Sydney

The clock hands marched their metronomic and monotonous march, marking the passage of each minute. Students scratched their pencils dull on scantrons, one student hurriedly scribbling over the gurgly suck of his incessant sniffles. One by one, they slowly stood up, careful not to drag their desk or hit their hip on one another, meekly walking up to the front of the room to place their test in a sort of neat pile.
A student chewed his pencil, rolling over the possible answers to question 48 in his mind. A or C. It could be A or C. Or was it D?
A thump startled him out of his focus and a collective gasp breathed out from the body of students. Some nearest to the teacher stood up and gawked at something on the floor in front of them.
“Make room, make room!”
His brows knitted together and his eyes darted from surprised face to surprised face as he joined the crowd.
She lay on the ground in the center of the circle, her limbs haphazardly sprawled on the cold linoleum floor. Her eyes rolled back, only partially closed. The teacher knelt down beside the girl’s still shoulders, leaning forward with her cheek beside the girl’s mouth. She sat up, her face paling. “Does anyone know CPR?” Her voice cracked.
The boy’s eyes absorbed the girl’s limp form, gazing at her soft pink cheeks, pouty lips, and heart-shaped face; her brown hair that tumbled and curled outward from her head in chocolate spirals and wisps. He thought of the smile he often stared at, entranced by the little giggle that bubbled out.
He also remembered getting his lifeguard job over the summer.
His heart jumped to his throat and his skin went cold. He jerkily started to kneel down beside her.
“I know!” A voice shouted. Another boy knelt down on the other side of the girl.
The boy’s face grew red. “No,” he barked. “I-I mean…I’m a certified lifeguard.”
“Oh. Well, no offense, but my mom and dad are EMTs and they said you have to be sorta beefy to do CPR,”
“I know. That’s how I got the certification,” he said, kneeling down.
“Oh, yeah of course! And dude, I’m not trying to step on your toes or anything—“
“Oh, no of course,”
“It’s just…I’m a good friend of hers,”
“Yeah?”
“A really good friend of hers,”
His eyes narrowed. “Really,”
“Really,”
“Oh, well, you know, not trying to belittle that or anything, or even criticize you, but if she were my friend, I’d let a professional do it,”
“I mean, it can’t be that hard,”
“You have to break her sternum,”
“I know,”
“You wanna break her sternum?”
“Do you?”
He glared at him. “You should just let me do it,”
He glared back. “No, no. I got this.”
“Boys!”
A cough.
A gasp.
Her eyes fluttered open.
She stared up at the face hovering above her.
“You…you saved me,”