Julia came over. “Yeah, I got your stuff.” She handed me the assignments that Lia had written down for me. “Her mother came and pulled her out of class this morning. Her father was hurt really bad at work.”

“He’s a lumberjack,” said David. “Some idiot environmentalist spiked a bunch of trees and when he cut one of them down, it broke his chainsaw. He got cut up pretty bad.”

“No,” said Deborah. She put her bag down on her desk and sat down before her knees weakened and she fell down. This was her fault. The terrorist or one of his friends had to have done this because Deborah couldn’t convince anyone the terrorist was still at large. She had a whole week to warn everyone, but she had said nothing. “Will he be all right?”

“They say it doesn’t look good,” said Evan. “He’s probably not going to make it. That’s why Lia’s mother pulled her out of school.”

The bell rang and Senorita Faust called the class to order. “I know we’re all worried about Lia’s father, but we got conversations to get through. I’ll get a card for Lia that we all can sign tomorrow.”

Deborah was glad Lia and her had already done their conversation. Lia would have been a mess and Deborah had barely known what she was doing. Deborah could even concentrate on listening to the other conversations. She just dreamed of all the things she could do to that evil, evil terrorist. She had been idle far too long.

Study hall was no different. She could barely concentrate to do her homework but she managed to get through pre-calculus and physics. Nothing was left but reading on the Scarlet Letter, and Deborah just wasn’t up to it. She frowned and looked at the clock. There were five more minutes. She packed her bags and the study hall teacher glared at her. Mrs Simkins was one of those teachers that hated when students packed their bags before the final bell rung.

Finally, class ended and Deborah left to go home. As she was switching books around in her locker, the kid with the locker next to her said, “Hurry up, accident girl.”

“Give it a rest for a few days, please,” said Julia Grass. “She’s Lia’s best friend. You heard what happened to Lia’s dad.”

“Thanks,” said Deborah.

“No problem,” said Julia. “When Lia comes back, though, it is back to normal.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Deborah. She hurried to catch her bus. When she got on the bus, it felt like a different place. No one yelled, “Pee girl,” as she boarded and people told her to wish Lia’s father to get well. It was funny riding the bus alone without Lia beside her like she did all that week.

After supper, Deborah called Lia. “Hi. It’s Alison.”

All she heard on the phone was sobs.

“You want me to come over? Where are you?”