Had this been an actual emergency...

The civil defense siren was right outside our classroom window, at the top of a telephone-type pole--the wooden, creosote-soaked kind, like a round 30-foot tall railroad tie. The siren stood silent every day of the month. Except one day. The first Wednesday, at 11am, that siren would go off, proving that it's ready to warn us of incoming Kansas tornadoes, or worse.

Of course, in first grade, I had no idea what was about to happen. Or what could be worse. The first time ever, in early September, with the classroom windows open (of course, there was no air conditioning then---didn't have it, didn't miss it, didn't need it) the breeze drifted through and the nudged the American flag at the front of the room. I was partially transfixed, watching the flag waft in the last breath of summer. I wondered what Mom was doing. I was already fully capable of drifting away from classwork when I barely knew what classwork was. I was just getting used to a full day at school. None of this afternoon-only kindergarten. This was Mrs. Ballard's first grade class.

Not fully aware of the time, as clock-reading hadn't registered with me yet, I reasoned it must be almost time for lunch. Almost time to crack into my school bus shaped lunch box and see what Mom had poured into my thermos for me. Would it be milk, or Hawaiian Punch or...holy cow what is that sound?

It started low, and odd. It rapidly grew louder and rose in pitch. The sound twisted and erupted like I did when I was discovering what it was to vomit last winter. Only louder. Much louder. Two notes, or more, cringe-inducing, distance-splitting, deafening dissonance that was even loud at Macy's. And Macy's wasn't close to my school.

That pole with the two round fans of funnels on top of it was one narrow alleyway away from the open window. My open window. And those funnels were howling, screaming. Not moving, just screaming. The windows, buzzing. My hands, shaking. The flag, wafting. And my eyeballs must have been bulging.

Mrs. Ballard's mouth was moving but no one could hear a word she said. Turns out she was assuring the class that it was "just a drill." What's a drill?  And why are we all standing up and moving toward the classroom door?

I apparently had wafted off myself whenever Mrs. Ballard was instructing us what was coming. That sometime soon, that siren would go off; and then we'd calmly, quietly line up and walk out the door toward the "gym" in the school basement. That's what was finally happening. And being a reasonably receptive if not attentive first grader, I gathered myself--amid the non-stopping noise of the civil defense siren--and marched with my classmates to the hardened windowless basement shelter.

After that, I quickly learned how to tell time. And read a calendar. The next first Wednesday, my stomach hurt as I tied my shoes before school. ( I also learned to tie my shoes.) I confirmed with my mom that today is the first Wednesday.  She said yes, and why. I told her I needed to stay home today. "I'm sick." She didn't believe me. She ushered me out the door into the brilliant October morning, to defeat my fear and never again be surprised by the siren on that pole.