Life Imitating Lit

I finished a book yesterday--Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman--and you can bet that I had students lined up to borrow this sequel to the popular Scythe. This coveted hard cover was propped up on the whiteboard when a teacher friend walked in.

"Is this yours?" she asked. "Oh, you'd better put your name on it before someone snags it." 

The literary terms lesson for today, girls and boys, is foreshadowing. 

I picked up a Sharpie with a reassuring smile, but as she walked out of my room, she cast one doubtful glance my way. 

How did she know I'd get distracted and put it down? Did she predict that I'd reach for the marker and the book later, only to set them down again when a student called me over for a question? Probably not, but I feel certain she sensed that Thunderhead would vanish between two class periods. Like a bubble, floating right before my eyes in its spherical iridescence, it just popped. It disappeared as if it were never there at all.

I should have known, but I ignored every clue. 

And our next literary terms lesson is dramatic irony. Because you, dear audience, probably saw it coming all along.