Free Flight #116 Is Down by Caroline B. Cooney Page B

debris. Someone crawled toward her. The person could not see Heidi but crawled in a circular way, like a bird with one wing.
    Bridge, thought Heidi. I have to build a bridge. She tried to think of something long and solid, something light enough to carry down here.
    Saturday, 5:51:45 P.M.
    Even in the smoky, stinking, icy air, Patrick could see that this girl passenger was stunning. He found himself glad that somebody so beautiful was not hurt, that she was walking around. “There’s a boy back there caught under the wreckage. Go sit with him, okay?”
    The beautiful girl looked at Patrick. Her eyes were immense, framed by a romantic cloud of hair that somehow was not touched by the rain, and in spite of the horror around him, Patrick was turned on.
    But a hand touched his leg. A voice said, “Help me, I’m right here, please, there’s something in me, something went right through me, please, please.”
    He forgot the beautiful girl, kneeling down to the horror of seeing some sort of metal rod going straight through the chest of a woman in a short-sleeved sweater. “I’m so cold,” said the woman, and although he could not see her tears in the rain, he could tell she was crying.
    Patrick took off his jacket, crying himself. He wanted to put it under her and protect her from the cold ground, but she could not be moved, so he tucked it over her, wrapping his jacket around the rod, saying, “Ambulances are coming. We’ll have a stretcher down here in no time.”
    The woman smiled at him gently, and he could read her smile as if her lips spoke. I have no time.
    From beyond the hill and the ravine came the wandering wail of the first siren.
    Never had Patrick heard such a beautiful sound.

Seven
    S ATURDAY: 5:59 P.M.
    Darienne could not believe that some filthy, mud-encrusted teenage boy was giving her instructions.
    She had been standing there in an odd frozen position with interior noise she could not get rid of ricocheting inside her head. She had been knotting and unknotting her hands, counting the number of times she was doing it. She had the weird feeling of being asleep on her feet: walking alive through the nightmare of other people’s dreams.
    But now she was awake; that grimy boy touching her sleeve had brought her back to her senses.
    She understood that phrase now: her senses really had abandoned her—thought, smell, vision, touch—but now they were back; Darienne was whole and wholly calm.
    She walked carefully past the debris. She had to focus enough not to stumble, but she managed not actually to discern what lay on the ground. She even shut the noise out of her ears. When she came out of the wooded part, she could see the house clearly. Every light was on. How beautiful the place was against the night sky. It was also immense.
    These people have money, thought Darienne with respect. Serious money. Old intensive-style money.
    She wondered what kind of cars they drove.
    She got up the slippery hill without stumbling and found a back door. A large copper red dog attempted to hand her a saliva-lathered latex toy. She kneed the dog away from her.
    Firemen and ambulance people, policemen in uniforms, who-knew-what in special jackets were pouring through the house and out the back, like a tide. About time, thought Darienne irritably. She surveyed the scene.
    Ugh.
    Blood, mud, melting ice everywhere.
    Antique rugs with a silken sheen were being ignored, and bleeding people were actually lying down on them. Darienne thought blood was the most disgusting thing in the entire world. She could not tolerate the idea of what the human body was like beneath the skin and felt strongly that as long as she kept her own skin flawless, she would never have to think about things like blood.
    Shuddering, Darienne steered her way through the chaos into the kitchen. It was huge; semiremodeled from the days of many servants. Darienne shook her head, thinking of another age. She would have liked to be rich back then.
    Darienne