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picking something out of his hair. He dropped his hand down to the side and made a motion as if he was letting something go.
    I didn’t understand at first: There was nothing in his hair and nothing in his hand. Then I raised my right hand to the same spot and, sure enough, the empty Oreos wrapper was stuck to my head. I plucked it off and stuck it in my pocket. The empty foil crinkled as I crushed it down. It wasn’t loud but I guess it was enough. I heard movement behind me. Jason sat up and that caused Pete to turn over onto his other side, still chasing that dream.
    I nodded to Jason but he didn’t see me yet. He was staring at the snow wall. The light coming in through the top was stronger now, and it was brighter in the hallway. The wall wasn’t black anymore, it was gray against the glass. I thought back, had it ever really been black?
    I turned back toward Elijah, but he was gone. I guess he had wandered down toward the doors. With the snow so deep, I could no longer see around the corner of the glass hallway. But I hadn’t heard him go. My head swam for a second. I wasn’t sure I trustedmy eyes right now. I stood up, just to get the blood flowing, to wake up a little. My knees cracked but it felt good to be up, closer to the light coming in.
    “Hey,” whispered Jason.
    “Hey,” I whispered, turning toward him.
    He looked out at the snow pressed against the glass, literally tons of it. Then he looked back at me and made the same shoot-me-now gesture as Pete had the night before, but he made it with both hands. Then he dropped his thumbs, shooting himself in both temples.
    Good morning to you too.

ELEVEN
    The snow was a dull white against the glass by the time Pete woke up. The girls were next and then Les. Elijah drifted back into the fold, and there we were, just like last night, seven kids on our own, hanging out in a little cluster.
    “All dressed up and nowhere to go,” said Jason.
    We were still bundled up in the extra clothes we’d worn to sleep. I walked over to my backpack and put my hat in it. It wasn’t that cold yet, maybe fifty-five, and I wanted to have something in reserve. My backpack was against the wall where we’d slept, and now that we were up, we’d all drifted away from that area. I guess we were keeping it separate. It was the “bedroom.” Now we were all standing in the “living room” closer to the main doors. I walked back to the group thinking we’d need a new “house” soon.
    People were walking up to the glass and standing next to it. They were trying to measure its height based on their own.Best guess: a little over eight feet. I didn’t have the heart to tell them it had been a little under eight feet half an hour ago. It wouldn’t be long before there was no space for light to come in at all.
    Everyone with a phone tried it. When they got nothing, they stood up against the glass and raised their phones above snow level; Krista had to stand on tiptoes. There was absolutely no signal now. In one sense, it was just more of the same, but in another sense it was kind of shocking. It was morning now. It seemed like things should be reset, rebooted. What we didn’t know, what we had no way of knowing at the time, was that something had happened overnight. Up on the mountain — at the height of the storm, in every sense — the cell tower had been knocked out.
    We just sort of stood around for a while. No one was really sure what to do, apart from swear and kick the wall. At first, the morning got brighter as the sun climbed higher behind the heavy clouds, but then it started getting darker again as the gap at the top of the windows continued to fill with snow. I think we all knew we’d need to move to another part of the school. The light seemed weird and unreal, but everything else seemed strangely clear to me. We were on our own, and we were going to be that way for a while. Gossell hadn’t come back. He’d found shelter or, well, he hadn’t. The power was out,