walking home from school and another little girl stopped me.
"You're Judy Coleman aren't you." She smirked, "You can never be a girl scout anywhere in America again. You are on the girl scout blacklist!"
It took me years to realize there really is no "Girl Scout Black List."
Maggie enjoyed the story as I told it to her.
We had a brief moment of silliness before devastation hit us once more. Our "Explorer Team" was back. It was only about two in the afternoon. They made it down the main street. There was no way to get to what used to be the Walmart. The earth had split. There was a large chasm between us and that side of the world. Now we were sure it had been an earthquake. The chasm was at least 200 feet across and 300 feet down. The huge rainstorm had filled it with water. We might eventually be able to cross it if it dried up but we didn't have the right equipment right now.
Jimmy looked tired and beaten for a moment. Then he looked at us. "Tomorrow, we will go the other way. I think there is a pharmacy on old 1560. It will be about four or five miles from here. We did find a seven eleven. Several people were dead in there. There were no signs of vandalism. We were able to get batteries, painkillers and cold medicine. We brought back as much as we could in our backpacks. Next time we need a better plan. We need ways to transport things back for us."
My mind drifted, "Be Prepared." What the heck did that have to do with Pot Holders?
The girl scout story is true. I hope you don't think less of me for being on the Girl Scout Black List. Also , several years ago we did have Raccoons in our ceiling at school. They find they way through vents. We had to lock down the school briefly when one fell in. The exterminators did come in and remove them.
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