Threat Warning by John Gilstrap Page A

wheel and shook a pair of imaginary pompoms. He repeated his stupid rhyme. “That’s it, is it not?”
    “Maybe a hundred years ago.”
    “Then I must have it wrong. I am old, but I am not a hundred. So, what is wrong with Marilee being a cheerleader?”
    He wasn’t going to let this go, was he? At least they’d breezed through the long traffic light. Getting stopped there could have added five whole minutes to the torture. “There’s nothing wrong with it exactly. It’s just that those girls can be really mean.”
    “Is Merilee mean to you?”
    The question startled her, made her feel bad. “No,” she said.
    “So she’s a nice cheerleader. That must mean that some cheerleaders are nice, right?”
    Aafia rolled her eyes. He was such a parent. Clueless.
    “And if she’s nice, and she’s friends with other cheerleaders, then it only makes sense that the other cheerleaders can be nice, too.”
    She looked out the side window. If he was going to be this dense, she had nothing else to say to him.
    “Aafia, look at me, please.” It sounded like a real request, not a demand.
    She turned and faced him.
    “It’s wrong to treat people as if they are a group instead of as an individual. As my daughter, you must know that better than most.”
    Her face grew hotter as shame nudged embarrassment out of the way. “Yes, Father.”
    “You’re a beautiful girl, Aafia. The handsome boys will kiss you, too.”
    She rolled her eyes. He didn’t really just say that, did he?
    He went on, “You have to trust me when I tell you that these issues with your friends—the gossip and the giggling and all the rest—will seem so unimportant ten years from now. Crises come and go. But the only thing that lasts forever is education. It is the only important thing, and everything good that happens in your life will flow from your education. Do you understand this?”
    Finally, the lecture had arrived. And finally, they were in sight of the school. “I understand, Father. I’ll try harder.”
    They’d arrived with the buses, it turned out. The U-shaped driveway in front of the school was packed with hundreds of students streaming from dozens of buses. That meant her father would be stranded here even longer.
    “I’m so sorry, Father.”
    He made a gentle waving motion with his hand. “You go on inside,” he said. “Have a nice day, and try to think of all the gifts that God has given you. Now, give this old man a kiss.”
    This was the father she’d known before—the one who laughed and teased. He seemed to be trying not to be so angry, and his effort pleased her. She unclasped her seat belt, leaned across the center console and planted a kiss on his cheek.
    “I love you, Father,” she said, and the words felt strange. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him; it was just that they rarely talked of such things in their house.
    The bitter Michigan air assaulted her cheeks and hands as she hurriedly shrugged into her coat and closed the door behind her. As she joined the stream of classmates making the way to the front door, she cast a look back over her shoulder to see her father inching the minivan through the sea of children as he disappeared between the two ranks of yellow buses.
    She was just turning back to face the school when the explosion split the air.

C HAPTER S IX
     
    By morning, Christyne had grown jealous of her son’s ability to sleep anywhere and anytime. Within seconds of crashing on the bed, his breath had become rhythmic and even, and as far as she could tell in her hours of wakefulness, he’d never so much as stirred.
    Between the unrelenting cold, though, and her crushing sense of guilt for having gotten them into this, sleep was nowhere in her future.
    In those quiet hours, she’d reasoned that if their captors had meant them harm, they’d have done them harm. Clearly, they had a plan, and while she had no idea what it might be, it only made sense that if she and Ryan made every effort to get