HEAR by Robin Epstein

a photo of the actual disaster, which was a month later, from the CNN website. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
    My fingers feel clammy; they tremble as I do as she says. When I find the CNN photo, it is literally a pale imitation of her painting. The photo is all sea green, brown, and grey. Mara’s painting is dotted with the hot pink of a little girl’s sweatshirt, the fire-engine red of a motorbike being swept out to sea, and the neon multicolors of a supermarket sign wrenched from its facade.
    I remember this photograph; it haunted me. This was nature’s wrath—the picture of chaos—and even at the age of thirteen, I was conscious of how the photographer had managed to capture that raw and brutal destruction.
    Yet Mara saw it and captured it too. A month before it happened. I start to feel wobbly, dizzy. I lean against the wall for support.
    â€œDid you try to stop it?” I ask her.
    â€œThe earthquake and tsunami?” she asks. She gives a little laugh. “Kass, I appreciate your belief in me, but I haven’t figured out how to control seismic activity quite yet.”
    â€œNo,” I snap. “I mean did you try to warn anyone?”
    â€œ Yes, of course,” she snaps back. “Of course I did.” In a flash, Mara’s mania and joy are gone; now her face is flushed and twisted with rage.
    As I try to remain calm in order to calm her , I also try to imagine how a teenager would go about warning a foreign country that it’s about to experience a devastating natural disaster. “So what did you do?” I ask. “Who did you tell? Your parents?”
    â€œAre you kidding? If I told them that, they would have doubled my meds.” She rolls her eyes as if she’s embarrassed by my stupidity. “I emailed the prime minister of Japan’s office, like, repeatedly.” She shrugs. “No one answered. Apparently no one in his office was particularly interested in the earthquake forecasts of a kid from Oklahoma. And it wasn’t like I was going to be able to stop it, so eventually I gave up and started painting it instead.”
    Footsteps approach. When I glimpse the two unhappy guards entering our gallery, I link arms with Mara. Best to steer her out of the museum before we get booted. I’m hoping she’ll chill out once we’re back outside in the sunshine. She seems to have relaxed a little, though she’s still far from serene. As we walk through the exit, she unwraps a gummy ginger candy and pops it in her mouth. When she finishes chewing it, she stops in her tracks and slips her arm from mine.
    â€œ You know that I had an ulterior motive in inviting you here, don’t you?” she says. Her voice is surprisingly calm.
    Uh-oh.
    Before I can utter a word, she states, “I want you to stay away from Pankaj.”
    I almost laugh. “Stay away from Pankaj? What are you talking about?”
    â€œDon’t play coy, Kass; it’s really unattractive on you.”
    â€œMara, you’re insane.” I immediately regret my choice of words, but now I’m angry. My patience has worn thin. “I don’t even like Pankaj, and it’s pretty clear that he has a raging hate-on for me, so you don’t have a lot to worry about on this one.”
    â€œI’m serious,” she says. She’s leaning so close to me I’m wondering if she might get violent. Only now do I see the dark circles under her eyes beneath some concealer.
    I take a step back. “I don’t even know why you’re worried about this. If you like him, take him. He’s all yours.”
    â€œThat’s not the point.” She glares at me. “Just . . . just remember this conversation.”
    â€œNot a problem. You’ve done a pretty good job of freaking me out here.”
    â€œGood,” she says, her voice sliding into a grim whisper. “Exactly what I was hoping to do.”

CHAPTER