Half Lives by Sara Grant Read Free Book Online Page B

eating popcorn. I couldn’t understand a word. After the announcement ended, everyone seemed to stop – as if suspended in
jelly.
    ‘What did it say?’ I asked a man in a blue, pin-striped suit who was standing near me. When he didn’t respond, I asked a lady in a floral sundress and floppy hat. ‘What
did they say?’
    Before she could answer, everyone started talking at the same time. Tension in the airport increased by a factor of a bazillion. A plump-ish, normal-looking mom snatched the ice cream cone from
her son’s hand, dumped it in a trash can and dragged him in the direction of check-in. Everyone moved in a pack, slowly and orderly at first, and then a few people started to do this
race-walk thing. I was swept away like an extra in
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
. I didn’t resist. I needed to find another flight.
    ‘What did the announcement say?’ I asked an elderly couple. They were on a mission and I had a difficult time keeping pace with them.
    ‘All flights are grounded until further notice,’ the white-haired man shouted without slowing down. At least that’s what I thought he’d said as he raced away.
    I stopped dead in my tracks.
    9/11
. The date popped spontaneously into my brain. Mum and I had watched some documentary about 9/11. One of the first things the government did was ground all the aeroplanes. Had the
attack begun already? I shoved that thought into the dark recesses of my grey matter and covered it with a healthy dose of Dad’s platitudes: ‘it’s never as bad as you
think’, ‘what you fear the most never happens’.
    Then my mum kicked in: ‘worrying doesn’t do shit’, ‘control what you can control’.
    I did what I always did in times of extreme distress: I reached for my iPhone. Surely there was an app for being stranded in a strange airport after being kicked out of your home under some
mysterious national security threat. But my pocket was empty and I grieved for that missing hand-held extension of me.
    Someone ploughed into me from behind and I fell to my hands and knees. Another guy leapt over me as if I were a hurdle instead of a human. He misjudged my height – or I might have
accidentally
arched my back at the precise moment he jumped. He knocked me to the floor, but at least I took him with me.
    ‘Watch what you’re doing!’ the guy screamed as he staggered to his feet and hurried away. I was airport roadkill. My knees and palms stung. A woman with a bawling toddler in a
stroller ran over my fingers and didn’t even pause. I tried to stand but my backpack made me top-heavy, so I wobbled back on my butt. People huffed or muttered as they swerved around me. No
one stopped.
    If people were reacting this way already, what would happen when they learned the awful truth? I needed to keep my head down and my mouth shut and get to the bunker as fast as I could.
    Finally the corridor cleared. Only I, and some surfer-looking guy on crutches, remained. I regained my balance and stood. I tugged the hem of my shirt, brushed the dusty patches on my knees, and
followed in the wake of the stampede.
    By the time I reached the main check-in area, queues snaked into a spaghetti bowl of humanity. Airport staff in bright yellow vests tried to corral people, but they looked as sweaty and nervous
as the rest of us. General announcements rang out that might as well have said ‘abandon hope all ye who are stranded here’. Skirmishes erupted over positions in line. The airline staff
shrugged and waved their hands. Nothing they could do. People exited the airport in droves. Marooned visitors staked out territory. A herd of college-age kids in matching orange T-shirts circled
their Samsonite suitcases near the information booth. A gaggle in business suits huddled near the ticketing kiosks. Lone travellers rotated like those gooey hunks of meat in kebab shops, watching
the arrivals and departures being cancelled one by one. Alliances were forged. Battle lines drawn.