The Homework Assignment

At first, I heard only a low rumble in the distance.  I looked across the school grounds, down the hill, to the town below.  On a far hill, just below the setting sun, I could see a puff of smoke.  The noise appeared to come from there.  I wondered what it was, that I could hear it from so far away.

I looked around me.  It was peaceful here, waiting for class to start.  I’d enrolled in an evening ‘Creative Writing’ class and I was walking the school grounds, waiting for the teacher to arrive.  It had been a beautiful, late autumn day.  I felt fortunate to have time for a short stroll before class.  I looked above me.  The chill of the October night nipped at the dark edges of the eastern clouds.  I scanned the horizon, over the town, to the far hill.  Just under the setting sun, lay the trail of smoke.

It was longer now, stretching down the hill toward the town below.  It had a blue-white colour and lay on the hillside like a spray of whipped cream.  I could see patches of different colours in two places on the side of the hill.  From my distant vantage point, I assumed that they were fires of some sort.  I thought it odd that I’d not noticed them a moment ago.

I decided to head back towards the school.  It was getting dark and the grass was getting wet.  I had still not seen the teacher arrive, but I knew he would not be much longer.  If there is one thing that can be said about Dr. Krachenheimer, it is that he is punctual.  It would take an atomic bomb to keep him and his red, Subaru stationwagon away from an appointment.  I recalled last week’s class.  He was nearly in tears when he realized that he’d left the homework assignments at home.  But, in true Dr. Krachenheimer fashion, he called everyone at home the following night and gave the assignment by telephone.  I looked toward the parking lot.  Still no red Subaru.  I looked at my watch.  I’d been walking for nearly a half hour.  I wondered if anyone else had waited around this long for class to start.

I looked down the hill.  The trail of smoke was moving through the back end of town now.  I now noticed changes in the noise.  Over the rumble, I could hear sharper, metallic sounds.  Bang, clang, above the drone – like I’d imagine in a blacksmith’s shed.  Like the trail of blue smoke, though, it was erratic.  I couldn’t detect any pattern in its movement or its sound, except that it was getting louder and seemed to be heading in my direction.  I glanced reassuredly at the concrete wall beside the school.  Thoughts of an evening English class had all but left me by now.

My eyes spun rapidly around at the sound of the first siren.  The billowing smoke was cutting a determined path through the middle of town.  Behind it, maybe three blocks behind, a flashing light was moving through the smoke – a fire truck ??  an ambulance ??  I’ve never been good at distinguishing different sirens.  Behind this, farther back in town, I could see flames leaping around the chemical company.  No sooner was I ready to think the worst, then another siren, then another.  The smoke lit up in two more areas, both moving toward the flames.  The entire back half of the town was enveloped in varying shades of blue and white smoke.

My feet were firmly rooted to the front steps of the school.  The speeding ball of smoke was heading towards the golf course.  Soon, I thought, it would be clear of the buildings and in the open.  From my elevated position, I could follow its progress well.  It would move toward me, then left, then right, then back towards me again.  I waited impatiently for it to make its way to the golf course.  I estimated it to be about five miles (or five minutes) away.  There was now more than one red light following it – four, I figured.  It had obviously attracted a great deal of attention in our little valley town.

It made one last abrupt turn and burst into the open field.  Its nose was blunt, shiny, with the distinctive gleam of polished chrome.  What I could see of the body was stubby and bright coloured.  It’s shine stood out clearly in the setting sun.  Its tail was covered in a billowing mass of smoke.  The smoke was much too dense to detect any flames, but I knew that flames were in there somewhere.  It rocketed across the open field, sometimes on the road, sometimes not.  In the open, I saw it bounce off the trees that bordered the road, firing it one way, then the other.  It weaved, circled, yet all the time kept its sense of direction.  That direction, I was learning, was towards me.  Although somewhat unnerved at this thought, my eyes remained glued to the speeding fireball.

Next to burst into the open were the flashing lights and sirens.  I could see the white on black and recognized them immediately as police cruisers.  There was about a half dozen of them moving in a wave through the smoke.  Their path was more direct, but they were not gaining on their quarry.  Not all the cruisers made it across the field.  Some would hit the debris left by the fireball and shoot off the road into the ditch – red lights still flashing.  Some, I suppose, simply couldn’t see through the smoke.  At each intersection, a few more would join the chase.  They were coming from all directions now.

It reached the far side of the golf course and went back into the houses.  I looked back through town.  What a mess !!  There were sirens and lights all over town.  I could count at least a dozen fires.  There may have been more.  It was hard to tell.  Some parts of town were still buried in the dense, blue smoke.  I could usually see my apartment building from here, but not now.  Although the fireball had not traveled up my street, the smoke from two blocks away had covered the street like a blanket.  I followed the trail back, all the way through town, up the far hill, to the top, where I first saw it under the now-set sun.  The orange hue from the evening sky cast an eerie glow over our little valley town.

I had just turned away to seek a safer vantage point when the entire sky lit up behind me.  White, orange, red – it lit up the school and the trees.  I whirled around.  Immediately, I was hit with the shock wave – a loud, low thump that resonated on my chest.  It passed my body like a wave.  Down the hill, perhaps two-thirds of the way down, I saw a huge, round ball of smoke and flame rise above the houses.  It expanded, up, up, swirling angrily, bits of flame and debris heading skyward.  That was it, I thought.  It was over.  It had hit the propane plant.  I imagined tomorrow’s paper:  “Terrorist Attack in Valleyfield – Police Still Searching Wreckage for Clues.”  The ball of flaming propane swirled up, lighting the flames still leaping from the chemical plant back in town.  I wondered why anyone would want to pick on our little valley town.

I could hear the crackle of flames and the clang of crumbling metal.  It was ominous, but gradually began to subside.  I stared at the flaming propane plant, listening ravenously.  It lit the entire sky above.  I could hear the crunch of collapsing beams, the sizzle of melting metal, the sirens, and the low rumble … a low rumble ??  A flood of anticipation hit me.  It drained me, head to toe.  I searched the wreckage.  Yes, coming up Mountainside Avenue – a trail of blue smoke.  It was still moving !!  A peculiar feeling filled me.  I felt like cheering, yet I was petrified.  Mountainside Avenue, I knew, ended at the front door of Mountainside High School, where I stood.  The speeding smoke trail was about a half mile away.  The wave of lights and sirens cleared the plant and, in turn, swung up Mountainside Avenue.  They were about two blocks behind and stretched all the way back to the plant.  Half the town of Valleyfield was coming up Mountainside Avenue.

I realized that I wouldn’t see it clearly again until it entered the schoolgrounds.  That left me about two minutes to find shelter.  I made a quick reconnaissance around me and headed for the concrete wall.  I might have been more frightened if I’d known what it was, but an unknowing calmness got me safely behind the wall.  It was just high enough to stoop behind, yet low enough to see over.  I focused on the main entrance to the school … and waited.

Six blocks away, then five.  The noise was deafening.  I peered over my wall.  It turned again, two blocks away, then one.  It burst through the fence about twenty yards from the main gate, swung around sharply and roared down the driveway.  It was about 300 yards away.  My fingers dug into the top of the concrete wall.  I saw a nose of bent chrome surrounded by a shell of bright, shiny metal.  It had a single headlight, shining from one side.  A headlight ??  A car ??  The pieces started to fit.  Behind the mangled front end, I saw the windshield – behind that, two intense eyeballs crouched low over a white-knuckled steering wheel.  It belched thick clouds of smoke as it roared down the driveway.

It was swerving right to left when it hit the first speed bump.  It sling-shotted off the road and tore across the lawn.  It bounced off a large maple tree and ricocheted back towards me.  Another tree.  This one snapped off clean.  It hit the ditch on the far side of the road, leaped high in the air, cleared the road and came crunching down on a row of parked motorcycles.  Bent, broken, smoking, afire and perforated with pieces of trees and motorcycles, it came directly at me.  I dove.  My feet barely escaped the crunch of concrete and metal as my wall was torn away behind me.  I rolled in the grass, regaining my balance just in time to look back and see it imbed itself in the side of Mountainside High School – five feet from the front door.

The thick smoke came in like a blanket.  I could barely see my hands in front of me.  It heaved in my lungs.  I could hear the crumbling concrete of the school wall, the hissing of the car, still belching its thick blue smoke.  I carefully picked my way through the wreckage.  I could hear the sirens closing in, although I could barely see in front of me.  I came closer until, finally, I could see the bent outline of a red, Subaru stationwagon !!

“Dr. Krachenheimer ??”  I blurted.

“Yes ??” came the reply.

I stumbled through the rubble to the back of the car – the only part still reasonably intact.  The wave of sirens and lights had caught up and began to encircle us.  The smoke was lifting a bit.  I gingerly felt my way down the side of the car towards the driver’s door.  I was about to reach for the handle when the door flung open and out stepped Dr. Krachenheimer.

“Sorry, I’m late”, he said.  “I had a bit of car trouble on the way here.”  He paused briefly and looked around.  “Well, we can’t have this”, he continued.  “I can’t conduct a proper lecture with all this noise.  Here, you run up to class and pass out these assignments and I’ll go see what’s the matter.”  He handed me a bulging file folder, then turned casually and walked through the smoke toward the growing crowd of people.

I opened the folder:  “Homework Assignment, due next week – Write a 2000-word essay on one person’s struggle against impossible circumstances.”

I sat down on the broken front steps of Mountainside High School, beside the bent, red Subaru stationwagon, took out a pencil, and wrote this story.

The End

D. Berryman

(first written, 1984 – updated, Dec. 2008)