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"Sometimes I wonder," I said sitting back on my pillow, "if you and I aren't the only virgins left in our class."

"So? I'm not ashamed of it if it's true."

"I'm not ashamed. I'm just . . ."

"What?"

"Curious."

"And curiosity killed the cat," Alice warned. She narrowed her round eyes. "How far have you gone with Bobby Lockwood?"

"Not far," I said. She was suddenly staring at me so hard I had to look away.

"Remember Beverly Marks," she warned.

Beverly Marks was infamous, the girl in our eighth-grade class who had gotten pregnant and was sent away. To this day no one knew where she went.

"Don't worry about me," I said. "I will not have sex with anyone I don't love."

Alice shrugged skeptically. She was annoying me. I sometimes wondered why I stayed friends with her. "Let's get back to work." She opened the textbook and ran her forefinger down the page. "Okay, the main part of tomorrow's test will probably be--"

Suddenly, we both looked up and listened. Car doors were being slammed and someone was crying hard and loudly.

"What's that?" I went to the window in my bedroom. It looked out to the entrance of Mineral Acres. A few of Mommy's co-workers got out of Lois Norton's car. Lois was the manager of the beauty parlor. The rear door was opened and Lois helped Mommy out. Mommy was crying uncontrollably and being supported by two other women as they helped her toward the front door of our trailer. Another car pulled up behind Lois Norton's with two other women in it.

Mammy suddenly let out a piercing scream. My heart raced. I felt my legs turn to stone; my feet seemed nailed to the floor. Mama Arlene and Papa George came out of their trailer to see what was happening. I recognized Martha Supple talking to them. Papa George and Mama Arlene suddenly embraced each other tightly, Mama Arlene's hand going to her mouth. Then Mama Arlene rushed toward Mammy, who was now nearly up to our steps. Tears streamed down my cheeks, mostly from fear.

Alice stood like stone herself, anticipating. "What happened?" she whispered.

I shook my head. I somehow managed to walk out of my room just as the front door opened.

Mommy took a deep breath when she saw me. "Oh Melody," she cried.

"Mommy!" I started to cry. "What's the matter?" I asked through my sobs.

"There's been a terrible accident. Daddy and two other miners . . are dead."

A long sigh escaped from Mommy's choked throat. She swayed and would have fallen if Mama Arlene hadn't been holding on to her. However, her eyes went bleak, dark, haunted. Despair had drained her face of its radiance.

I shook my head. It couldn't be true. Yet there was Mommy clutching Mama Arlene, her friends beside and around her, all with horribly tragic faces.

"N000!" I screamed and plowed through everyone, down the stairs, outside and away, with my hands over my ears. I was running, unaware of which direction I had taken or that I had left the house without a coat and it was in the middle of one of our coldest Februaries.

I had run all the way to the Monongalia River bend before Alice caught up with me. I was standing there on the hill, embracing myself, gasping and crying at the same time, just gazing dumbly at the beach and the hickory and white oak trees on the other side of the river. A white-tailed deer appeared and gazed curiously at the sound of my sobs.

I shook my head until I felt it might snap off my neck, but I somehow already knew all the No's in the world wouldn't change things. I felt the world horribly altered. I cried until my insides ached. I heard Alice calling and turned to see her gasping for breath as she chugged her way up the h

ill to where I was standing. She tried to hug and comfort me. I pulled away.

"They're lying," I screamed hysterically. "They're lying. Tell me they're lying."

Alice shook her head. "They said the walls caved in and by the time they got to your father and the others--"

"Daddy," I moaned. "Poor Daddy."

Alice bit her lower lip and waited for me to stop sobbing. "Aren't you cold?" she asked.

"What difference does it make?" I snapped angrily. "What difference does anything make?"