Day 2: Beautiful Blue World

fire drill: a practice of the emergency procedures to be used in case of fire. Like a fire drill, like Megs had said. No real fire.

shallow: of little depth. Was this basement too shallow, too?

giggled: laugh lightly in a nervous, affected, or silly manner. We both giggled.

basement: the floor of a building which is partly or entirely below ground level. We were to go to the Hellers' basement to await the catastrophe.

dawn: the first appearance of light in the sky before sunrise. ..-sounded about two hours before dawn, and we trudged home to our beds.