We had bonded forever by the end of the day.

It took longer than I’d anticipated, but I finally made Deadwood High recognize my true potential. There are people – like my parents and Mrs Baggoli – who look at what happened another way, of course, as doubters and scoffers always will. My mother said I was lucky. My father said I was lucky. The cops said I was lucky, but also brave. Mrs Baggoli said that I never cease to amaze her.

It was Mrs Baggoli’s idea that I write about what happened in my own “inimitable style” for my final English project.

“Perhaps if you put it down in black and white, you’ll see things a little more objectively,” Mrs Baggoli suggested. She sighed. “Try very hard to stick to the facts, Lola. Don’t embellish too much.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I always try to be as objective as a person can be.”

Mrs Baggoli sighed again. “Well, try a little harder.”

So I’m trying really hard to make sure that the real truth is told. And this is the real truth. Everything I’m about to tell you occurred exactly as I say. And I don’t mean just the everyday, boring things about school, and my family, and stuff like that. I mean everything. Even the things that seem so incredible, so totally out of this solar system, that you think I must have made them up, they’re true too. And nothing’s been exaggerated. Not the teensiest, tiniest, most subatomic bit. It all happened exactly as I’m telling it.

This is my story.

It starts with the end of the world.

The World Ends

The world ended on March 5th at exactly 11.13 p.m., give or take a second or two.