Save Me Read Free

surrender to panic. She coughed and coughed. Tears blurred her vision.
    She knelt down to look at the lever. It had a hole underneath. It locked from the inside, by pushing a button. She could unlock it if she could stick something in the hole. She tried her finger. The hole was too small. She needed something thin enough to fit through.
    She looked wildly around. Smoke billowed everywhere. The blaze in the teachers’ lounge was spreading. She had to hurry. She got up, bolted to the library, and burst through the doors. Smoke filtered the air, less than in the hallway.
    She ran to the librarian’s desk and tore open a drawer. It held pens, pencils, rulers, orange Tic-Tacs. She grabbed a pair of scissors. The blades were too big. She threw them aside. She whirled around, then saw a coat rack holding a red cardigan and a few wire hangers.
    She ran to the rack, snatched off one of the hangers, and twisted it out of shape on the run. She bolted out of the library, horrified at the sight in the hallway. The fire was spreading to the handicapped bathroom. Fingers of flames stretched from the teachers’ lounge. Black smoke enclosed the door.
    “Melly!” Rose shrieked, agonized. She ran to the bathroom and threw herself on her knees in front of the door. She couldn’t see the hole for the smoke and her tears.
    She wrenched the hanger out of shape, slicing her palm with the pointy end. She bent the wire and tried to shove the end into the hole. Her hand shook too much. She tried again and again, her face next to the lever. She finally rammed it through. She felt a click .
    She yanked on the lever. The door opened wide. Heat surged behind her, the flames sucked forward by new oxygen. Smoke filled the bathroom.
    “Melly!” Rose screamed, but Melly sat slumped beside the toilet in the clouds of smoke, her head to the side, unmoving. Her arms hung down. Her feet flopped apart.
    Rose rushed to her side and scooped her up. She couldn’t tell if Melly was breathing, but black soot covered her cheeks and ringed her nostrils and mouth. Her body was limp, her eyes closed. Rose knew CPR but had to get her out while she still could.
    She gathered Melly up, staggered to her feet, and ran out of the smoky bathroom. She bolted to the library, burst through the doors, and tore through the stacks to the exit, which led her down one smoky hallway, then another. She’d never been in that part of the school. She followed the sound of teachers shouting. Melly remained silent, lifeless.
    Rose barreled toward the noise and saw an EXIT sign over double doors. Twenty feet away, then ten. Then five. She exploded through the doors into a stairwell, where a teacher was evacuating older kids, hurrying down the concrete stairs toward the exit for the teachers’ parking lot.
    “It’s my daughter!” Rose shouted on the run, and the teacher blanched.
    “Let her through!” she called to the kids, who parted as Rose wedged her way out of the exit and into the sunshine.
    “Help!” Rose screamed, and the school librarian and a teacher came running. Smoke clouded the parking lot, and beyond it thronged teachers, staff, and students, abuzz with shouting, crying, and head counts.
    Rose raced to a patch of grass, laid Melly on the ground, and put an ear to her chest to listen for a heartbeat. She couldn’t hear breathing because the alarms were too loud. She put her cheek to Melly’s face to feel breathing, but no. She began CPR, tilting Melly’s head back, opening her mouth, and breathing for her, ignoring the stench of smoke on her lips.
    Suddenly, Melly started coughing. Soot puffed from her mouth, a horrifying sight.
    “Honey!” Rose cried with joy, but Melly’s eyelids fluttered and her eyes rolled backwards into her head. “Melly, wake up! Please!” She shook Melly to rouse her, to no avail.
    “Here’s the ambulance!” The school librarian touched Rose’s arm. The teacher stood behind. “Let us help.”
    “Thanks!” Rose scooped Melly