The Christmas Genie by Dan Gutman, Dan Santat Page B

Madison, who sits next to me. There was a lot of shouting and screaming. I didn’t see anything after that.
    When I finally looked up, my desk was shattered. I mean
shattered
. There was something half-buried in the floor underneath it. It looked like a rock, and it was about the size of a small garbage can. If I hadn’t dived out of the way, it would have crushed my legs, or maybe gone right through me.
    I would have been dead.

The Amazing Part

    It was amazing! But that’s not even the
really
amazing part of the story. I’ll get to the really amazing part in a minute.
    Naturally, everybody freaked out, even the cool kids who like to pretend nothing bothers them. We were all on the floor, hiding under our desks and covering our heads. The girls were screaming. Somebody was crying. I figured it must have been a bomb. Maybe our school was being attacked by terrorists.
    â€œWhat was
that
?” asked Ella, who sits in the back row.
    â€œRemain calm!” Mrs. Walters shouted, with panic in her voice. “Everybody stay under your desk!”
    Like staying under a desk was going to protect us from a bomb, right? I didn’t have a desk to stayunder anyway, because my desk was in a million pieces. I just lay there on the floor, dazed.
    About a minute passed before anybody said anything.
    â€œIs everybody okay?” asked Mrs. Walters.
    We got up slowly. All of my body parts seemed to be intact. No blood anywhere. I was afraid another bomb might come flying through the window, and thought we should just get out of there. But nobody was making a move for the door.
    â€œI think there’s a piece of glass in my arm,” Ashley groaned. She sounded like she was going to cry.
    Mrs. Walters went to help Ashley, while the rest of us gathered around the thing that was stuck in the floor. There was smoke pouring out of it.
    â€œWhat do you think it is?” asked Olivia.
    â€œI’ll tell you what it is,” said Ava, the walking encyclopedia. “It’s a meteor.”
    â€œIt can’t be a meteor,” I told her. “Meteors don’t hit the Earth. It’s a meteor
ite
.”
    Everybody seemed to be okay. There wasn’t even any glass in Ashley’s arm. The big crybaby just hit it against something while she was diving under her desk.

    â€œIt
is
a meteorite!” Mrs. Walters exclaimed as she got down on her hands and knees to look at it. Her eyes were wide with excitement.
    That’s when our principal, Mr. Hamilton, charged in the door. Mrs. Walters jumped up and stood in front of the meteorite so Mr. Hamilton couldn’t see it.
    â€œI heard a crash,” Mr. Hamilton said. “Is everyone all right?”
    Mr. Hamilton has to deal with lots of crisis situations all the time. Like, every year there’s always some dope who pulls the fire alarm for no reason. Or that time we were in fourth grade and Miss Rassky found a snake in the cloakroom.
That
was interesting! But I’m pretty sure this was the first time a meteorite had ever come flying into a classroom.
    â€œA desk broke,” Mrs. Walters said, lamely.
    Mr. Hamilton looked around suspiciously. “I’ll get the custodian,” he said. And he left.
    Once it was clear that everybody was okay, we weren’t afraid anymore. We were all excited about what had happened.
    â€œI can’t believe a rock fell out of the sky and landed right here in our class!” said Alyssa. “What are the odds of that happening?”
    â€œWell, it had to land
somewhere
,” Ella pointed out. “The odds are just as good that it would land here as they are that it would land anywhere else.”
    Ella is so sensible. Sensible can be annoying.
    â€œBut it landed here just as we were talking about meteorites!” I pointed out.
    â€œThis is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me!” Mrs. Walters said with wonder as we gathered around the hole in the floor.