Doomsday Note

Hannah sat in her Math class, staring at a snowy screen that should have been playing a video on finding the surface area of a parallelogram.  The eighth grade Math teacher Mr. Hendrickson was helplessly trying to bang some sense into the machine, all to no avail.

    A strange boy called Adam, who sat right behind her, passed her a note.  What was strange about it was that he was withdrawn, often spaced out, and he had an uncanny ability to correctly guess what was coming in the near future.  It was this boy who wrote: ‘Your parents are going to be in a crash later today.’

    She rolled her eyes.  ‘You’re insane.’

    Adam smiled.  ‘Just wait and see.’

    Mr. Hendrickson called then, “Well, this video isn’t working.  Instead, why don’t I give you an assignment out of the book?”  There was a collective groan as they opened their books to page four hundred at seventy-six.

    A few hours later, right before the end of the day, the vice principal Mr. Goodbloom came into Hannah’s Science class and said, “May I see Hannah McDonald out in the hallway?”  She silently got out of her desk and followed him.

    After the door was closed he turned to her solemnly and said, “I’m sorry that I’m the one to tell you this, but we were just notified that your parents were in a car crash on the way home from lunch.  They died before the ambulance could get there.  I’m sorry for your loss.”

    Hannah stood there numbly for a while, and the only thing she could think of was, ‘The damn kid was right.’

    Adam, who had that class with her as well, looked smug as she walked into the room.  He passed her another note, which said, ‘I told you so.’