"Any word?" Taylor asked, his arm around Rita.
Zac shook his head sadly.
"Nope."
"This is insane. Someone's gotta know something." Isaac said, totally exasperated.
"Thirteen classes." Rita whispered. "That's a lot of bodies..."
"Rita, c'mon, don't think like that." Taylor insisted, hugging her.
Rita sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Hi guys, any word?" Babsie asked, coming down the stairs.
"Nope." Zac replied.
"Man, it's been hours. You'd think we would have heard something."
"Not if she's dead. You know, all those bodies to sort through. Some of 'em burnt beyond recognition..." Rita burst into tears.
Again.
"Oh c'mon Rita, don't be so morbid. Maybe she took off to Hawaii for a week without telling anyone and hasn't heard about it yet." Babsie suggested.
Isaac gave her a look.
"What? I had a friend who did that. Well, actually it was two weeks, and his grandfather passed away while he was gone. His parents totally panicked when they couldn't get hold of him."
There was quiet. During the silence, Isaac wandered up to Babsie.
"You made that up." He accused her in a low whisper.
"You might have amnesia, but you still know me." Babsie replied, with a small smile. "I had to say something to comfort the poor girl."
"Well, I think it worked."
"Good. And hey, you never know, she might have done something like that."
Isaac was about to answer when the phone rang. Zac snatched it up.
"Hello? ... Peta! You're alive!"
Everyone looked over at Zac, who had a gigantic grin plastered all over his face.
"We were really worried ... Oh, shut up ... What happened? ... Have you spoken to your Mom yet? ... Ok ... Yeah, they're good, wanna talk to them?"
By the time the phone call was over, they had all spoken to Peta. As it turned out, Peta had stayed in her apartment (which she shared with a couple of her friends) that day, sick with the flu. She had been sleeping all day, and didn't know about the explosion until the headline on the news not that long ago.