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164the danger far away on a stage. Criminals weren%u2019t actual people. They were impostors playing a part, monsters inside a human husk that hid their true selves, their buckled skin, hot dumpster breath, stained cotton balls for eyes, and vinegar sweat. It doesn%u2019t take much to realize that it isn%u2019t like that at all. We pedalled and pedalled for only a few seconds before we stopped. We stopped because the little girl was running toward us now. She%u2019d come back from around the corner to the silent main street, where there was nothing but our heartbeats and the complaints of the birds in the air. I was ready to die, not for the little girl, but for Esperanza, because Esperanza chewed her dangerous candy, walked into bruises day after day, and demanded that I try to squeeze the life from her just to test her worth. I knew, as strong as we were, as fast as we were, we were still very young, and compared with whoever was in that Honda we were very small and not at all like Noemi, made hard as a needle by the world. So I readied myself for death. We stopped and held our ground while the girl made it to us and paused in between our bikes, looking over her shoulder as the car slowly approached. I wanted the car to careen into the curb, and then a corpse would stumble out of the passenger side and a greasy alien with a mouth like a lamprey eel and arms long as my whole body would burst from the windshield. But villains never look the way they should. Threats are often surprising and unannounced, so it takes a lot of people to protect one another, especially little girls. The car sped off, and, even though all of our eyes watched it go, we never saw the driver. Just like that we were alone, the three of us. The day faded fast right before the gold street lights lit up the sidewalk. We had the dusk to ourselves and moved again through time, exhausted, as if the shapes of the night could be anything we wanted. 2021 10 Address to the Nation on September 11, 2001 George W. Bush George W. Bush (b. 1946) served as the 43rd president of the United States, following two terms as governor of Texas. Prior to that, he worked in the oil industry and co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team. His father, George H. W. Bush, was the 41st president. KEY CONTEXT On the morning of September 11, 2001, members of the terrorist group Al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes departing from Boston, Massachusetts; Newark, New Jersey; and Dulles, Virginia. The hijackers crashed two of the planes into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, resulting in the collapse of both Towers. The terrorists crashed a third plane into the Pentagon building, the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Defense. On the fourth plane, passengers and crew members fought back, and the plane crashed in Pennsylvania during the struggle. All told, nearly 3,000 people were killed, including everyone aboard all four planes and more than 400 first responders to the attacks; over 6,000 people were injured. In this speech, given the same day of the attacks, President Bush responds to a nation in crisis. He had entered office only eight months prior, the winner of an extremely close election. KEY CONTEXT On the morning of September 11, 2001, members of the Gado Images/Alamy Stock PhotoCulminating Activity Analysis of Theme in FictionCopyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.