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against the “prophets” spoke louder. Those more compassionate grew quieter. Carl Jorgenson, she noticed, was doing more listening, looking with unbridled interest to both sides of the discussion. Weighing his options, or waiting for a chance at a good joke.
    Then someone said, “My parents said that anyone who claims God talked to them is nuts, or a new kind of extremist, or just plain jerks with nothing better to do than scare kids.”
    “Or they're your science teacher,” Margaret said. Her breath raced out of her. Dear Lord, did I just say that ?
    “What was that supposed to mean?”
    Everyone in the room shut up and looked at their science teacher. Smiling, waiting for the punch line. Carl wasn't smiling. He looked stunned, probably remembering the parking lot incident earlier in the week. It was his face that Margaret locked onto. Carl's eyes softened, but did not look away, brows raised in an unspoken plea.
    She wondered for a moment if David the angel had something to do with this unexpected admission. She thought of his anger. Get off your ass, wasn’t that what he'd said? This was really happening. She was falling, having stepped too far off the ledge.
    She looked away from Carl and scanned the room. Half the group still smiled; the rest waited with neutral expressions. Waiting for her to laugh, say April Fool’s . Anything.
    Margaret took a deep breath, and said, “God has spoken to me through his angel David and told me to build an ark. Fifty-five days from now, the flood will come. I don't know how. Those who don’t take a place on one of the ships, built by the people He has chosen to do so, will not survive.” Some of the words she'd improvised from listening to callers on the radio, but the point was the same. She felt dizzy, in a mental free-fall.
    A few of the teens began to sob. Others laughed. The rest brought the volume of the classroom to ten times its loudest point in the day. Words, some supportive, but most spiteful, flew at her. Too many at once to hear. Margaret moved unsteadily behind her desk, collected her purse and briefcase, then left the room without turning back.
    It was only one-fifty in the afternoon. She didn’t know what to do. By the time she got to her car, having seen two of her students in the hall run in the direction of the main office, Margaret knew she needed to collect her daughters from school before word got to them or, worse, their teachers.
     
    *     *     *
     
    She closed the bedroom door, careful not to let the click of the latch wake the girls. It took a while for them to fall to sleep, even at this late hour. Little Robin had asked the bulk of the questions, sweet, innocent curiosity about her mother's visions and God's warning to the world. Katie was able to ask a few of her own, but for the most part simply cried out her fear - of what Margaret told them after supper and the fact that her mother was actually saying these things at all.
    The world to a seven year-old is frightening enough to a little girl, without her mother saying the world was about to be destroyed. Margaret had played out the day mostly as a ruse, explaining that she wanted to surprise the girls with a short school day and take them to McDonald's, then the latest Disney flick. This she did. In truth, she was hiding, not wanting to face anyone from school in person or on the phone. She’d turned off her cell after leaving work and it remained off. As the day wore on, she became increasingly uncertain. How was she supposed to sit her children down and explain that God had chosen her for such a frightening thing? Maybe she really was insane.
    They’d been sitting at home watching Wheel of Fortune , Margaret wondering how to talk with the girls, not wanting to begin at all, when the evening's false calm was shattered by a phone call from Robert Kaufman, the high school principal
    “Margaret, what was that all about today? I had two girls come into my office crying, saying Mrs.