Your mother hollers that youÕre going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You donÕt stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You donÕt thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course notÑyou launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner.

Only, if itÕs the last time youÕll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish youÕd stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.

But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.

Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong.

In Emmy LaybourneÕs action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the worldÑas they know itÑapart.