story20434.xml

story20434.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2006-09-11

I had just started sixth grade when the terrorists attacks of Spetember 11, 2001, occured. School was going on as usual, but about ten o'clock, parents began arriving and taking their children home. At first it was slightly humorous, becuase every few minutes another one of my classmates would leave, and the class grew steadily smaller. The remaining students and I began speculating about the cause of the unexpected onslaught of parents, giggling as our ideas grew increasingly silly and farfetched. Eventuallly, the humor wore off, becuase we realized that the situation was serious. Teachers were spotted crying in the hallways. On our way back to our classroom, which was in a trailer outside, my friend pointed to the sky and exclaimed, "Wow, look at that!" My teacher's expression instantly changed, and she stared up in a panic, asking, "What, where?" My classmate replied, "The moon, it's out during the day." Our teacher tried to laugh off her minor panic attack, but we knew that something wasn't right. When we got back to our trailer, our teacher turned on the television to a news station. We saw images of a tall building in flames, but thought little of it, as fires occur somewhere almost everyday. It wasn't until our teacher finally decided to explain everything that we realized the significance of the images. She told us that she wanted to tell us the truth, despite the wishes of the school administration. The twin towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington had been hit by planes, which had been piloted by terrorists. Instantly, my classmates and I began to panic. I knew that my parents worked in D.C., but I had no idea where, and I feared the worst.
For the rest of the day, we all went around in a semi-stupor. To my relief, my mother arrived at the end of the day to pick me up, which in and of itself would have alerted me that something was amiss, becuase I usually rode the bus home. The next few weeks, I went around as usual, but cringed everytime I heard a plane's engines roar overhead. It took several months before I was able to see jet contrails cross the sky without shuddering involunterally.