Waiting

Rachel shut her locker hard, then re-opened it and retrieved the
combination lock from inside it.  She could hear excited voices up and
down her locker row and she had to escape.  

Her car was parked in the far parking lot, past the soccer field and
through the hedges.  Another girl, a blonde girl who had dropped out
of her Spanish class sophomore year, was walking in the same direction
and the two exchanged nervous glances.  When she got in the car,
Rachel tried the radio, but there was nothing good on, so she turned
it off.  The clock showed 2:36, three minutes fast.  She tried the
radio again.

It usually took her seven minutes to get home, but today she caught
the red light on Park Street.  There were no cars coming the other way
and she could've easily run the light, but she didn't.  She could see
the mailman at the bottom of the hill.  He would be at least fifteen
minutes, maybe twenty.  She should do some homework, she thought.

Her house was empty.  She turned on the TV.  It was Beverly Hills
90210 and that reminded her of school.  She went into the kitchen and
reread the comics while eating a Fruit-by-the-Foot.  The phone rang;
she let it ring through to the machine.  It was her mother, checking
to see if any news had come.

She opened her bookbag, but her chemistry book wasn't inside; she must
have left it in her locker.  She went back to the comics.  The faint
humming of the refridgerator was barely audible over her breathing.

Far away, she heard footsteps, but she couldn't tell if they were
going or coming.  She held her breath.  The footsteps approached her
house and still she didn't breathe.  The screen door clicked open and
she heard a heavy thud.  The clock on the microwave nervously crept
from 2:56 to 2:57.  The screen door shut.  Footsteps trailed away.

Rachel stood, her chair scraping loudly across the kitchen floor.  She
squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and went to check the mail.