The Sky Is Falling Read Online Free PDF

about the airliner, but had no idea of the etiquette in that particular circumstance so, as usual, I defaulted to saying nothing and feeling awkward. The bus arrived and we got on and Sonia followed me to the back. All the seats were taken there too. She could barely reach the strap, so I wordlessly gave up the pole and we do-si-doed, exchanging places. “What time is your first class?” she asked.
    I told her. She said she had to go out to a school and observe a grade two class that day. “That’s why I’m dressed up like this.” Meanwhile the bus lurched along, accumulating more passengers before making a run for the hill. When it reached the top, a view opened over the plated ocean. I lived mere blocks from it now, but had yet to go and see it. Sonia glanced at me from time to time, as though deciding whether or not to speak. At the campus loop, we were disgorged, and with everyone pushing to get off, she got ahead. I didn’t expect to see her again until supper, but she was waiting when I stepped down.
    â€œDid they shoot it down on purpose?” I asked.
    She knew immediately what I was talking about. “They thought it was a spy plane. Now who knows what the Americans will do? Probably start firing.” She pressed her fists into her temples. “Which way are you going?” I pointed and she walked with me toward the Buchanan building. “I don’t know what to do about Dieter,” she said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œHe always sits next to me at supper. Haven’t you noticed? He knocks on my door for no reason. Now he’s started pulling my hair. It’s driving me crazy. I don’t like him. I mean, I like him. I like everybody. He’s in my group! But I don’t like him that way.”
    So what I’d always suspected was true: other people’s problems were shockingly trite.
    â€œHis father died last summer.”
    â€œReally?” I said. “That’s terrible.”
    â€œIt makes it hard, though, to say I’m not interested. Last night he came in and lay on my bed and said he’d protect me.” She turned to me, exasperated. “How does he think he’s going to do that ?”
    Outside the library she plucked entreatingly at my sleeve. “Jane? Sit beside me tonight?”
    I thought of that little tug as I took a seat in my seminar. The fabric pulling against my arm, her plea for my presence. The other students meandered in with their backpacks and throwaway coffee cups, chatting, but not to me. No one talked to me. I always sat in the same chair, at Kopanyev’s right hand, and always the seat on the other side of me was empty. No one wanted to sit next to the overeager girl. Keith, the punk, clomped in. They were completely freaked out by him. Then Kopanyev arrived, folders bursting under his arm. He was not the most organized lecturer. Frequently his tangents tangled us up and, in this, a second-year course, Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature in Translation, he seemed to recognize that he was an unreliable driver and so threw the reins to us. We were given a reading list and assigned a date, not to make a presentation per se, but to offer a passage, a character, or simply an observation, as a topic for discussion.
    He ticked our names off with a massive fountain pen. “Now, my conversationalists.” Looking around the table, rescrewing the cap. “Michael? Ha! Did you see him jump? What have you brought for us to talk about today, Michael? What have you been reading? Speak! Speak! We are waiting.”
    A wing of blond hair hung over Michael’s eyes. He performed the affectation, sweeping it aside. “Chekhov.”
    â€œAh. The greatest writer who ever lived. And?”
    â€œI notice, well, a couple of things. First, the stories are unbelievably gloomy. Second, the characters always, or often, seem to be in love with people who don’t love them