The Aqua Net Diaries by Jennifer Niven Page B

that he was teaching us perhaps the most important lessons we would ever learn in our lives. Because of this, he tried not to lose his temper when we used up all the bandaging tape on our mummification rituals and went stumbling into walls, blinded and sightless, our arms stretched out before us. Time and again, he tried to impress upon us the seriousness of life. He made it very clear that our homes were “accidents waiting to happen.”
    I was already paranoid about driving, thanks to Mr. Kemper and Mr. Fleagle, and now I became nervous in my own house. Everywhere I looked, I wondered if things were going to catch fire or explode without warning (for some reason, these were the accidents that came to mind). I made my mother buy extra fire extinguishers and test the smoke alarms. My parents bought a rope ladder we could use to climb out of the second-floor windows if we ever had to. We went over an emergency evacuation plan, in case we had to leave the house quickly—who would be responsible for grabbing the cat, the dog, my ABBA albums, my best shoes, my hair spray, etc.
    One day Mr. Rogers announced that we were having an all-school assembly so that we could watch a film on the dangers of doing drugs. This was exciting, of course, because it meant getting out of class. It was early in our sophomore year, when we were still new to the school. Mr. Rogers lined us up and we followed him down to Civic Hall, where the entire school was gathered.
    Principal French stood on the stage with a giant movie screen behind him. He tested the microphone and it squeaked and squawked, making us groan and cover our ears. He said, “Sorry, sorry. Some of our friends have joined us today from the Richmond Police Department.” He waved at a group of officers who sat in the front row on the floor of the gym. “They’ve been kind enough to bring a film to share with you about a very real problem, and afterward they will be on hand to answer any questions you might have. I thought this was a very important thing for all of us to learn about because drugs are terrible and such a problem not only in this country but in this school. There is drug use going onright this very minute around us, and maybe this will help put a stop to it.”
    I looked around me and wondered who was doing drugs right this minute. I didn’t see anyone doing anything unusual, but then I didn’t know anything about drugs, other than what I’d read in
Rolling Stone
and the one book I owned about Donovan and the Beatles.
    The film started and it wasn’t animated but real—with real people (played by actors) and real situations. There were a lot of needles. There were kids shooting needles into their arms at school and in parks and at home. Anywhere they could shoot up, they were shooting up with those needles. They shot up in cars and in alleyways and at movie theaters. And then they threw up and walked into walls and yelled at their parents and made them cry, and then they found some more needles and shot up again. I thought it seemed unrealistic, and the acting was really bad—worse than on
Fantasy Island.
    After a long time of all this shooting up, the kids who were doing it were then rushed to the emergency room and then there were more needles as the doctors and nurses were sticking needles in their arms to give them IVs. I had seen
Trapper John, M.D.
and I didn’t think this was realistic at all. There had never been a single episode in which so many kids were rushed to the hospital at once for using drugs.
    But the strangest thing was happening around me. Everywhere I looked, people were falling over in and out of their seats. Every now and then someone stood up and wobbled and a teacher ran forward and caught them. It was mostly girls. A few of them were crying. Students were swaying back and forth and teachers were running this way andthat, trying to keep them from falling over. Some of them were so overcome by