"Good evening, darling!" I exclaimed to my granddaughter.

"Can you tell me another story?" Heather asked with her sweet blue eyes, which looked at me eagerly. Her silky blonde hair looked just like my husband's hair when he was sixteen.

"Oh, okay! I don't know which story to tell!" I laughed.

"Make up one," Heather replied.

I giggled. "How did you, a five-year-old, get so demanding?"

"I don't know. Can you just tell of an interesting experience?"

"Okay. Let's say I was sixteen years old," I began as memories flowed rapidly.

* * *

I looked in the mirror and thought, This is just the outfit I want to wear today! Not too fancy, not too casual, and not tight at all! Twirling around in front of the long mirror in my jean shorts and blue gymnastics championship shirt, I finally felt satisfied. My chestnut hair fell loosely onto my shoulders, my stormy blue eyes complemented my shirt, and my pale skin looked tan for once.

I looked around my sky blue room for anything I might need for school. Then I noticed my messy green bed, which I forgot to make. I quickly threw the sheets over my pillows at the end of the bed.

My modern-style room was clean. I made my way to my bookshelf, which covered an entire wall in my room. It was my favorite place to be because it had the ability to take me places where only a few exotic people dare to go. I carefully placed a book that had fallen back on the shelf and grabbed the birthday gift wrapped so neatly with pink ribbon. Then I ran down the stairs in my silver sandals, which clashed against the wooden steps.

"Good morning, honey," exclaimed my mom. She had tied up her long chestnut hair up in a bun, and she wore her "Cook with Passion" apron over her jeans and tank top.

"Good morning to you!" I responded.

"Do you want some breakfast? I can make you my famous egg whites with a side of very fancy whole grain bread." She winked.

"Sorry, I can gladly still resist the horrible taste of egg whites. Also my math test is today, and I need all the extra study time I can get!" I replied with a look of complete distaste.

"Well, you can always just stay a minute," my dad suggested as he came into the kitchen. He put his arm around my mom and gave me a puppy dog face with his lower lip pushed out.

"Oh, I guess so." I laughed.

"How do you do that?" My mom was smiling.

"It's talent, something that is truly a gift from God," he explained right before he kissed her.

"Whatever." I opened the refrigerator to get some milk.

I poured myself a glass and got the Pop Tarts from the left cabinet, and I dug into the food.

"Honey, you're eating like a military soldier." My mother sighed.

"That's okay. Military soldiers have excellent minds in battle, so maybe that will help me in my math test," I teased. "Thanks for breakfast!" I took one last gulp of my milk.

"Tell Alice I wish her a happy birthday!" My mom called after me.

With a wave good-bye, I jogged to my rusty, used white car.

Once I stepped out of my car in the school's parking lot, I immediately heard my name being called.

"Annabel! Annabel! Over here!" shouted my best friend Alice.

She was standing in the parking lot with her backpack on the ground by her feet, waving her arms like she was swatting at a bee. Her blonde curls were jumping up and down. The huge high school towering behind her, with windows lined in rows in different sections, looked like a piece of art. The dome roof was copper, and it looked as if I were standing in front of a tourist attraction site.

"Hey, Alice, what's up?"

"What's up? What's up! I'll tell you what's up! Today is my birthday! I'm sixteen over here. Thank you very much."

"I know that! I just was thinking of something else at the time. Happy birthday!"

"Whatever. So what should we do? Skip school, go to a fair, have a nice lunch, and be back at our houses by the regular time so our parents don't notice anything?" Alice suggested.

"Alice, you know how I feel about that."

"No one will know," she repeated.

"God will." I put a hand on my hip.

"Can you just give that God stuff a break! It's my birthday!" She stomped off toward her car.

After practically running from my car to my math class, I was still angry about Alice. After she figured out that I didn't approve of ditching school, she never asked about it again.

"Okay, class, as you know, we have a test today, so let's skip all the noise you make at the beginning of class. If this does not take you the whole class period, please remain quiet for the others, and do not cheat," Mrs. Walker said while she passed out the tests. She looked exhausted, and I saw some strands of hair falling out of her low ponytail.

Once I got my test, I did not immediately start working on it like I usually did. Instead I looked over at Alice, who was three seats across from me. Her short blonde hair was curled, and her earrings made a dinging sound when she moved her head. Her hipster tank top hung low, and her jean shorts had a couple small rips in them.

She looked back at me and then quickly retreated back to her test once she realized I was looking at her. This isn't like her, I thought. I then started to read the first question on the test. I only got to number ten when we started to hear loud, short bursts of sounds. A loud ring with every burst hurt my eardrums before I realized what the noises were, gunshots. My classmates started screaming and shouting while covering their ears.

"Quiet! Don't panic! Code red!" Mrs. Walker shouted. "Get in the back closet!"

We all knew what code red meant, to find a place to hide and hope the shooter doesn't kill us. There really would be no hope for the unfortunate people who were locked out in the hallway. My mind raced with questions, and my body shook with panic.

I took Alice by the arm and motioned to a place to take cover. She knew, if we hid somewhere other than where most kids were stationed, we would have a better chance of surviving this.

We passed a window while going to Mrs. Walker's desk, and as I looked outside for a second, I saw a fourth grader fall to the ground with blood staining his shirt. I fought the urge to run and help the boy and instead proceeded to attempt to save Alice and myself.

Trying to hold back the vomit, I crawled into the wooden drawers in the desk first, and then Alice followed. We curled up inside the small drawers for about ten to fifteen minutes and waited, while every minute, a tear or two rolled down Alice's cheek.

Please, God, be with us. Make the shooters leave.

No tear was rolling down my face. I felt weak yet not fragile enough to cry. The gunshots stopped, and the school got very quiet. I could only hear Alice and myself breathing with an occasional loud sniff from one of my classmates. I felt my chest rise with every breath I took. A door creaked open just as the only redhead in my class, Jim, sneezed. A rough laugh exploded. Panic began to spread through me like a disease swimming through my bloodstream.

About six footsteps came into the room. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

Horrible laughs filled the room, and I heard desks falling over and books being thrown to the ground. Each noise made me cringe.

Another sneeze came, but this time, even I could tell it came from the peach-colored closet in the back of the room. The footsteps inched toward the closet door,...