The End is Now by Rob Stennett Page B

and there is no way
     you vote a prophet/terrorist to become the homecoming queen.
    Not even the Goth kids would do that.
    Emily opened her locker. Inside were pictures of fashion models and movie stars, the people she’d need to dress like, look
     like, and act like if she’d have any shot at becoming homecoming queen.
    “Hi, Emily,” Megan said, peeking into her locker.
    “Hey,” Emily replied. She didn’t want to talk. That meant she’d have to respond to all of this Will/rapture stuff. She was
     running out of things to say.
    “So, the news was crazy last night,” Megan said.
    “Yeah, hey, I’m running late to trig,” Emily said as she shut her locker. She was almost home free. She’d go to trigonometry
     and work the whole period on some response to her baby brother’s threat.
    But right before Emily could get away, Megan said, “Why don’t you just cut class?”
    “I can’t. Mr. Saunders is giving notes on what’s going to be on the first chapter test. He usually gives all the answers there,”
     Emily said.
    But she was lying. Mr. Saunders didn’t give any answers. Ever. Still, Emily knew this would be the type of class a homecoming
     queen would be interested in. She could get all of the answers, which meant good grades, which meant she could go to college
     and get into a great sorority. And she could do all of this without having to study hard. Even her popular friends could understand
     why she wouldn’t want to cut that sort of class.
    “No, you need to cut class. We’re all going.”
    “Going where?”
    “Jefferson Elementary.”
    “What?”
    “Everyone wants to see if it’s going to blow up like your brother said.”
    “Right.”
    “And you’d know more about all that than anyone else. So you’ve got to be there, everyone’s going to want to hear what you’ve
     got to say about it.”
    And that’s when Emily saw the life raft that was being thrown right at her. She was drowning in the sea of unpopularity. She
     could pull herself out of it, and go straight into the upper crust again.
    It was all so clear. She needed to go to the elementary school to control this situation. To control how people were thinking
     about her brother. To show them how misguided they’d been. She couldn’t do that in trig. And if she didn’t go down there,
     she’d have no way to control what they were saying. They could gossip about her all they wanted. She’d spend the rest of her
     high school years as an outcast. Even worse, she’d be
remembered
as an outcast. The last six years of work would have been all for nothing.
    “Why didn’t you say so?” Emily asked. “Come on, let’s go.”
    Emily arrived at Jefferson with a carload of her friends. She couldn’t believe how many people were there; cars were parked
     for blocks in every direction. Everyone was lined up around the school watching. They were waiting to see if something was
     going to happen. They weren’t quite sure what, but they didn’t want to miss it.
    How are people taking everything this seriously? Emily thought. Will’s just a kid. He reads comic books and pours chocolate
     milk on his Cocoa Puffs. He’s not a prophet. He can barely do long division, and everyone is really looking at him to predict
     the end of the whole world? Was the whole town actually shutting down because of what he said?
    Apparently it was.
    Businesses, restaurants, and government offices must have shut down because it seemed like most of Goodland was circled around
     the perimeter of the school. The actual school was a ghost town, as if there were only a few teachers and kids inside the
     school. It almost looked like the rapture had
already
happened. There wasn’t much for everyone to look at. A few uniformed officers roamed around the school grounds, but other
     than that there was nothing but tumbleweeds.
    But still everyone watched and waited.
    When Emily and her friends arrived at the scene, there was almost a reverence in the air. But