Amanda wanted to wake everyone up and leave, but she couldn't if those men did not leave first. She crawled back into the kitchen and removed Peter and Cindy's shoes and taking them and her own shoes to the back of the kitchen, she wiped them off with a tablecloth. If the powder was poison it was probably too late, but she had to do something.

Amanda put the shoes back on the sleeping Peter and Cindy. And then, strangely enough, she fell asleep too.

Suddenly it was morning and there was light coming through the windows high above the station and filtering into the kitchen and there was noise coming from the floor below. The men from last night were gone. Amanda crawled out onto the restaurant floor. A group of men in white suits and Hazmat helmets were standing on the floor spreading large plastic sheets over the white powder.

"Hey, guys." One of them was talking into his radio. "If you find anyone in the subway, walk them out to the van outside and lock them up because they have all been exposed."

"There are some real criminals out there, are we supposed to lock everyone up together?" One of the white suited guys asked.

"We don't have time. Anyone who has been in this mess has stepped in the white powder. Anthrax is highly contagious and can kill you in a few days. We just don't have the facilities to separate the old ladies who were too stubborn to evacuate from the thugs running the streets, that is if they are still running after breathing that poison."

Amanda had been really happy to see the men and was just about to wake up Cindy and Peter and take them downstairs, but she quickly changed her mind. She couldn't let Peter and Cindy be thrown in a police van with the looters even if they had all been poisoned. They were just little kids. And they could not stay in Grand Central anymore. The only people who were there to rescue them would put them in a van with the looters.

Amanda crawled back into the kitchen and put her hand over Peter and Cindy's mouths and woke them up.

"Hey, there are some scary men downstairs and we need to get out of here," said Amanda.

"I have to pee," said Peter.

"Me, too," Cindy said.

"Okay, just go on the floor. We have to get out of here," Amanda whispered.

"Go on the floor? That's gross!" said Peter.

"This whole thing is gross. But do you want to try to go downstairs to the bathroom past those scary men?"

"What happened?" Cindy's eyes were wide.

"I will tell you later. Go pee behind the counter and then we need to run."

This time there was no argument. They all walked to the back of the kitchen and hid in different corners. The children came back to the stove and Amanda put everyone's backpacks on them and checked to see that she had tied everyone's shoes tightly. She motioned to them to be quiet and then she went to the door and looked out. The men were still there. Amanda almost stumbled on her camera, but she bent down to pick it up and stuck it in her pocket.

"There may be more white powder outside. Try to avoid it. It may be germy but I don't think it is. The most important thing is for us to get away from those guys downstairs. Can you do that?" Amanda looked at Peter and Cindy and tried to look brave but she had never been so terrified in her life.

"Where are we going to go?" Peter whispered.

"I don't know. Okay, we'll find a hotel. That's what we will do. We'll look for an empty hotel," Amanda whispered.

"I like the Waldorf," Cindy whispered.

"It's too far, but there is are some hotels right down the street. We can try one of those," Amanda said. "I am going to crawl out on the balcony and see if the door to the street is clear. Wait right here."

Amanda crawled out and she could see no one else but the men downstairs. The doors to the street were open and she could hear people on the street outside.

"When I say go, run as fast as you can. We are going across the bar and then to the right. Got it?"

Peter and Cindy nodded okay.

"I am not going to hold your hands, but if you can't keep up, I will come get you. Try to stay with me, though. and tiptoe out without being seen. When they see us, start running immediately."

The children tiptoed across the balcony and started to move towards the street, staying close to the bar where the men had been drinking last night. The bar was a mess, the men had put out their cigarettes on the top of the bar leaving burn marks in the wood and it was covered with empty liquor bottles and glasses. Just as Amanda was about to lead them past the bar and to the stairs, Peter saw a flash drive on the bar next to one of the cigarette butts. Peter grabbed the flash drive and stuck it in his pocket.

The children were almost out the door when one of the men saw them.

"Hey, kids. Go outside and tell the guys there to put you in the van." The man's voice may have been muffled by his helmet, but they heard him.

Amanda barked, "Go." And they were off, running up through the doors and out onto the West Entrance to Grand Central Station. There were men on the street outside, all dressed in hazmat suits, but the children could run much faster than someone wearing a hazmat suit, so they out ran them, running down the street and through the open door of a hotel on 45th Street before the first man in a hazmat suit was able to turn the corner.

The hotel lobby was deserted. Amanda quickly grabbed Cindy and Peter and pulled them up the stairs to the lobby and then to the emergency battery operated stair sign. They entered the hotel's interior stairs and turned on their flashlights and ran up two more flights of stairs. When they reached the fourth floor, they entered the dark hallway and ran down it until they found a room with an open door. They ran in and closed the door and sat down. The beds may have been unmade, but nothing had ever looked as beautiful as that room with beds, a mini bar and a bathroom.

"Look, the door to the next room is open." Peter opened it and walked in.

They were in a hotel suite, with two rooms. The beds had not even been used in the room next door. Four beds, two baths-the children looked around the room in awe and relief.

"We have to be very quiet. We don't want anyone to know we are here." Amanda was still very much in charge.

"We need to fill one of the bathtubs with water. The electricity is out and we can run out of water to flush the toilets." Cindy marched into the next room.

"How do you know to do that?" asked Amanda.

"I live in the city and we have blackouts sometimes. We always fill the tub," Cindy replied.

"Turn the water on slow so it does not make a lot of noise and close the bathroom door so the noise can't be heard from the hall," Amanda whispered.

Amanda, Peter and Cindy filled the bathtubs, filled the ice buckets with water to drink and then cleaned up as best they could. Their clothes were filthy but nothing could be done about that now. Everyone was very tired after sleeping on a hard floor and the room was very cold, so soon they were all asleep in the second room. Beds had never looked this good.

Chapter V.

Amanda woke with a start. She could hear men in the hallway outside the room. She got up and was trying to wake up Cindy and Peter and tell them to get into the bathroom to hide when suddenly the door opened and there was a policeman wearing a gas mask pointing a flashlight at them.

The man came into the room, closed the door and removed his gas mask.

"Hey, why are you still here? Let's wake up your parents and get you out of here." The man with the flashlight walked into the room next door and saw the empty room with the unmade beds.

"Where are your parents?" asked the man.

"My dad is in Tahiti," said Peter."

"We don't know where our mothers are. We were at a theater downtown when the building collapsed and we had to escape through the subway. We walked to Grand Central to try to find some police but all we found were bad people." Amanda was very sad and very scared. Peter had climbed onto the bed where Amanda and Cindy had been sleeping and they were all huddled together.

"Well, I am the police. My name is Officer Ryan and I'm looking for people who have not evacuated. Aren't you the kids that were in Grand Central Station this morning?" asked Officer Ryan.

"We ran through Grand Central, but then we came here," said Amanda.

"But...," Peter started to talk and then he stopped.

"But, what?" asked the officer.

"Oh, nothing. Do you know of anywhere a cell phone would work so we can call our mother? We have not seen her since yesterday and I'm scared she is not okay," said Peter.

"No one has cell phone coverage yet. We are all communicating through walkie-talkies," said the cop. "We need to get you out of the city," the policeman said.

"But we need to find our mothers," said Cindy.

"Are you going to put us in the van with all those looters? We heard a man at Grand Central say that they should throw all the old ladies who did not evacuate into the van with the looters," said Amanda.

"No, of course not. They have some more vans coming and we will put you with people who were hiding, not with the people who were caught looting. But right now, you need to wait. Do you have water and food?" asked Officer Ryan.

"Yes. We took some sandwiches and stuff from a stall downstairs at Grand Central Station." Cindy suddenly thought that the officer would think they were looters, too. "But we left a note saying we would pay for them. We took some flashlights too, but we left a note about that too." Cindy was suddenly very scared. She probably should not have told the cop that they took the sandwiches and flashlights.

"That was the right thing to do. You don't need to worry about the sandwiches and stuff. The real problem is the powder in places like Grand Central. We don't know what it all is yet, but it might make you sick. Some of the powder we tested downtown near the World Trade Center was poison."

"The powder in Grand Central is just flour. I overheard some men say it was a hoax, they put flour all over the city and they were stealing stuff. I recorded them." Amanda took her minicam out of her jacket and tried to turn it on but couldn't. "The battery is dead."

"Well, they were probably just some more looters talking nonsense, though they could be right because the three of you sure don't look sick. The police, the National Guard, and Homeland Security are all trying to determine what happened. You should just leave it to us. But in the meantime, we need to get you out of the city. There is a cop downstairs if you need anything, but it would be safer for you to just wait here."

The cop started to leave.

"Stop," Peter said. "What happened?"

"Some terrorists attacked the City with bombs that blew up some buildings downtown and several bombs that coated the inside of buildings like Grand Central in white powder. You must have been in one of the buildings that exploded. We are still trying to determine if all the white powder is poisonous, but until we know, we have evacuated the city. But don't worry about this. Let the grownups worry about fixing this."

"Did they blow up anything in Times Square?" Amanda's voice was shaking as she asked.

"No, all the explosions were downtown except for one building over by the United Nations. But there were white powder bombs in a lot more buildings, including Grand Central where you were," said Officer Ryan.

"But where did everyone go?" asked Peter.

"When it first happened, before most of the electricity went out, Homeland Security sounded an alarm on radio and television and told everyone to vacate Manhattan. Unfortunately, a lot of people tried to drive out and when cars could not move because of the traffic, people go out and started walking, leaving their cars in the middle of the road. Then no one could get out and everyone had to walk. It took about ten hours to get everyone out of town, but almost everyone is gone now."

"But how can you drive a van out of the city with all those cars?" asked Amanda.

"We were able to get a few tow trucks from New Jersey and they are trying to clear one lane down 42nd Street to the Westside Highway and across the George Washington Bridge. But until they have a clear path, you are safer here. I have to finish checking the rooms." The cop left.

Amanda walked to the window and looked out. It was afternoon. She looked at her watch, It was 1:00 p. m.. It was almost twenty-four hours since she had seen her mother.

"I'm hungry," Cindy said.

"Okay, I'll get the food out of the backpacks and look in the mini bars." Amanda tried the mini bars, one of them was locked but the other one was open. Inside, there were cold drinks, candy bars and nuts. Amanda wrote another note and emptied the food on the floor.

Peter opened one of the sandwiches and was about to take a bite when Cindy grabbed it from him.

"You can't eat those sandwiches anymore. They have mayonnaise and they are bad," Cindy said.

"How do you know that?" asked Amanda.

"My grandmother. She is always 'Don't do this or this will happen and don't do that or that will happen,'" said Cindy.

"Oh." Peter put down the sandwich and grabbed a cookie.

"Well I guess we are going to have cookies, peanuts, chocolate and Coke for breakfast," Amanda said.

"Works for me," said Peter.

The children sat on the beds drinking coke as Amanda distributed the food. Amanda thought how easy it was to turn into her mother. All it took was being the oldest in a group of kids.

They were sitting on the bed finishing their "breakfast" when all of a sudden there was banging and the door opened again.

Officer Ryan was back but this time he had a boy with him.

"How do you keep getting in the room like that? The door is locked," asked Amanda.

"I have the master card for the hotel. Hey kids, this is your new friend, Thibodeaux Botrain. He's is going to stay with you until we can find a van and a clear lane to take all of you to New Jersey," said Officer Ryan.

"New Jersey!" Cindy looked around and saw everyone looking at her like she had a frog on her head. "New Jersey will be just fine."

Thibodeaux Botrain was a boy who looked like he was about Peter's age. The kids could tell he was not from Connecticut by the way he was dressed. He had light skin and dark curly hair and was dressed like a gang banger. He was wearing low rider jeans, a black silk bomber jacket with an Asian design in red silk on the back paired with a matching baseball hat which was turned backwards.

"Now, Thibodeaux, can I count on you to behave yourself if I leave you with these kids?" I don't want to put you in the van with that gang you were running with. They'll eat you alive," said Officer Ryan.

"Sure, man, you got my word," said Thibodeaux.

Officer Ryan left the room. The children stared at Thibodeaux with both amazement and fear.

"Hey, what are you looking at? I'm no gang banger. I just got picked up with some no- goods from my hood," said Thibodeaux.

"What's a hood?" asked Cindy.

"My neighborhood. I live in Harlem at 105thth and Columbus, but that's just temporary. I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. I'm just in New York until my mother can rebuild our house. I've only been here for five years," said Thibodeaux.

"Were you in the flood?" asked Amanda.

"Yes, that Katrina destroyed our house. After the water went away, our house was one stinking mess. So my Mamma sent me up north to live with my Auntie Tina and just look what happened now!" said Thibodeaux.

"If you live at 105th Street, how did you get down here?" asked Cindy.

"On my bike. I was out riding my bike trying to find someone to help me get my Auntie downstairs. See, she just had knee surgery and she has to use a walker and the elevator is out because we don't have any electricity. We live on the fourth floor. One of the gang guys in my neighborhood grabbed me and made me come with them to load up some recording equip. m.ent. When we got there, I saw they were stealing stuff, so I split, but not fast enough to keep from getting picked up by the moon guys," said Thibodeaux.

"So you're a looter. They put a looter in the room with us." Amanda was both scared and angry.