the two levels

by Jonathan R. Miller

  There is a long pause, as though Mr. Jim is giving everyone a chance to say something. But no one does.

  “All right, then,” Mr. Jim says. “Let’s get ourselves organized. Shorter kids in the front, taller in the back. Two rows. Let’s go.” He claps his hands one time.

  Suddenly it seems like everyone is moving in all different directions.

  Everyone except me.

  I stand off to one side near the wall, watching as the other kids take off their masks and line up in two rows, one in front of the other, near the wall of windows surrounding the two doors. The kids look like they’re lining up to take a class picture at school, except for the fact that every kid is holding up a sign.

  One sign says, “First Floor is OK.”

  Another says, “Help! We are not sick. ☺”

  Another says, “What if I was your daughter?”

  “Jasmine,” a voice calls out.

  It’s Miss Trina.

  She is standing in front of the first row, moving kids to different places in line like they’re decorations on a shelf.

  She waves for me to come over.

  I do what Miss Trina wants me to do. I go over to her, carrying my sign under one arm.

  Right away, Miss Trina takes off my mask, grabs me by the shoulders, and steers me over to the very end of the first row. She arranges my hands on the sign and positions my arms like I’m a doll.

  “Hold up,” Mr. Jim says. “Bring that one up front.” He points. “To the middle here.”

  I realize that Mr. Jim is talking about me.

  “But I’m going by height,” Miss Trina says. “She’s not tall enough for the middle.”

  “Screw height, “Mr. Jim says. “I’m thinking about perception here. The message we’re sending. It’s not about making the lines look neat and organized.”

  Miss Trina folds her arms. “Okay. What are you suggesting?”

  “Bottom line. I think we need to get a little more color upfront,” Mr. Jim says. “Skin color, I mean.”

  “Oh my lord, Jim. Really?”

  “Look. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the news media likes a little color in their commentary, don’t they?” He points at me. “What are you, sweetheart? Italian? Hispanic? Come on up here—front and center, hon. Head up high.”

  “Are you seriously doing this, Jim?” Miss Trina asks.

  Mr. Jim stares at Miss Trina like he didn’t understand what she just said.

  “Oh, come on,” Mr. Jim says.

  “No. You come on.”

  Mr. Jim shrugs. “I’m just telling the truth,” he says. “They’re more likely to run the damn story if we show different colored people in our group, Trina. For Christ’s sake, that’s just a fact.”

  “Different colored? Really?” Miss Trina rolls her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this right now,” Mr. Jim says.

  “What about me?” Miss Trina asks. “Am I colored enough to be paraded around in your photo shoot?”

  “Seriously, Trina. Stop this. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  Miss Trina shakes her head. “Maybe. But you need to think about how you say things.”

  “Maybe,” Mr. Jim says. “And maybe you need to stop being so fucking sensitive about everything. You don’t have to assume the worst with every word I say.”

  “Whatever, Jim.”

  “Exactly. Whatever,” Mr. Jim says. “Let’s just get this thing done, shall we?” He points at me again. “Come on up here, sweetheart.”

  I do what Mr. Jim tells me to do. I go and stand in the middle of the front row, squeezing in between two tall girls. It feels like all the other kids are staring at me.

  Mr. Jim takes a few steps back and looks at the group—I watch as his eyes move up and down the two rows.

  “Okay,” he says, nodding. “Stay exactly how you are. We’re just going to walk slowly up to the window on the count of three. Keep your signs up where the cameras can see them. And smile.”

  • • •

  I get my picture taken through the big glass windows. The whole group does.

  Mr. Jim tells us to shout and to wave our signs and to keep on smiling the whole time, no matter what. I try to look like I’m having fun, but the truth is that I’m not.

  It feels like it takes at least a year before Mr. Jim says we can stop.

  When it’s finally over, the grownups collect the signs and our group walks back to the Employee Only area, where the retreat is happening. Miss Trina makes me wear my backpack while we walk, but she carries the sleeping bag for me.

  By the time we get back to the Rug-Rat Room, I’m feeling really, really tired.

  The room seems like it’s filled with kids already, which is kind of surprising—I guess a lot of them didn’t go with us to have their pictures taken—but I’m too tired to play with them.

  I drop my backpack and sleeping bag in a corner of the room, near the stack of grey folding chairs, and sit down on the carpet with my back against the wall. I close my eyes.

  I know that I’m supposed to figure out how I’m going to sneak next door to the Supply Room without anybody noticing, but my mind won’t let me think of a plan. Every time I try to imagine a way to get the job done, the millipedes fill my head all the way up to the brim. They’re so loud with their wiggling that I can’t even hear any of my own ideas anymore.

  The truth is that it seems impossible to get Momma what she needs.

  The Supply Room is really close—it’s actually on the other side of the wall I’m leaning against!—but it might as well be on planet Mercury. There are people everywhere I look, and it seems like grownups can see everything I do, especially when it’s something they don’t want me to.

  Someone calls out my name—I think it’s Miss Trina—and I open my eyes.

  I get really energized all of the sudden.

  Do you want to know why?

  I see a bunch of people bringing in food for us. That’s why.

  They spread the food out on a long folding table, and it looks amazing.

  Peanut-butter sandwiches.

  Apple slices.

  Baby carrots.

  Chips Ahoy cookies.

  Orange juice and milk.

  I eat one sandwich, five apple slices, and two baby carrots. I drink two whole glasses of milk all by myself!

  Carrying my empty paper plate, I go back to the table to get my cookie dessert—Miss Trina said I could have three of them—and I see Hadley standing next to the table.

  She’s getting cookies too!

  “Hi,” I say.

  Hadley seems surprised, like she just found a bug floating in her water bottle.

  “Where were you?” she asks.

  Where was I?

  Uh oh.

  I don’t know how to answer that question.

  I should’ve asked Mr. Emmanuel to teach me how to talk before I came here.

  “Nowhere,” I say.

  “Well. I looked for you. I couldn’t find you.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  Hadley stares at me. She looks a little bit different than she did the last time I saw her. Her blonde hair is still short (of course—it didn’t grow overnight!), but it seems curlier today.

  She smiles.

  “You’re still really worried about everything, aren’t you?” she asks.

  Am I?

  I nod. “Yeah, I am.”

  “That’s normal,” she says. “But remember. Everything is going to be all right.”

  “Okay,” I answer. “Can I sit with you?”

  “Sure. Why not?” Hadley says, shrugging.

  • • •

  After we throw away our plates and help with clean-up, Miss Trina announces that it’s Movie Time.

  Movie Time!

  I can’t believe it!

  A short man with black hair and brown skin comes into the Rug-Rat Room carrying a laptop computer and a box-shaped gizmo with a camera lens on one side. I think that must be the
movie projector!

  The man sets the projector and the laptop on the same table that the food was on. He connects the projector to the laptop with a cord, plugs everything into an outlet, and starts typing on the keyboard. Before long, he switches on the projector and—voila—a beam of light shoots out of the lens and shines right onto one of the walls!

  At the same time, a different grownup—a tall woman with long brown hair—comes into the Rug-Rat Room carrying a giant cardboard box.

  The box smells incredible.

  She sets the box down next to the laptop, reaches inside and pulls out a bag of microwave popcorn and a stack of paper bowls. She spreads the bowls out on the table one by one, opens the bag and starts pouring popcorn into each bowl. When that bag is empty, she crumples it into a ball, reaches back into the box, and pulls out another popcorn bag. Then she does the same thing, all over again, like a billion more times!

  We each get our own small bowl of popcorn, all to ourselves!

  The man loads up a movie I’ve never heard of before—it’s a cartoon about a space alien crash-landing on Earth—and turns out the lights.

  I sit next to Hadley, leaning against her shoulder, and stuff a handful of salty, buttery popcorn into my mouth.

  • • •

  I open my eyes.

  The overhead light is bright—way too bright for me to see anything.

  “Hello?” a voice says. “Earth calling Jasmine. Hello?”

  I look around the room, squinting. For some reason, I’m lying down with my back on the floor—I have no idea how it happened.

  Before long, I see Hadley’s face above me.

  She’s smiling, which makes me feel really happy for some reason.

  “Hello? Are you in there?” she asks, knocking gently on my forehead with her knuckles.

  “What happened?” I ask, sitting up.

  “You fell asleep,” Hadley says. “Like, a minute after the movie started. Actually, I don’t think it had even started yet.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she says. “You didn’t miss very much. It’s kind of a kiddie movie, actually.”

  A kitty movie?

  I thought it was about aliens.

  I do like cats, though.

  “Oh, okay. That’s good,” I say.

  Hadley offers me her hand, and when I take hold of it, she pulls me onto my feet.

  Right away, I almost get run over by a stampede of kids. It’s like I accidentally walked into the middle of the train station during rush hour!

  The Rug-Rat Room is a crazy house right now.

  There are people everywhere.

  Boys and girls are running back and forth, cheering, yelling, jumping up and down, or dancing wildly in circles.

  Grownups are talking to each other in small groups or carrying cardboard boxes through the propped-open door.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  Hadley looks around the room and smiles. “They finally came,” she says. “It took forever, but they came. And they brought pizza with them.”

  “Who did?” I ask.

  “The rescue team,” Hadley answers. “Mr. Jim said that our signs really worked. Even better than he hoped they would.”

  “So we get to go home now?” I ask.

  Hadley shakes her head.

  “Not exactly. Not yet,” she says.

  The rescuers are here, but we’re not being rescued?

  That doesn’t make any sense at all.

  “But why not yet?” I ask.

  “Jim said we need to wait and see what they tell us,” Hadley answers. “He said that it won’t take too long, hopefully.”

  Wow.

  She calls Mr. Jim just Jim.

  Just Jim!

  I think maybe you don’t have to call grownups mister or missus when you get to be an older kid, like Hadley is.

  That’s pretty cool, in my opinion.

  I can’t wait until I’m older than I am now.

  • • •

  While the grownups work on…whatever they’re working on…I play Old Maid with Hadley on the carpet of the Rug-Rat Room.

  When you have no other choice but to wait for something (especially something exciting), it’s always better to find something fun to do while you’re waiting. Both Momma and Daddy always tell me that. And I think they’re right—it’s really true.

  Unfortunately, I lose the first two games of Old Maid, which I really hate, but I manage to stop myself from crying about it. Hadley wouldn’t like me crying, I’m pretty sure. When Hadley asks me what’s wrong, I just tell her that I’m really focused. I think she believes me.

  We start playing a third game.

  I’m doing well this time—at least I think I am. I know that Hadley has the Old Maid card somewhere in her hand, and my cards are almost gone. All I have to do is get rid of two more cards (without accidentally getting the Old Maid card) and then I’m finished. I really think I can win this time.

  While I’m trying to decide which card to choose, I look up at the door and see a woman walk into the Rug-Rat Room carrying a tablet computer. The woman is wearing the weirdest outfit I’ve ever seen in my life.

  A white jumpsuit that covers her whole body—even her head. It looks like it’s made of plastic!

  (Not her head, silly—the jumpsuit.)

  The hood part of the jumpsuit has a square window in the front so the woman can see, kind of like a car windshield. I can tell that the woman has brown skin, almost like Momma’s skin. I mean, like Momma’s skin used to be before she got hurt.

  My momma.

  Oh my gosh.

  I almost forgot about helping Momma.

  I set my cards face-down on the carpet. “I think I need to go,” I say.

  Hadley doesn’t seem to hear me. She turns and looks over her shoulder toward the door. I watch as the woman in the jumpsuit approaches one of the grownups (the man who brought the movie projector) and starts talking to him, but I’m too far away and the room is too noisy to hear what she talks about. Right away, a group of kids rushes over to surround the woman and the man, shouting out questions like “Who are you?” and “Where did you come from?” and “Why are you wearing all that stuff?”

  Without a word, Hadley sets her cards down, stands up and goes to join the crowd.

  Then it hits me.

  Maybe this woman can help Momma.

  Or, if she can’t, maybe she can call someone who can.

  I jump to my feet and follow Hadley into the herd of kids.

  • • •

  I wait forever for my chance.

  The woman in the jumpsuit talks to everyone in the circle, one after the other—except for me. I keep waving my hand in the air, but every time, her eyes pass over me and go on to the next kid. It almost feels like she’s ignoring me on purpose.

  Even Hadley gets a turn.

  “Why can’t we leave with you?” Hadley asks. “Right now, I mean.”

  The woman smiles—I can see her white teeth through the plastic window in her hood.

  “What’s your name, honey?” she asks.

  “Hadley.”

  “Well, Hadley, we need to move everyone to somewhere safe,” the woman says. “A special hospital that can take care of anyone who might be sick. And this special hospital isn’t quite ready to take you guys yet.”

  “But I’m not sick,” Hadley says.

  “I understand. But let’s pretend someone is,” the woman says. “If someone is sick, then we need to keep everyone together and make sure everyone is safe first, before anyone goes home. Does that make sense?”

  Not really.

  That’s my opinion, anyway.

  “I guess so,” Hadley says.

  “All right, then. Good,” the woman says, nodding. I can hear her plastic jumpsuit crinkling as she moves.

  There are still about a thousand kids surrounding the woman, but no one asks anything for a few seconds.

  This is my chance.

&
nbsp; “I need you to help my mom, right now,” I blurt out.

  Oh no.

  That’s not what I was planning to say.

  The woman looks at me with a sad face. It feels like all the other kids in the Rug-Rat Room stop what they’re doing and stare at me too. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Miss Trina take a few steps closer to the group, like she wants to hear everything better.

  “Is your mom not feeling well?” the woman asks, nodding.

  “No, she’s not,” I answer. But that doesn’t sound right. “I mean, yes. Yes, she’s not feeling well. Yes.”

  “Okay, then—what’s your name, honey?”

  “Jasmine.”

  “Okay, Jasmine,” the woman says. “Everything will be all right. Just stay calm, and give us some time. We’ll make sure everyone gets the help they need as soon as possible.”