headline

"Ms. P., I am scared." She speaks, always, in wide-eyed declaratives; she never sees any gray. She does, however, see what they all call, "the Mexican news," a Univision program full of double exclamation points and horoscope breaks and what seems to me to be news of the weird between the real headlines; it makes for an interesting world view.

She tells me with a kind of sober excitement, "It's here." I confirm swine flu. And I acknowledge her facts--she's not wrong, exactly--and we talk about population and percentages and the biology of a virus in an oddly hushed half-circle: a model for an imaginary class of students who are truly engaged. Perhaps they trust me a little too much. But by the time lunch ends I've done my bit to lower the fever. But I'm still curious to calculate our odds--of quarantine, if nothing else--so I question an expected arrival.

"Hey, did you grandpa come up here yet?" In our world, I admit, family reunions have just become more interesting.