Chapter One

She was gone.

I was looking directly at her. Mrs. Williams was in the middle of writing an 'o' on the board. The chalk that she was using to write the word 'polynomial' on the board hit the carpet with a soft thud. I stared at the board for a moment, not really accepting what had happened. Then I realized Mrs. Williams was not the only one that had disappeared.

Jink and Michael, the two boys in her study group were gone too. I had been sitting next to them for almost an hour. Math class in room 211 was almost over.

I carefully set my pencil down onto my notebook and got out of my chair.

I walked into the hallway of Perdido Beach School quickly and I found Mr. Trentlake's history classroom where most of the kids my age had class. I slowly opened the door slowly, halfway not wanting to see what happened inside this classroom. When I had the door halfway open I heard the silence in the room and bit my lip.

I walked inside the room and looked around. The history teacher wasn't there. I noticed everyone was looking at me in disappointment as if they hoped that I was their teacher walking inside the room and not myself. I felt with them but I continued to look around the room.

"Where's your teacher?" I asked.

Many of the people shrugged. Some of the people looked unconcerned and bored as if they didn't care. I knew better than that.

"He poofed," a surfer boy that I think goes by the name of Quinn said.

I shook my head, even more concerned now that Quinn had voiced what had really happened. "Something weird is happening. My math study group…there was just three of us, plus the teacher. They all just disappeared."

"What?" Sam Temple asked.

I turned my gaze to him. His bright eyes looked at me in concern and even fear. At least he understood what I was feeling. I felt a wave of fear go through me. Sam Temple had an old reputation of being a hero. If he was scared too then I should be also.

"They're gone. They all just…disappeared." I said the words quietly, trying not to let my emotions show too well.

"What about your teacher?" a across-the-border looking boy asked me, his brown eyes searching mine.

"She's gone, too," I replied.

"Gone?" The boy narrowed his eyes in thought.

"Poof," Quinn said, this time not giggling.

Sounds started to register in my ears. Distantly I heard the horrid sounds of cars colliding, alarms sounding, and more alarms. I listened close and closed my eyes as the mystery became even more confusing. I opened my eyes almost immediately but I was still thinking quickly.

When I opened my eyes I noticed Sam Temple rising from his seat, slowly like it wasn't his right to do so. He kept his eyes on the ground as he stood and walked towards the door where I was standing. I noticed his eyes on the ground so I moved out of the way so he could walk by.

Quinn was rising out of his seat next, ready to follow his best friend out of the room. I walked behind Quinn as he stepped in behind Sam. Sam was checking rooms and hallways, looking for teachers. So far it looked as if he'd found none, judging by the grim look on his face. He moved towards my math classroom.

I walked into the classroom and looked around. It was still empty. The books lay open and the chairs moved in the positions of when the boys were still sitting in them.

Sam was observing the room with a keen eye and I noticed his eyes were on the chalk board. The words "polyn" were still the only words on the chalk board.

"She was writing the word 'polynomial,'" I said in a quiet voice.

Sam said, "Yeah, I was going to guess that."

Quinn made a feeble attempt at humor but it didn't work very well.

"She disappeared in the middle of writing the 'o'. I was looking right at her." I said the words as in explanation, ignoring Quinn's attempt.

Sam pointed at the chalk on the ground that was right where it had fallen a few minutes before when Mrs. Williams disappeared.

Quinn said, "This is not normal,"

I looked at Quinn. Today he was dressed in baggy shorts, Army-surplus desert boots, a pink golf shirt, and a gray fedora. I narrowed my eyes at him. This boy was not normal.

"The two other kids, plus the teacher are gone. All except Astrid," Sam said and I smiled to myself when his voiced tripped over saying my name. "That's definitely not normal."

"Yeah. Kind of quiet in here, brah," Quinn said. "Okay, I'm ready to wake up now."

I looked at Quinn, half amused and half scared. This time Quinn wasn't kidding. He wanted to wake up. I did too. The next second I wondered why Quinn had called Sam "brah". I didn't waste my time thinking about it.

Then somebody screamed.

We stumbled into the hallway, falling into each other as we tried to see what was going on. The sound of that scream had not been good. It turned out to be a sixth grader that goes by the name of Becka. She was holding her cell phone to herself, her green eyes wide.

"There's no answer. There's no answer." Becka cried with her voice tripping over the words. "There's nothing."

For two seconds everyone in the hallway froze, as if they were hypnotized. Then all of the students starting punching in numbers on their cell phones, seemingly desperate to prove Becka wrong.

There was an outbreak of whining, crying, and screaming. I blocked out some of the kids and only listened to a few.

"My mom would be home, she would answer. It's not even ringing."

"I have three bars."

The chatter turned into yelling and screaming. The children were starting to panic. Somebody told people to call 911.

"Who do you think I called numbnuts?"

Apparently these kids were smarter than I thought. They actually called a helpful number. But I couldn't pretend that the new revelation that 911 didn't pick up didn't worry me.

"There's no 911?" a scared voice asked.

"There's nothing. I've gone through half my speed dials, and there's not anything."

The alarm bell rang loudly. Some of the people flinched as if they'd never heard the alarm go off before. I moved my gaze to Sam. His eyes were wide, a strange look of alarm and readiness in them.

Children started asking each other what to do. They were confused and it was obvious some of them wondered if they should transition to their next class.

"Someone must be in the office," a young voice called out with a sudden yet stupid hope. "The bell went off."

"It's on a timer, moron." Howard said, walking up toward us in the hallway.

I looked at Howard. His small body was filled with confidence because he was Orc's number-one toady. His eyes scanned the room as if he was looking for trouble.

"They have a TV in the teachers' lounge," I said as a sudden idea come to my mind.

Sam looked at me with mild surprise and at the same time we raced to the teachers' lounge, with odd Quinn following behind us. We ran down the stairs and onto the bottom floor. Sam put his hand on the door of the lounge and we all froze.

"We're not supposed to go in there," I said quietly.

"You care?" Quinn said as if he thought I was crazy for thinking of the rules at a time like this.

Sam pushed the door open. I looked around the room. A carton of yogurt was on the floor, the refrigerator open. The TV was on but there was no picture on it. All I saw was static.

I scanned the room, looking quickly for the remote just like Sam was doing.

Surprisingly, Quinn was the one who found the remote. He began running through the channels, pushing the button hard and quick. There was nothing on the TV. All there was was static.

"Cable's out," Sam said and his eyes told me he knew how stupid he sounded.

I reached behind the set as a sudden idea came to mind. I unscrewed the coaxial cable and the screen flickered, the quality of the blurry static changed a little but there was still nothing on the screen.

"You can always get channel nine," Quinn said and I began to feel bad for thinking he was stupid. "Even without cable."

"Teachers, some of the kids, cable, broadcast, cell phones, all gone at the same time?" I frowned, my head working hard to figure out what was going on. The two boys looked at me, as if they were expecting me to suddenly say that I knew what was going on. I knew I had a reputation of being a genius. Astrid the Genius, I was called. I hated that name but there was nothing I could do about it.

"It doesn't make sense." I said finally and Sam sighed slightly then his eyes went bright with an idea.

He moved to the wall phone and lifted the receiver, a landline. His eyebrows knitted together and he shook his head slightly. "No dial tone. Is there a radio in here?"

He looked at me and we connected eyes for a moment. I looked away, trying to hide my sudden excitement and scanned the room for a radio. Together Sam, Quinn and I looked for a radio in the teachers' lounge. It turned out there was none.

The door suddenly slammed open. I looked up quickly from the couch I was looking at uselessly and I noticed there were two young fifth grade looking boys. Their faces were filled with excitement and one of them walked closer to us and yelled, "We own the school!" while the other one gave a wild hoot sound.

"We're going to bust open the candy machine," the one who had yelled announced, his blue eyes wild and his brown hair tousled.

Sam said, "That's maybe not a good idea,"

"You can't tell us what to do." The first one announced again. The younger looking one looked between Sam and his friend quickly, as if he was wondering if he should do anything. He had brown eyes and a blue t-shirt on.

"You're right, little dude. But look, how about we try and keep it together until we figure out what's going on?" Sam said, taking the lead. I looked at him with a smile. He always seemed to do that.

"You keep it together!" the kid yelled at Sam and the younger one hooted once more. They disappeared through the doorway.

I heard Sam mutter, "I guess it would be wrong to ask them to bring me a Twix,"

I stopped myself from laughing and looked away from him. But there was something else on my mind. I was thinking, the wheels turning in my brain quickly. I thought of something.

"Fifteen." I said.

Quinn didn't understand. "No, man, they were like, ten."

I shook my head. "Not them. The kids in my class. Jink and Michael. They were both math whizzes, better than me, but they had LDs-" I stopped and told them what LDs stood for because Quinn had given me a blank look. "Dyslexia. That kept them back. They were both a little older. I was the only fourteen-year-old."

Sam's bright eyes lit up. "I think Josh was maybe fifteen, in our class,"

"So?" Quinn said.

"So he was fifteen, Quinn. He just...just disappeared. Blink and he was gone."

"No way," Quinn shook his head. "Every adult and older kid in the whole school just disappears? That makes no sense."

I didn't think it made sense either. None of it made sense. I was thinking again and off in my own world. It could not have been just the school where the people disappeared. Those car alarms and the car crashes. I spoke what I thought aloud.

"What?" Quinn snapped.

"The phones and TV?" I tried to explain to him.

"No, no, no, no, no," Quinn said. He was smiling half way and his eyes shown his surprise and sadness.

"My mom," Sam said sadly.

"Man, stop this," Quinn said loudly. "All right? It's not funny."

My eyes moved to Sam who was visibly swallowing and breathing in and out over and over again. Quinn's eyes were wide and scared. I frowned to myself, trying to make sense of this whole thing.

"We have to check it out," Sam announced.

I looked up. Quinn was already trying to run away, loudly releasing a sobbing type of breath. Sam held onto his best friend by his shoulders.

"Get off me, brah," Quinn snapped. "I have to go home. I have to see."

"We all have to go see," Sam told Quinn and me. "But let's go together."

I looked at Sam. He looked so calm and collected. I could tell he was scared and confused of course but his eyes were filled with leadership and love for his panicking best friend. He tightened his grip on Quinn when he tried to pull away from him.

"Quinn. Together. Come on, man, it's like a wipeout, you know? You get launched, what do you do?"

"You try not to get worked up," Quinn replied shakily.

"That's right." Sam smiled slightly. "You keep your head straight through the spin cycle. Right? Then you swim toward daylight."

I smiled. "Surfing metaphor?"

Quinn finally stoped resisting his friend and told us he wanted to check on his house first. He kept saying that it was messed up over and over again. I agreed with him.

"Astrid?" Sam said my name as if he was asking me if I wanted to come along. I looked at him, hoping to see something in his tanned face. I didn't know what to do. I was lost. I had to look to him, Sam Temple for guidance.

We started to walk down the hallway. Voices were raised loudly. There was babbling. They wanted it to be okay and making noise seemed to be the answer. Some of them were just being wild, some screaming.

"Come with us, Astrid, okay?" Sam said to me. "We'll be safer together."

I flinched at the word "safer". I looked at Sam's bright eyes. Surfer Sam, my long-lasting crush. I never thought I'd look to him in a time like this. I never thought he'd be such a leader. I always thought of him as being a normal teen keeping a low profile. I nodded.

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