9

The stars hang suspended above our heads. We trace the stars with our fingers as we lie silently on our blankets.

The earthquake caused us to flee from our home. Some of our families chose to sleep on the school’s soccer field; protected by flimsy tents. Four of my friends and I got our sleeping bags and made a five point star.

The temperature had recently dropped to the upper teens and we were all cuddled up. We started talking about what happened during the field trip.

“Dude, that was a pretty crazy earthquake.”

“Yeah, no kiddin’. I was in the astronomy building and they had a replica of the sun. When the earthquake hit it fell and shattered into a million pieces.”

“Rad.”

“Hey, what happened with you, Sam? I heard you guys ran away when the earthquake hit. Are you insane?”

“What can I say? We were caught up in the moment. We had to do something. It’s a shame the guards stopped us before we could do any real damage.”

“I heard Paul stole something from one of the exhibits.”

“Shh . . . If they find out, he’s doomed.”

“What did he snatch?”

“He took one of the trains from the model railways. A pretty dumb thing to take, if you ask me. What’s he going to do with it? Run it in his room?”

“Haha. You know what? I switched the sign on the rest rooms.”

“It was you?!? Dude, I got a tongue lashing from a woman when I ran in there. And dude, I kid you not: I peed my pants.”

We went on like that till two in the morning till we decided to sneak into the hot tub.