I lived in a small town about an hour from NYC. My school was under the air traffic corridor to Newark Airport. An announcement came on that the school was to be put into lock-down. No details could be given. No one had a cell phone and there were three TVs in the entire school. I remember my teacher was a Cold War kid. She assumed something was horribly wrong and had us duck under our desks, arms covering our heads. I kept thinking if there was a bomb a thin bit of wood would not protect me if a building couldn't. She left us in there with another teacher and went out into the hall. I remember the sub jamming a chair under the door handle like in those old action movies. After a few minutes the vice principal came in and ask our teacher wasn’t coming back for a few minutes. She was gone for three hours. The lights had been off this entire time. One of my classmates, her mother came and dragged her out of class. Her mom was crying, but wouldn’t tell us what was going on. She did whisper to the sub. The sub just sat, almost falling to the ground. By the end of the school day only myself and three other students in the class, along with our proper teacher. The sub gave my teacher a hug as she left. My teacher didn’t speak for the rest of the day. When I boarded the bus there was only ten kids. Instead of dropping us off at the stops, the bus came right up to the front doors. The bus driver honked. If someone came to the door, you could get off. If not, you had to stay on. It was the quietest bus ride of my life. I ran all the way into the house. My mom had the TV on (which scared me, we couldn’t afford cable) and sat me and my siblings down in front of it. Then she told us dad was coming home. It was five P.M. He never left work ‘til six. My mom turned the volume up. I watched the buildings stand, filling up the whole screen. I didn’t understand. I’d been to the towers a few times, saw them every time we drove into Manhatten. Then the plane entered the shot and banked and my sister was screaming “It’s going to hit! It’s going to hit!” I watch unblinking as the plane forced it’s was into the structure. I turned to ask my mom if the pilot had a stroke or something, by she forced my head towards the screen. The tower was burning and there was a second plane. My sister was rocking, “No. No. It’s not possible. It’s not fucking possible.” The view jumped. It was a close up, a desk was coming out the window, and I lost it: “There was someone on the desk! There was someone on the desk!” I don’t know how long we sat there, crying a watching. I felt sick and worried. My friend’s dad was a pilot, my uncle worked next to the Towers in City Bank. My dad came in the door. He put down his things, turned to us and said, “We’re going to find out who did this, and we’re going to kill them.”