High School Fire Drill

It was 1:39, and the second hand on the clock repeatedly ticked, drawing out the time until I was allowed to leave. I sat at the cold desk in my chemistry classroom, facing forward towards my teacher, Mrs. Voorstad, who was doing conversions on the black board in the front of the room. Impatiently, I looked at the black and white face of the clock mounted on the wall, waiting for the minute hand to tick to 1:50 so I could exit the classroom and get out of school. I fidgeted with my pencil while I waited, procrastinating doing the calculations on the desk in front of me. I was excited for my flight that afternoon; I would be flying from Philadelphia to Florida for a soccer tournament.

As the second hand completed another 360-degree rotation around the clock, and the minute hand reached 1:40, there was a loud screeching coming from the hallway: the fire alarm. Immediately, I stood up like the rest of the students in my class and began walking out of the room. I briefly considered taking my bags with me but decided to leave them behind as I presumed it was simply a fire drill (and that I would be back in time for my early dismissal).

Little did I know that this was not a fire drill, as I soon found out, when people began saying that everyone was supposed to walk over to the 9th grade center (which was across the street from the

I just followed those in front of me, nervously wondering how this would all play out as fellow students chattered about how they were missing a physics quiz and how excited they were for the weekend. As we neared the traffic light to cross the street, fire trucks began to pull into the high school along with numerous police cars, all with their lights flashing and sirens blaring. As we began to cross the street, I finally saw a teacher standing by the corner at the traffic