that barn touched only by stray sunbeams filtering through hay dust. Miss E. had to fly that plane again, had to finish what she'd started. I think maybe the idea entered my mind the day I'd talked to Miss E. about the twenty words and she'd told me to show them to her when I'd finished. Maybe I didn't realize it, or maybe I didn't want to admit it, but what I hoped, what I really hoped, was that I could write something that would convince Miss E. to fly again.

But twenty was not a lot of words.

I stared at the paper that was currently on my desk, the only one that hadn't been crumpled and discarded. There were about twenty words on it, but they did nothingthe other a few times and spun around once as people rushed passed, but I finally made it to the wall next to the telephone, with a chair between me and the flow of protesters.

I took what felt like my first breath in hours. I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to put my arms in front of my face and bring my knees to my chin, but instead I scanned the room for a familiar face. I found one behind the information desk in the center of the lobby. Like me, Mr. Flynn had found a safe place to get out of the endless flow of bodies moving through the lobby. A familiar face, but he no longer looked like my teacher. In class he was