The Girl Behind the Glass by Jane Holden Kelley

Author:Jane Holden Kelley [Unknown]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780375862205
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Published: 2010-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

Now that had never happened before.

People had run away screaming. People had staggered off gasping for breath. People had stood paralyzed. People had slowly backed away shaking their heads no. But nobody had collapsed on the ground like a big balloon that had suddenly lost its hot air.

The branches of the hemlock trees were still.

Was the teacher dead?

Her arm was stretched out on the grass next to the bag of celery sticks. Hannah stared at the arm. It didn’t twitch or wriggle. Sometimes not doing anything was the most frightening thing of all. Hannah put her hands over her eyes and screamed.

Everyone came running. Mrs. Zimmer held a piece of maroon cloth and a pair of scissors. Anna carried the cordless phone. So Georgia was there too, in a way, shouting, “Why is your sister screaming?” until Mrs. Zimmer took the phone away from Anna to call an ambulance.

“Hurry,” she told them.

Miz D was still breathing—just barely.

Hannah knelt next to her teacher. She was afraid to touch her. She tentatively untangled the earring caught in Miz D’s hair. She wanted to make something right. Even if it was a very small thing.

The siren got closer and closer until the ambulance stopped in the driveway. Two men in white uniforms jumped out. One put a mask over Miz D’s face to give her oxygen. The other listened to her heart. Somehow the men lifted Miz D onto a cot. They wheeled her into the back of the ambulance and shut the doors. Everyone watched the ambulance leave. They stared at the road through the hemlock trees for as long as they could still hear the siren.

Then there was silence.

“That was your teacher?” Mrs. Zimmer was worried that Hannah was in trouble at school.

Hannah nodded. Her mind swirled. She was very upset. She shouldn’t have been. Miz D wasn’t dead. The worst hadn’t happened to her.

“It’s my fault she came here. I wrote about the house. In the questionnaire.” Hannah hid her face in her mother’s shirt.

It wasn’t Hannah’s fault. Plenty of people came to the house on Hemlock Road because they wanted to see something dreadful. And Miz D had.

“She could have had a heart attack anywhere,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

Hannah shook her head. “She saw something. Right before she collapsed. I have to go to the hospital.”

“I know you’re worried about your teacher,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

“I have to ask her what she saw,” Hannah said.

“You told me her doctor wanted her to lose weight.” Anna picked up the bag of celery and showed it to Hannah.

“I have to know what we’re living with,” Hannah whispered.

Mrs. Zimmer hugged Hannah. She pushed her mother away. “You should want to know too. You should stop pretending there isn’t anything wrong.”

“There isn’t. Your teacher wasn’t well. So she had a heart attack.” Mrs. Zimmer struggled to keep calm. She thought Hannah was overreacting again. She worried that this was a more serious problem than she thought. “I’ll make tea. I’m sure we could all use a cup.

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