Back to the Plains

Part 4: The Realization

"The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their

whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

The events that follow the attack leave Ali in a rightful state of panic. The realization that she has somehow managed to fall back into time, reminds her of the feeling of the flat tire which caused her car to crash into the tree; she did not see it coming, there was no preparation for it, and it hurts far worse than anything else. This time, however, Ali's pain is not physical, it is psychological. She screams and screams, refusing to be quieted despite the attempts of Hawk, and Josiah who found her in hysterics soon after the screaming started. They try to console her, but Ali falls into a panic attack far worse than any she has had before and then into unconsciousness minutes later. In her dreams, another memory comes to her.

"Alison." She jumps and looks up at the teacher while having been completely unaware of the question that was asked. Her teacher, Mrs. Taylor, looks down her snub nose at her expectantly, causing snickers to sweep through the room from her classmates. The room is pale and dreary, with a single-window overlooking the rather uninteresting garbage bins, and overpowering smells of dry erase markers, cough drops, and Lysol. The occasional cough, sneeze, or sniff is always followed by many pairs of eyes landing on you as if you have the plague, and Ali is especially glad that her annual cold has long passed. "I said, can you tell the year Kansas became a state?"

Ali watches as her teacher's left eyebrow raises slightly as her eyes fall into lines. She knows that Mrs. Taylor has caught Ali daydreaming yet again. Ali bites the corner of her bottom lip, racking her brain, and looking away from her smug teacher. History is not her strong suit in school, but she needs it to graduate. If she can pass with a B she will be lucky. She sighs, knowing it is no use to try to remember something she probably never memorized and decides to throw out a random year. "1860." She answers with little care and even slightly throws up her hands in a do-not-care way before letting them fall back into place, elbows never having left the opened book on her desk.

Mrs. Taylor brings her hands up, fingertips folding together as she leans back against her desk. "Close." The teacher replies. "1861." Ali knows that her teacher knew she guessed and was rather unimpressed by having guessed rather than her giving up. Mrs. Taylor looks to the class, and Ali sinks back down in her desk, embarrassed by being called out in front of everyone. "Kansas was the 34th state to join the union but let us go back a little bit. Where did the land from Kansas come from?"

Several hands shoot up at once, but Ali does not much care to know who would but the lucky chosen one to answer. Calling on someone in the front row, Ali only half pays attention as Mrs. Taylor chooses. "The Louisiana Purchase in 1803."

"And who was it bought from?" Mrs. Taylor continues without missing a beat.

"France." Another classmate chimes in, mistakenly not raising her hand which shot up a beat after her answer. Ali finds herself quite sick of Kansas Day, for it is always the same, and she wishes she can back up an hour and be reading Shakespeare in English or go forward an hour into Art. Her senior year is laxer than others. Unlike most of her class and even her siblings, she has chosen not to take advanced college classes in her last year of high school. She chose instead to fill the eight-time slots with classes that she needed and the classes she wanted. Independent Study and Teacher's Aide are both served in the library. Yearbook and Independent Yearbook are in the computer lab next to the library. English IV and American History IV are in the same hall that her locker is in. Art IV and Independent Art are in the back rooms by the parking lot she usually occupies. She had been fortunate enough to get her classes grouped to save her from constantly running back and forth.