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Brandon stopped to catch his breath. The narrow stairwell was well lit, with white walls and gray steps outlined in what looked like glow-in-the-dark paint. Railings ran down both sides, and at each floor there was a metal door and a small sign telling you where you were.
This was Stairwell A, and right now Brandon had it all to himself. It was hot and stuffy, and there was a tinge of smoke in the air. Sweat beaded on Brandon’s forehead, and he wiped it away. He was only on the 87th floor.
It was time to get moving again.
Brandon wasn’t in bad shape. He loved skateboarding for hours every weekend, and at third-grade field day last year he had won the obstacle course race—forward and backward. But walking up steps in this heat was more tiring than any of that.
Brandon’s foot splashed on the next step, and he froze. Something clear and wet was running down the stairs from above. It looked like water, but Marni’s husband had said a jet plane accidentally hit the building. What if this wasn’t water at all, but something more dangerous? Like jet fuel?
Whatever the stuff was, more of it came cascading down the stairs, creating a little waterfall, and suddenly Brandon was surrounded. He couldn’t go up or down without splashing through it, and he had to go up, to get to his dad.
Hand squeezing the railing, heart thumping, Brandon bent down low to sniff at the liquid.
Nothing. It didn’t smell like anything. Especially not gas. Brandon actually liked the smell of gasoline—it reminded him of go-carts and fishing boats—and this liquid had no hint of gas. It was water, Brandon guessed. Maybe from the sprinklers that had to be going off wherever the fire was.
Was Windows on the World on fire? Was his dad all right?
Brandon felt another terrible pang of guilt at having left without telling his dad. Was his father up there somewhere, searching floor after floor to find him? Was he calling 911 to tell them his son was lost?
They were a team, and Brandon had let the team down.
Again.
Brandon’s dad had done his best to keep them afloat after his mom died. His dad had often gone the extra mile too, like when he’d bought Brandon a new skateboard even though money was tight, or when he’d stayed up late helping Brandon with his math homework.
Brandon wanted so desperately to tell his dad he was sorry. For running off today, for getting suspended, for everything he’d ever done to make things harder for him.
He would just have to make it back up to Windows on the World and tell him.
Brandon set his teeth and lifted a foot to climb to the next step. He was careful not to splash whatever was running down the stairs onto his jeans, just in case.
At the next turn in the stairs, there were cracks in the wall. At the turn after that, the walls had fallen down on the stairs.
Pieces of drywall lay on the stairs in huge, smashed chunks, blocking Brandon’s way. Both railings were useless now—one was torn off, the other buried. The metal studs that the drywall had been attached to stood bare and exposed, and red and black wires hung where the fluorescent lights used to be.
Brandon felt panic rising in him. This was bad. Really bad. Was he getting close to the spot where the airplane had hit? What if he couldn’t get past it?
Brandon made himself calm down. He was just going to have to climb over the wreckage. He could do this. He grabbed an exposed end of drywall and hauled himself up. The water flowing down the steps turned everything into a slick sludge and Brandon’s sneakers slipped as he climbed, but he was making it.
He was almost to the next flight when the piece of drywall he was clinging to snapped off in his hand. Brandon went flying, slipping and tumbling head over heels back down the stairs. He whacked his head and banged his shin, and with a thunk that rattled his teeth he slammed into the wall of the landing, right back where he’d started.
“Crap,” Brandon muttered. “Crap crap crap crap crap.”
He lay sprawled among the broken drywall. One whole side of him was scraped up, and when he wiped his nose, he came away with blood. There was a nasty-looking purple bruise starting on his shin, and the left side of his stomach was sore when he tested it.
Brandon put his head back and closed his eyes. Except for the smoke and the gritty, nasty drywall, he might have been back in the cement drainage ditch where he’d first learned to skateboard—right down to the trickle of water soaking his butt through his jeans. All that was missing was his helmet and pads.
But the thing he’d learned about skateboarding was that if you gave up after you took a fall, you were never going to be a skater. You always crashed, even when you got good at skateboarding. That was just part of it. Every skater ate pavement. You learned how to fall.
And you learned how to get back up again.
Brandon pulled himself up out of the soggy Sheetrock and started the climb again, more carefully now. He made it to the 88th floor, and through one of the cracks in the wall he saw the red-and-orange glow of a fire.
Brandon felt a mix of fear and relief. Okay, he thought. If this is where the fire is, down here on the 88th floor, then my dad is all right! If I can just get past this floor, I can get to Windows on the World and we can wait for the fire department together!
With renewed energy, Brandon scrambled up the next mountain of broken and disintegrating drywall. But when he got to the landing of the 89th floor, he couldn’t go any farther.
The stairwell above the 89th floor was gone. Not just the walls—everything. The stairs themselves seemed to have collapsed in a pile of concrete and twisted metal.
There was nothing to climb, and no going past it.
The entire stairwell was gone.
Brandon’s mind reeled. How was this possible? This was the World Trade Center. The biggest building in New York. The second-biggest building in the whole United States. It couldn’t just fall apart!
Brandon tried to think. This stairwell was destroyed, but there had to be other stairwells, right? If this was Stairwell A, there had to be a Stairwell B, or why would you even label it Stairwell A to begin with? So he could just exit onto the 89th floor, find one of the other intact stairwells, and keep going up.
Brandon took a deep breath and nodded to himself. This was a good plan. This would get him back to his dad.
The door to the 89th floor was a little bent, the way a cheap plastic chair warped when somebody big sat in it, and broken Sheetrock crowded the floor in front of it. Brandon kicked at the wet drywall to clear a path, then pulled on the bent door.
It wouldn’t budge.
Brandon put his feet on the wall, going vertical like he was doing a rock to fakie, a skateboarding trick where you came all the way to the top of the half-pipe, popped half your board over the rim, and then rolled down again backward. Brandon pulled with his arms and pushed with his legs, and with a wet screech the door scraped open just far enough for him to squeeze through.
Brandon jumped down to his feet and panted. Through the narrow opening in the doorway, he could see bright light and feel a blast of fresh air. Yes. Score one for the skaters.
Brandon slipped sideways through the gap and froze. The 89th floor was gone.
Brandon was staring straight out into open sky.
