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after it had taken the odd turn toward the Wagoneer, but it went on shuddering and jerking and twisting closer to the Jeep's rear bumper. 'Look out!' Wellen scooted himself across the seat, grabbed the wheel with one hand, flung his left leg sideways, and clamped his shoe down hard on top of Barbara's foot. 'OW!'
        He shoved against her foot as if trying to crash it into the brake pedal. Barbara shot her elbow into his ribs. Now I've done it, she thought. Oh, my God. What do they do to you for hitting a teacher?
        But at least he quit mashing her foot.
        'It's a quake!' Pete said. He sounded excited, like the first kid in class to come up with the answer to a teacher's question.
        'No kidding,' Earl said.
        A quake! Clenching the wheel, keeping her sore foot pressed to the brake pedal, Barbara thought for the first time to beyond the nearby threats to the school car. She saw a small apartment building a short distance ahead and off to the left. It was a two-story building. Instead of a lawn, it had pavement sloping down to parking spaces beneath the ground floor. The whole structure, the pavement below it, and the cars parked inside a few of its nooks, shook as if Barbara was watching through the viewfinder of a camera held by a person in the midst of a grand mal seizure. She was looking directly at one of its high windows as the glass exploded and a woman came out backward. The woman with wispy white hair, wearing a peach-colored robe that matched the stucco wall, a color that camouflaged her so that she was nearly invisible except for her head and small hands and bare white legs that kicked frantically sky.
        'Everybody down!' Mr Wellen ordered.
        The old woman dropped out of sight, rump first, scrambling with both hands as if trying to claw a rung of air. The wall of the next-door apartment building be crumble. It was just sloughing down when Mr Wellen grabbed Barbara's upper ann. Clutching it, he fumbled at her.
        'What're you…?'
        She looked down. The safety harness, suddenly retracting, whipped its buckle at her face. She flung her head back. The buckle missed. Then Wellen was pulling her by the arm, dragging her from behind the wheel toward his side of the car. Then he was clambering onto her. Sitting on her lap. Squirming off. Scooting under the wheel. Taking the wheel with one hand, shifting to reverse with the other, and backing away from the Wagoneer's bumper.
        'What're you doing?' Pete shouted from the rear. 'Getting us outa here!'
        The car lunged forward, shoving Barbara back against the Rat.
        'Wait till the quake stops!' Earl yelled.
        Wellen gunned it, speeding up Bedford, the Nova shaking and bouncing and swerving from side to side. A jaunt to the left skidded it toward the side of a parked Plumber John truck. Heather screamed. Barbara clutched the dashboard. Wellen fought the wheel, recovered, and swung them clear with inches to spare.
        During the next few seconds, Barbara glimpsed apartment buildings on both sides of the street break apart as if struck by huge wrecking balls. Walls exploded. Roofs crashed down. One building only lost its front wall, while the next collapsed entirely, the next two appeared to be intact and the one after those dropped its north half to the ground while its south half remained standing. This is really it, Barbara thought. This is the Big One. She Pictured her mother ducking and covering her head as their house on Swanson Street came down on top of her. No! No, she'll be all right. Maybe she's not even in the house. Maybe watering the yard, or…Please let her be all right. And Dad. Dad's so far away, he might not even be getting the quake where he is. Or maybe just a little tremble.
        'You ought to stop, Mr Wellen,' Pete advised.
        'You'll kill us all!' Earl yelled.
        'Shut your face, Jones! know what I'm doing. I'm the teacher around here,