Chapter 15: Four Calls

Dad's phone rang twice and went to a recorded voice that said the person I was calling was on another line.

He was talking to the alarm company, I found out later.

At the time it only meant the first call had failed.

I called Mom.

It rang three times, and then it stopped in the middle of a ring.

I knew that sound.

It is the sound of a thumb pressing a red button.

I called Colin, who keeps his phone on silent for everything, and it rang until it ended.

I called June.

She declined it on the first ring, and a text came in a second later.

"in a test!! can't talk. u ok??"

I typed, "Stuck in Annex Two behind a fire door. Smoke. Staff corridor. Not a bit."

The phone said "Not Delivered," and the one bar was gone.

The cleaner had slid down the wall and sat with her knees up and my sunglasses still on her face.

Even in the dark I could see the smoke gathering in a long flat layer over our heads.

"Stay low," I said, and we both lay down on the freezer floor with our cheeks on the cold tile.

The air near the ground was cleaner.

It was also very cold, and I started to shake, and I could not tell if it was the cold.

"Nobody picked up," the cleaner said. She said it flatly, with no pity. "Four people. None of them."

"They're busy."

"Your whole family is outside this building?"

"Yes."

"Do they know you're in here?"

I thought about that.

Mom had been holding Dad's sleeve and Colin had been holding Mom, and nobody had turned around.

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