Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

with the grounds for a much longer time with coffee. She told me she didn't know that. “If he says it, it's true,” Mr. Black said, patting my head. I told her, “Also, did you know that if you yell for nine years, you'll produce enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee?” She said, “I didn't.” I said, “Which is why they should put a coffee store next to the Cyclone at Coney Island! Get it?” That made me crack up, but only me. She asked if we were going to order anything. I told her, “Iced coffee, please.” She asked, “What size?” I said, “Vente, and could you please use coffee ice cubes so it doesn't get all watery when the ice cubes melt?” She told me they didn't have coffee ice cubes. I said, “Exactly.” Mr. Black said, “I'm going to get right to the point,” and then he did. I went to the bathroom and gave myself a bruise.
    Ray Black was in prison, so we weren't able to talk to him. I did some research on the Internet and found out that he was in prison because he murdered two kids after he raped them. There were also pictures of the dead kids, and even though I knew it would only hurt me to look at them, I did. I printed them out and put them in Stuff That Happened to Me, right after the picture of Jean-Pierre Haignerè, the French astronaut who had to be carried from his spacecraft after returning from the Mir space station, because gravity isn't only what makes us fall, it's what makes our muscles strong. I wrote a letter to Ray Black in prison, but I never got a response. Inside, I hoped he didn't have anything to do with the key, although I couldn't help inventing that it was for his jail cell.
    The address for Ruth Black was on the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building, which I thought was incredibly weird, and so did Mr. Black, because neither of us knew that people actually lived there. I told Mr. Black that I was panicky, and he said it was OK to be panicky. I told him I felt like I couldn't do it, and he said it was OK to feel like I couldn't do it. I told him it was the thing that I was most afraid of. He said he could understand why. I wanted him to disagree with me, but he wouldn't, so I had no way to argue. I told him I would wait for him in the lobby, and he said, “Fine.” “OK, OK,” I said, “I'll go.”
    As the elevator takes you up, you hear information about the building, which was pretty fascinating, and I normally would have taken some notes, but I needed all of my concentration for being brave. I squeezed Mr. Black's hand, and I couldn't stop inventing: the elevator cables snapping, the elevator falling, a trampoline at the bottom, us shooting back up, the roof opening like a cereal box, us flying toward parts of the universe that not even Stephen Hawking was sure about...
    When the elevator door opened, we got out on the observation deck. We didn't know who to look for, so we just looked around for a while. Even though I knew the view was incredibly beautiful, my brain started misbehaving, and the whole time I was imagining a plane coming at the building, just below us. I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop. I imagined the last second, when I would see the pilot's face, who would be a terrorist. I imagined us looking each other in the eyes when the nose of the plane was one millimeter from the building.
    I hate you, my eyes would tell him.
    I hate you, his eyes would tell me.
    Then there would be an enormous explosion, and the building would sway, almost like it was going to fall over, which I know is what it felt like from descriptions I've read on the Internet, although I wish I hadn't read them. Then there would be smoke coming up at me and people screaming all around me. I read one description of someone who made it down eighty-five flights of stairs, which must have been about two thousand stairs, and he said that people were screaming “Help!” and “I don't want to die!” and one man who owned a company was screaming “Mommy!”
    It would be getting so hot that my skin would start to get blisters. It would feel so good to get away from the heat, but on the other hand, when I hit the sidewalk I would die, obviously. Which would I choose? Would I jump or would I burn? I guess I would jump, because then I wouldn't have to feel pain. On the other hand, maybe I would burn, because then I'd at least have a chance to somehow escape, and even if I couldn't, feeling pain is still better than not feeling, isn't it?
    I remembered my cell