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“Good morning,” Mr. Kidswatter said over the intercom. He paused here, as he did every time so the students could answer him.
No one replied. Calvin coughed. Todd sneezed. Sharie yawned and snuggled more thoroughly into her large coat and went back to sleep.
“As you know,” Mr. Kidswatter continued. “Today is the second Tuesday of the month, which means we will be having a fire drill today. We will be following the procedure we discussed at our last school-wide assembly and remember, I will be timing us. However!” he barked. All of the students in Mrs. Jewls’ classes jumped in their seats. “Do not rush through this drill! It is important that the data be accurate so we know if this new system is more efficient than our last one. Is that clear?”
Again, he paused. No one replied.
“Good,” Mr. Kidswatter said. “The drill begins now.”
There was a clicking sound that signalled the end of his announcement followed by two seconds of silence. Then the fire alarm went off.
As I’m sure you’ve heard, there are several different sounds fire alarms can make. Beeps and buzzes and sirens and chirps and rings are all good options for fire alarms, as long as the sound is LOUD.
Wayside School had been asked which sound they would like their fire alarm to make, but no one could agree on which one to pick, so the Wayside School fire alarm made all of the sounds at once. It beeped and buzzed and WOoWoOO-ed and chirped and rang, all at full volume.
The noise was deafening. It made the children’s teeth chatter and their hair stick up. It even woke Sharie from her nap.
“ALL RIGHT CLASS,” Mrs. Jewls bellowed from the front of the room. “AS YOU KNOW, WE HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT JOB TO DO DURING THIS FIRE DRILL. LET’S GO.”
Allison ran towards Mrs. Jewls while the rest of the class went about lining up in alphabetical order. This was the first part of The New Fire Drill Plan.
As you know, Wayside School was accidentally built sideways, with 30 classrooms on top of each other instead of beside each other. This meant the playground around the school was massive, and as Mr. Kidswatter had spent 45 minutes explaining at the assembly about fire safety, it meant that entire classes of children might get lost if they didn’t coordinate where to meet on the playground during a fire drill. Mr. Kidswatter had also explained that they couldn’t simply agree to all meet on one side of the school beforehand because if there really was a fire then there would be smoke, and if there was wind, it could blow right at where they were all standing, endangering them all! He had explained this part for an additional 26 minutes before he revealed his New Fire Drill Plan.
This was the New Fire Drill Plan:
During a fire drill, Mrs. Jewls’ class would be responsible for checking which direction the wind was blowing, using the brand new windsock Mr. Kidswatter had installed on the roof, and determining the safest side of the building to meet on. Each of the children in Mrs. Jewls’ class would then be responsible for telling one classroom on their way down the stairs which side of the building they would be meeting on. There were 28 students in Mrs. Jewls’ class plus Mrs. Jewls which made 29, and since Mrs. Jewls’ class would not need to be told which side of the building to meet on, it worked out perfectly! Mr. Kidswatter was very proud of this part of his New Fire Drill Plan.
Leslie shuffled her way through the jumbled line of her classmates with her hands over her ears to muffle the horrible wailing the fire alarm was making, trying to find where she belonged. Her name started with an L, which meant when she got mixed up with the three Erics she was far from where she was supposed to be. She also bumped into Ron and Rondi, who were thumb-wrestling for placement before she eventually found where she was supposed to be between Kathy and Mac.
The class was just about done getting themselves in alphabetical order (no one was certain if the Erics were in the right order) when Allison climbed back down the ladder from the trap door to the roof. Allison shouted that the wind was blowing to the east before she took her place at the front of the line.
“EXCELLENT JOB ALLISON,” Mrs. Jewls boomed.
Allison was the one designated to check on the windsock because her name started with an A, so everyone knew she was at the beginning of their alphabetical order line. This meant they would all save time by sending her to check the windsock instead of sending someone who would then have to figure out where in the line they were supposed to be after they got back. Leslie was sure they were making great time. Mr. Kidswatter was going to be very proud of them.
“IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE TELL EVERY CLASSROOM WHICH SIDE OF THE BUILDING TO MEET ON,” Mrs. Jewls screamed over the rings and whoowhooos and beeps of the fire alarm. “WE ARE MEETING ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE SCHOOL. I WILL GIVE EACH OF YOU A FLOOR THAT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE TO TELL THAT WE ARE MEETING ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE BUILDING. WHICH SIDE ARE WE MEETING ON?!”
“WEST!” all of the kids screamed back. Leslie enjoyed getting to scream in class. Usually that only happened when Paul pulled her pigtails.
“I WILL TELL MR. KIDSWATTER ON FLOOR ONE,” Mrs. Jewls yelled. As she said the word “ONE” she pointed to herself. “ALLISON, FLOOR TWO! BEBE, THREE! BEN, FOUR!”
As she said each floor number she pointed to the next child in line. The kid nodded and then took off down the stairs to tell their floor the important news.
“ERIC, ERIC, ERIC, TEN, ELEVEN, TWELVE!”
The three Erics nodded and bounded down the stairs.
Leslie watched the classroom get emptier as Mrs. Jewls walked down the line.
“JOE, 15! JOHN, 16!”
It wasn’t until Mrs. Jewls shouted “KATHY, 18” that Leslie started to worry.
Then Mrs. Jewls was in front of her and she yelled, “LESLIE, 19” over the wails of the fire alarm.
Leslie didn’t know what to do. There was no 19th floor. Miss Zarves taught the class on the 19th floor. But there was no Miss Zarves. Everyone knew that.
Leslie was still standing there wondering what to do, but Mrs. Jewls had moved on. She was already at “RON, 24!”.
Ron saluted and ran towards the door, full of obvious purpose in his quest to tell everyone on the 24th floor which side of the building to meet on.
Everyone else Mrs. Jewls gave a number to reacted in the same way. All the way down the line to “TODD, 29!”, every kid nodded and bolted out of the classroom until it was just Leslie and Mrs. Jewls left.
“WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE?” Mrs. Jewls hollered as the fire alarm buzzed and shrieked. “DO YOU KNOW YOUR NUMBER?”
“YES,” shouted Leslie. She was holding her hands tightly over her ears to try and muffle the many fire alarms. “IT’S 19, BUT—”
“NO BUTS!” Mrs. Jewls cut her off. “WE ALL HAVE AN IMPORTANT JOB TO DO!”
“BUT—”
But it was no use.
Mrs. Jewls ushered Leslie out of the classroom and then closed the door behind them. Then Mrs. Jewls took off down the stairs. Leslie couldn’t blame her. She had to tell the people on floor one which side of the building to meet on, and the first floor was a long way down.
Leslie didn’t know what to do. There was no 19th floor. There was no Miss Zarves. How could she tell them which side of the building to meet on?
But there was no sense standing here on the top floor of the building trying to figure out. She would think about it as she walked down the stairs. She had ten whole floors to figure out how she was going to find the 19th story.
As Leslie passed the 29th floor Todd was proudly telling the class there, “MEET ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE BUILDING!”
Leslie kept running down the stairs. As she passed the 28th floor there was Terrence telling everyone on that floor the important news.
She hoped that she would get an idea as she kept going down the stairs, but it didn’t work like that. With each floor she passed she saw another classmate proudly fulfilling their important job, and as she continued down the building, the stairs got more and more crowded with students and teachers alike, all of them talking about how they were meeting on the west side of the building.
She lost track of which floor she was on as she passed Rondi’s and then Ron’s floor. Paul waved at her as he beckoned the classroom he had told to meet on the west side to join everyone on the way down the stairs.
Leslie didn’t realize she had passed the 20th floor until she saw Kathy on the 18th loudly telling everyone to meet on the east side of the building. Then she knew she had to figure something out.
She had to wedge herself against the side of the stairwell to stop herself from being forced down the stairs with the rest of the kids. She then had to work twice as hard to climb the stairs back towards where the 19th floor should be.
But as soon as she left the 18th floor, she was on the 20th floor.
She tried three more times, each time she did there were fewer students still making their way down the stairs past her. By her last attempt, she was the only one on the stairwell.
Leslie didn’t know what to do.
Now that she was alone, she tried shouting at the place where the 18th floor became the 20th, but she doubted she could be heard over the screeches and whirs of the fire alarm. She pounded on the walls with her fist. She ran into the classroom on the 20th floor and stomped her feet on the floor. She ran into the classroom on the 18th floor and poked the ceiling with a broom in morse code that meant W-E-S-T.
But no matter what she did, there was no sign that Miss Zarves and her students had heard her.
Leslie was getting desperate. When she looked out the windows from the classroom on the 20th floor she could see the students of the school gathering on the playground below. It was clear she was the only one who hadn’t delivered the important message.
The fire alarm was still blaring so Leslie tied her pigtails into earmuffs. It didn’t solve her problem with the 19th story that didn’t exist, but it did make it so she could hear herself think. And what she thought of was a plan.
Leslie took off both of her shoes and unlaced her shoelaces. She tied her shoelaces together so they were as long as possible and then she looked in the teacher’s desk to find a marker, which she used to write “WEST” on the bottom of one of her shoes. She tied one end of her extra long shoelace to the deck closest to a window and the other to her shoe. Then she opened the window and threw her shoe out the window.
With luck, it would swing out of the 20th story window on the string and hit the window of the 19th story.
Leslie was exhausted and shoeless as she returned to the stairs and headed down towards the playground but she knew she had done her best.
*
When Leslie walked out the door to the playground and trudged barefoot towards the west side, Mrs. Jewls was the first to greet her.
“Leslie! Where have you been? Did you deliver the message?”
“I tried,” Leslie said truthfully.
“Good,” Mr. Kidswatter said. He was holding a large stopwatch in his hand and he kept looking down at it. “I’m sure it will only be a moment before the people from the 19th floor join us.”
Minutes passed.
No one else came out of the building.
*
“Leslie,” Mrs. Jewls said sternly after at least 15 minutes of waiting. “Did you deliver the important message?”
“I tried, but—”
“No buts!”
“But—”
“I’m very disappointed in you, Leslie. Even the floor Kathy was responsible for arrived ages ago!”
Leslie looked over at where Kathy was scowling next to the teacher who taught on the 18th floor. The teacher was holding a shoe that said “WEST” on the bottom with a broken shoelace dangling from it.
Leslie’s heart sank
Mr. Kidswatter came over and asked Mrs. Jewls what was going on.
“It seems Leslie did not deliver her message!” Mrs. Jewls told him.
“Why would she not tell them where to go?” Mr. Kidswatter explained. “They could be anywhere by now!”
“She’s usually so responsible,” said Mrs. Jewls. “ I don’t know what came over her.”
They kept going back and forth about what a disaster this was until Leslie had had enough and she screamed, “THERE IS NO NINETEENTH FLOOR.”
Both Mr. Kidswatter and Mrs. Jewls turned to look at her.
“There’s no Nineteenth floor!” Leslie exclaimed. “That’s why I didn’t deliver the message! It doesn’t exist!”
“What do you mean ‘There’s no nineteenth floor’?” Mr. Kidswatter said. “Of course there is. Miss Zarves teaches the class on the nineteenth floor.”
“There is no Miss Zarves!” Leslie said. “There is no nineteenth story! If you don’t believe me, count them yourself!”
So they did. Mr. Kidswatter looked at the building and counted 33 stories. Mrs. Jewls counted 28. When Leslie’s class realized what they were doing, they all looked up and counted the stories as well.
Deedee counted 4.
Stephen counted 102.
Terrence counted a million.
They counted until every kid in the school had counted the number of floors of the building. Even the firefighters who came to turn off the fire alarm joined in.
No one counted the same number of floors.
The fire drill took 6 hours and 54 minutes.