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It had been two years since Sunny had been in Faraway Town, but no amount of time in the city would stop the sleepy old town from feeling like home. Kel practically lunged at Sunny when he walked into his house, and as Hero dragged in the luggage, his mother greeted him with misty eyes. Not as aggressive as Kel, but still brimming with excitement, Aubrey and Basil pulled Sunny into a big hug.
Reunited, the group could all share with each other the tales of their current lives as well as revisit the nostalgia of their past. It was hard, sometimes, to talk about their childhood while the weight of what happened with Mari still hung heavy on them, but she wouldn’t want them to let good memories turn sad. So in her honor the group would regale the memories happily. They’d even gotten to the point where they could joke about it a little. But then, caught up in the fun, Kel went one joke too far.
“Yeah! Mari went down harder than the World Trade Center!” He exclaimed before pausing, realization hitting him like ice water to the face.
A few tight laughs followed, everyone clearly attempting to awkwardly pass off the far too soon joke. Everyone except for Sunny, who only looked confused. He frowned, and for a moment it appeared as though he’d be too shy to do anything but drop the matter, but curiosity won over.
“What do you mean the World Trade Center went down?” He asked cautiously.
If the tension in the room had been thick before, now it was practically suffocating. Basil, Aubrey, Hero and Kel looked between each other, all coming to the same conclusion. Sunny had slept the last four years away, leaving him woefully unaware of what happened in September of 2001.
“Oh dear…” Basil muttered to himself, already beginning to shake.
Kel realized his duty in the situation as Basil entered a state that was bound to turn into a panic attack. He placed a hand on Basil’s shoulder, saying, “Don’t worry, Bas, I’ve got this.” He looked at Sunny solemnly before turning back to his little sister. “Sally! I need markers, crayons, and glitter glue!” He yelled, pointing a determined finger at the oblivious child.
“Okay!” She said, waddling off to get the requested materials.
“What am I looking at?” Sunny said, arms crossed as he tried to make out Kel’s crude sketches.
“Hey, not all of us are artists!”
“Just explain it to him already idiot!” Aubrey said.
“I’m getting to it!” Kel exclaimed. He pointed to the drawn towers on the paper. “Okay, Sunny, this is the World Trade Center. And this,” he said, moving his finger to point out the airplane he drew, “is an airplane.” He then tore off the page with a loud rip, revealing a drawing of the collision. “And this is what happened September 11th 2001.” He said, near yelling.
Horror settled on Sunny’s face, quickly replaced with something almost unbelieving. “But that doesn’t make any sense! How would a plane even get that off course? Did the pilot fall asleep or something?”
Hero looked up from where he was comforting the anxious Basil. “Terrorists, Sunny.” He said gravely.
“Al Qaeda hijacked the planes.” Basil added, breathless.
“You mean…” Sunny looked from friend to friend, panic rising as he searched for answers. “How could they even take down both towers with one plane? Is that even possible?”
Kel winced. “I may have used a little artistic interpretation. They actually hijacked four planes.” He said, looking away.
“They crashed two planes into each tower?”
Aubrey sighed, flatly asking, “Who’s going to tell him about the Pentagon?”
“THEY HIT THE PENTAGON???”