The Probability of Everything by Sarah Everett

Author:Sarah Everett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Ambush

THE CAMERA CAME OUT OF NOWHERE AND WAS SO CLOSE to me that the glass lens was almost touching my forehead. Another man appeared and pushed a microphone in front of our faces. A third man was shouting questions, and all of them were crowding us.

“Do you kids live on this street? In this house? What are your names?”

I opened and shut my mouth. These didn’t look like the angry people at the corner of the street—these people were different. And somehow, scarier.

Lucas found my hand and clutched my wrist.

“What do you know about the end of the world?” one man asked.

“How do you feel about the end of the world?” the other said.

“I . . .” I started, but my mouth was dry and no words came. Lucas wasn’t speaking either.

“Have your parents explained what’s happening to you?”

“Are you afraid of AMPLUS-68?”

They were asking so many questions so quickly that I felt dizzy.

I gripped the strap of my backpack with the hand that Lucas wasn’t holding.

“What do you have to say about—”

“Hey! Shoo!” Hearing Mrs. Sorensen’s familiar voice out of nowhere was so comforting, I could have cried. She was hurrying from her yard into ours, waving a broom like a threat. “Back off, you vultures! Leave those poor kids alone. I’ll call the police!”

“We want a child’s perspective. Asteroids affect kids too,” one of the men said.

“I’ll give you a perspective,” Mrs. Sorensen said, actually hitting the bearded man in the stomach with her broom.

“Hey!” he cried, surprised and stumbling back.

Mrs. Sorensen swore and swung her broom at one of the other guys, just barely missing.

“Luc! Kemi!” someone hissed under the commotion. Behind the men, Jen waved her arms, signaling for us to come to her.

“But Mrs. Sorensen—” I started to say. We couldn’t just leave her, could we?

Before I could argue, Lucas tugged at my hand and quickly led us around the men to where Jen was waiting for us at the gate.

“Omigosh omigosh omigosh,” she chanted, panicked, as we ran back to her car. “Are you guys okay? I knew we shouldn’t have come here!”

I slid into the passenger seat and Lucas slammed the back door.

“Oh, here’s my phone!” Lucas said, picking it up from the back seat. He seemed disappointed that he kept his phone so close at all times, but it hadn’t been there for him when he’d needed it the most.

Jen backed out of the alleyway quickly and drove us past the protesters again and out of our neighborhood. She heaved a sigh of relief when we’d passed them.

“I told you ten minutes!” Jen said, and she sounded like she was about to cry. I felt like crying too and I couldn’t say why. “What did they want with you?”

“They wanted a child’s perspective,” Lucas said, parroting what we’d heard the man say. “On Amplus.”

“Are you okay, Kemi?” Jen asked, looking in her rearview mirror at me. She must have noticed that I hadn’t said anything. I nodded.

We were all silent for the

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