FRIDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 1998 — EAST RACCOON ELEMENTARY — 11:30am
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The English classroom smelled of old paper and chalk dust and the particular mustiness of a room that wasn't used enough. Posters of Shakespeare lined the walls, their edges curled and yellowed. A diagram of sentence structure hung near the board, its lines and branches spreading like a tree drawn by someone who had never seen a tree. A bookshelf sagged against the far wall, stacked with battered copies of Of Mice and Men, their covers soft and creased from years of being forced into backpacks by children who did not want to read them. The radiator beneath the window ticked and ticked. A fly buzzed against the glass, a low thin drone, and then went still.
Owen found his seat near the middle of the room. His legs were heavy and far away. His eyes wanted to close. He propped his chin on his hand and felt the tiredness settle over him like a second skin. The walk from the playground had taken something out of him. The sealed janitor's door. Mrs. Calloway's scream, and then her silence when she saw them. Maya's hand on his sleeve. He let the warmth of the radiator press against his side and didn't move.
Benny dropped into the seat in front of him. His movements were slow and deliberate, his head tilting at an odd angle, as if he were trying to find a position that didn't hurt. Michael took the desk to Owen's right. His hands were still shaking — a fine, persistent tremor he'd had since break. He pressed them flat against the desk and held them there. Maya sat beside Owen, close enough that her sleeve brushed his arm. She didn't move away.
The teacher was already at the front of the room. He was old — late sixties, maybe older — in a tweed jacket that smelled faintly of wool and tobacco, with leather patches on the elbows and glasses on a chain that caught the fluorescent light. He was reading a newspaper. He didn't look up when the children came in. He didn't look up as they shuffled to their seats. He licked his finger before he turned each page — the same finger, the same slow, deliberate motion, index finger to tongue, then to the corner of the paper, then the page turning over. He did it without looking, without thinking, the way a man does something he has done ten thousand times. The sound of it was small and private.
Eventually he sighed, folded the paper, and stood.
He was not a tall man. He was not an impressive man. He looked like someone's grandfather who had been asked to babysit and had agreed only because there was nothing else on the television. He picked up the register from the desk and squinted at it through his glasses.
"Right," he said. His voice was flat — not angry, not impatient, simply empty. "Let's see who's here."
He called the names slowly, mispronouncing half of them. He said Vaz-kez instead of Vazquez. He said Choy instead of Choi. He said O-kon-kwo as if the syllables were obstacles he had to step over. No one corrected him. No one had the energy.
"Michael Vaz-kez."
"....Here."
"Benny Choy."
"Here." Benny's voice was slow, the word dragged out of him.
"Maya O-kon-kwo ."
"Here." Quiet. Hoarse.
"Owen Miller."
Owen lifted his head. "Here." The word came out barely audible. The teacher peered at him over his glasses, then moved on.
"Sherry Birkin."
The name hung in the air. No one answered. Her desk near the front was empty, her chair pushed in, her things gone.
The teacher marked her absent without pausing. He didn't ask why she wasn't there. He didn't ask if anyone knew where she'd gone. He didn't care.
He set the register down.
"My name is Mr. Alderman. Mrs. Calloway is..." He paused, searching for the word. "Indisposed. I'm here for the rest of the day, or until they find someone else, or until the bell rings. I don't mind which." He looked at the class without much interest. "I'm retired. I do supply work to supplement my pension. That means I'm here because the school called and I said yes. It doesn't mean I'm here because I want to be. You don't want to be here either, I imagine. So let's get through this together and then we can all go home."
He turned to the board. He wrote in large, loopy letters: THE AMERICAN DREAM — LONELINESS — POWER AND POWERLESSNESS.
"Of Mice and Men. Page fifty-three. The themes of the novel. Copy the notes from the board. Then write a paragraph about one of the themes. Use a quotation from the book if you can find one. I'll be at the desk."55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNjjfxuoNtB
He sat down. He opened his newspaper. He licked his finger and turned the page. He didn't look up again.
Owen copied the line from the board:' The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley'. His handwriting was deteriorating. The letters slid off the lines, the words sloping downward to the right. He didn't know what the words meant. Mr. Alderman hadn't explained them. The quotation sat alone at the top of his page, disconnected from anything that might have given it meaning.
The radiator ticked. The fly buzzed against the glass and went still. The only sounds were the scratch of pens, the rustle of Mr. Alderman's newspaper, and the coughing. Someone near the window was coughing and couldn't stop — a raw, hacking sound that went on and on. Mr. Alderman turned a page — finger to tongue, to paper, to turning — and scratched his arm, an absent, automatic motion, his fingers moving across the sleeve of his tweed jacket. He coughed once, dry and rasping, and didn't cover his mouth.
The lesson stretched. Owen stared at the board. LONELINESS. POWER AND POWERLESSNESS. He was supposed to write about one of them. Crooks. Curley's wife. Candy. He was supposed to find a quotation, something from the book, something that proved a point. He didn't. His pen hovered above the page. The radiator was warm. Mr. Alderman's presence at the front of the room — silent, disinterested, barely present — was a weight in the air, heavy and still. No one was watching. No one was checking. The safety was a pretence, but it felt almost real because the pretence was so complete.
Owen's mind drifted back to break. To Mr. MacAllister's face, grey and wet, the way his eyes had rolled up and snapped back. To Mrs. Calloway stumbling out of the corridor with blood on her sleeve, screaming and then not screaming when she saw them watching. To the grey metal door of the janitor's room, sealed and guarded, and whatever was behind it. To the fragments of the teachers' conversation — the checkpoint, the mother with the photograph, the National Guard. The words sat in his chest and didn't go anywhere.
He was so tired. He'd been tired since he opened his eyes this morning. The argument with his mother felt like it had happened days ago, to a different boy in a different kitchen. The walk to school — the bus stop woman, Jamie's hand on his shoulder, the things he'd seen without seeing — felt like a dream he'd half-remembered. The stillness lesson felt like a warning someone had given him in another language. And now this. A supply teacher who didn't care. A lesson that didn't matter. A radiator that was warm and a grey light through the windows that hadn't changed and a tiredness that was pressing him into his seat like a hand on his shoulder that would not let go.
Benny hadn't written anything for a while. His pen lay on the desk. His paragraph was a single sentence — Lennie is lonely because no one understands him except George — and then nothing. His head was tilted. His neck was raw and cracked at the edges, a faint sheen of something that wasn't sweat. He'd been staring at the window.
He said something without looking away from the glass. His voice was slow. The words came out like he was having to find each one individually.
"You know what I'd have if I had a farm?"
Michael looked up from his own blank page. "What?"
"Chickens. My nan has chickens. They're mean. They chase you around the garden. One of them bit my cousin on the ankle and he cried for an hour."
"Why would you want something that chases you?"
"Not for the chasing. For the eggs. Fresh eggs every morning. You could sell them. You could have a whole egg business."
"You don't know how to run a business."
"I'd learn. My nan could teach me. She knows everything about chickens. She's had them for like a hundred years."
"Your nan isn't a hundred years old."
"She's pretty old. She's got opinions about chickens."
Michael didn't answer. He was smiling — not much, just a little. The way you smile when your friend is being ridiculous and you're too tired to argue and you want the ridiculous thing to keep going because the alternative is silence.
Maya was writing. She was the only one still working. Her paragraph about Curley's wife was almost finished. The letters were neat but trembling — a fine tremor that ran through every stroke of the pen, the same tremor that had been in her hand since break, the same tremor she didn't seem to notice. She coughed — a thick, deep sound — and covered her mouth with her hand. When she lowered it, there was blood on her palm. A small streak of it. She looked at it. She wiped it on her skirt. Then she looked up at Michael.
"What about you? What would you have on your farm?"
Michael thought about it. His hands were still pressed flat against the desk. "Cows."
"Cows?"
"My dad says cows are good money. You can sell the milk. And they're — I don't know. They're calm. They just stand there. Nothing bothers them."55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsLk2DBkjQB
"Your dad wants you to be a farmer?"
"No. He wants me to take over the garage. But I don't want to fix cars." He looked down at his hands — the tremor, the red scratch marks on his forearms. "I want to work with animals. Something where you don't have to think so much. You just... do the things and they're done. And the animals don't care if you're —" He stopped. He didn't finish. He pressed his hands harder against the desk. "Cows are good," he said again. "Cows are calm."
"Cows are calm," Maya agreed. Quiet. Gentle. As if she were giving him something.
Benny was still staring at the window. The man on the grass was still there, or he was gone — Benny couldn't tell anymore. He said something without turning around.
"She stopped screaming."
Michael looked up. "What?"
"Mrs. Calloway. At break. She was screaming and then she saw us and she stopped. She didn't want us to see."
No one answered. Then Michael said, "I know."
"Why would he bite her?" Benny's voice was very small. "He's a teacher. He's been here forever. He helped me with fractions last year. He stayed after school and everything. Why would he do that?"
No one answered. The question hung in the air and then dissolved, unanswered and unanswerable. Mr. Alderman licked his finger and turned a page. The man who had stayed after school to help with fractions was locked in the janitor's room, and the woman he had bitten had stopped screaming so the children wouldn't be afraid.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqcmNUzfIyk
Owen stared at his page. The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley. Beneath it, he had written: Lennie wanted to tend the rabbits. Two sentences. The rest of the page was blank.
Benny leaned over. His head tilted. His neck was raw. "You haven't written anything."
"I don't know what to write."
"Write about the rabbits. Everyone writes about the rabbits."
"That's what Maya said."
"Maya's smart. Listen to Maya."
Owen picked up his pen. He stared at the two sentences. He didn't write more.
"That's it?" Benny said.
"That's it."
"That's not a paragraph."
"It's a start."
"It's a sentence. A paragraph is more than one sentence."55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOz2N6O3pmT
"Write your own paragraph."
"I already did. It's terrible." Benny looked at his own page — the single sentence, the blank space beneath it, the jagged line where his pen had slipped and he hadn't picked it up again. "I don't think I did it right."
"Did you use a quotation?"
"I don't remember any quotations."
"Then you didn't do it right."
"Neither did you."
"I know."
Maya closed her exercise book. The cover was neat — her name written in small, precise letters, Maya Okonkwo, each letter perfectly formed despite the tremor in her hand. She looked at Owen's page — the two sentences, the blank space beneath them.
"You should write about Curley's wife," she said. "You'd be good at it."
"Why?"
"Because you notice things. How people are. You always notice."
Owen didn't know what to say to that. He looked at his page. He didn't write anything else. Maya didn't push. She turned back to her work. Her hand was trembling on the desk. She coughed again — deeper this time — and covered her mouth. When she lowered her hand, she didn't look at it. Owen saw her. He saw the tremor. He saw the way she didn't look at her hand. He didn't say anything.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSMLKKY8LWI
The conversation drifted. Someone asked what time it was. Michael said almost lunch. Benny said he was hungry — his stomach growled, a low empty sound, and he didn't make a joke about it. He just let it happen. He scratched his neck and his fingers came away slick.
"What's for lunch?" he asked.
"Fish sticks," Michael said. "Mrs. Kimura said this morning."
"Fish sticks," Benny repeated. He didn't say anything else. He was still staring at the window.
"Fish sticks are the worst," Michael said.
"They're not the worst. They're the best and the worst at the same time."
"That doesn't make sense."
"It makes perfect sense. They're good because they're crunchy. They're bad because they taste like fish that's been in a freezer for a hundred years. Both things are true. You have to hold both things in your head at the same time."
"That's too much work for lunch."
"That's the point. Lunch shouldn't be work."55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0eoR8csTjT
Their voices layered over each other, the comfortable rhythm of friends who'd been having this argument for years. The radiator ticked. Mr. Alderman licked his finger and turned a page. He hadn't looked up once since he sat down. He scratched his arm. He coughed. He didn't notice the children in front of him, or the sounds from the corridor, or the way the light through the window was grey and flat and wrong.
Benny leaned back in his chair. He was very still. "You know," he said slowly, "I don't think I'm hungry anymore."
"You just said you were hungry," Michael said.
"I know. I'm not now."
"How can you not be hungry? Your stomach was growling."
"I don't know. It just stopped." Benny's voice was quiet. He was still staring at the window. "Everything's weird today."
Michael didn't answer. Maya didn't answer. Owen's chin was propped on his hand. The radiator was warm. The room was quiet and heavy and still. The four of them were together.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIybM7BekNg
Mr. Alderman licked his finger and turned a page. He'd been reading for a long time. The newspaper was almost finished. He hadn't taught anything. He hadn't explained the themes or asked about the paragraphs or checked anyone's work. He was just there, a man filling a space, waiting for the hour to end.
Owen's chin slipped off his hand. He caught it. His eyes opened — he hadn't realised they'd closed. The words on the board were blurring. LONELINESS. He blinked. POWER AND POWERLESSNESS. He blinked again. The words didn't sharpen.
He'd been fighting this all morning. The argument with his mother. The walk to school. The stillness lesson. The algebra lesson. Mr. MacAllister's face going grey, his body on the floor, the blood from his mouth. Mrs. Calloway's scream, and then her silence. The break. The low wall. Maya asking to come over. The grey metal door. The fragments of the teachers' voices. And now this — a supply teacher who didn't care, a lesson that didn't matter, a radiator that was so warm.
He put his pen down. The effort of holding it had become enormous.
He was so tired.
The radiator was warm. The grey light through the windows was soft and steady. The fly had stopped buzzing. Someone was coughing, a long way away, and the sound was almost rhythmic now, almost soothing. Mr. Alderman's newspaper rustled — a dry, papery sound, soft at the edges. Benny said something about the farm again, about the chickens. Maya answered. Their voices were quiet and far away, like sounds heard through water, like sounds heard from another room.
Owen's head was heavy. His eyelids were heavy. The desk was cool against his forearms. He could feel the grain of the wood through his sleeve. The radiator ticked — a soft, steady sound, like a clock, like a heartbeat, like his mother's hand on his hair. The warmth pressed against his side. The voices faded. The light held steady. He could just rest his eyes. Just for a moment. Just until the bell.
His head sank onto his folded arms. The sounds of the classroom — the coughing, the scratching, the rustle of Mr. Alderman's newspaper — grew soft and distant, and softer, and softer. He heard Maya's pen scratching across her page. He heard Michael press his hands flat against the desk. He heard the radiator tick, and tick, and tick. And then he didn't hear anything at all.
He fell asleep.
His exercise book was open to the page where he'd written The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley and Lennie wanted to tend the rabbits. Two sentences. The rest of the page was blank. The paragraph about loneliness was never written. The question about inevitability was never answered. His backpack hung on the back of his chair — the navy Jansport with the scuffed bottom, the small pewter wolf on the zip catching the grey light and holding it.
Beside him, Maya was still writing, her letters neat and trembling. Across the aisle, Michael was pressing his hands flat against the desk to stop them shaking. Near the window, Benny was staring at the grey light, his neck cracked and raw, his eyes half-closed. At the front of the room, Mr. Alderman licked his finger and turned a page.
The radiator ticked. The room was warm. The four of them were together.
A door slammed.
Not the classroom door. Somewhere else. Somewhere down the corridor. The sound was loud and sudden and gone.
Owen didn't stir. The sound reached him only as pressure — a ripple at the far edge of sleep, the way a door slamming in another house reaches a dream and becomes something else.
Then a voice. A child's voice. A boy, maybe Year 4, shouting something Owen couldn't make out. The words were muffled through the classroom wall, but the tone was wrong — high and frightened, not the shout of someone playing.
More voices. Multiple. Children and adults, layered over each other, urgent and confused. Footsteps in the corridor — not running at first, just moving fast, then faster. Someone called a name — "Mr. Hendry? Mr. Hendry, what's —" and then the voice broke off, changed, became a scream.
The scream was high and sharp and cut short. Not cut off by silence. Cut off by something else — a thud, a heavy sound, and then no voice at all.
Maya's hand tightened on Owen's shoulder.
More footsteps. Running now. A crash — something heavy falling, something metal. A locker. A voice shouting, high and breaking: "Get back — get back — don't let him —"
Another voice: "That's Mr. Davies — that's the principal — why is he walking like that — why is his face —"
And then the intercom crackled.
Mrs. Kimura's voice filled the room — but not the calm, measured voice from the morning announcements. This voice was different. Higher. Urgent. Breaking on the edges.
"Attention, all students and staff. The school is being evacuated. Please proceed to the nearest exit in an orderly —"
She stopped. There was a sound in the background of the broadcast — footsteps, heavy and uneven. Not running. Walking. A slow, dragging gait, the sound of shoes that weren't lifting properly from the floor. A voice, distant but audible through the intercom. The principal. But the voice was wrong — too low, too rough, the words slurred into shapes that weren't words anymore.
Mrs. Kimura spoke again, and her voice had changed. Not urgent now. Confused. Then frightened.
"Mr. Davies? Sir, are you — what's wrong with your —"
The footsteps continued, closer now, heavy and dragging. Mrs. Kimura's voice, higher, sharper, terrified.
"Stay back. Stay away from me. Please — Mr. Davies — someone help — please — you're not —"
She screamed. Not a word. Just a sound — high and sudden and terrified — and then the scream changed, became something else, something that wasn't screaming anymore, something that gurgled and stopped. There was another sound behind it — a sound that wasn't a word, wasn't a scream, just a low thick noise from a throat that wasn't working right, too close to the microphone. The intercom stayed live for a long moment — the sound of something happening that Owen didn't hear, the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, the sound of Mrs. Kimura's voice becoming something that wasn't a voice anymore — and then it went dead. A long, flat hum. Then silence.
Maya was standing now. Her chair was pushed back behind her.
The room exploded.
Chairs scraping back. Children screaming. Not shouting — screaming. A girl near the door was crying so hard she couldn't get the words out — "Mummy — I want my mummy —" and someone else was screaming Mrs. Kimura's name over and over, "Mrs. Kimura — Mrs. Kimura —" as if she could still answer. A boy near the window was just making a sound — a high, thin wail that didn't stop.
"Everyone up — leave your books — leave everything — go, go, go!"
It wasn't Mr. Alderman who said it. It was a boy near the front, his voice cracking, already backing toward the door. He wasn't trying to be brave. He was just moving because moving was the only thing his body would let him do.
Footsteps stumbling over backpacks and fallen chairs. A boy shouting for his friend — "Ryan! Ryan, where are you — RYAN!" — and the name became a scream. The door slammed open against the wall. More footsteps in the corridor outside, and then a voice Owen knew — Mr. Hendry, the Year 5 teacher, the one who'd told Mrs. Barnes about the checkpoint. His voice was high and desperate, the voice of a man who was trying to hold something together and failing.
"Stay in your classrooms — don't come out here — there are —" He stopped. Not because he'd finished. A child's voice cut through, high and wrong, saying something that might have been "help me" and might have been "it hurts" and might have been something else entirely. Mr. Hendry's voice again, further away now, shouting: "Mrs. Barnes — the front entrance — they're coming through the front entrance — you have to lock the doors —"
Another voice — a girl's, young, high and terrified: "That's Liam — that's my brother — Liam, what's wrong with your face — Liam, you're bleeding — LIAM —"
And then the girl screamed. Not a word. Just her brother's name, over and over, becoming a sound that wasn't a name anymore.
More footsteps. More screaming. A crash — something heavy hitting the lockers, the sound of metal buckling. The classroom door slammed shut, and for a moment the sounds from the corridor were muffled. Then the door banged open again, and someone ran through — a boy, older, his face white, his eyes too wide: "Mr. MacAllister's out — he got out of the janitor's room — he's — Mrs. Barnes tried to stop him and he — he —"
He didn't finish. He couldn't. He ran.
A teacher's voice — not Mr. Alderman, someone else, someone in the corridor, a woman: "Get the children to the gym — lock the gym doors — don't stop — don't look back —"
And then another voice, closer, right outside the classroom door. A child's voice. A girl. She was sobbing so hard the words barely came out. "Mummy — Mummy, where are you — I want my mummy — I don't know where to go —"
The voice stopped. Not gradually. Suddenly. And in the silence that followed, there was a sound — a heavy sound, a soft sound — and then the footsteps moved on.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeWrNHRegun
Maya was crying. She hadn't noticed she'd started.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeU0jy58xpF
Owen didn't wake. The sounds reached him only as pressure — a distant, muffled roar at the edge of his dreaming, the way a thunderstorm sounds from deep inside a pillow fort, the way his mother's voice had sounded calling up the stairs when he was small and already half-asleep. His breathing was slow and even. His head was heavy on his arms. The tiredness held him under and would not let go.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDFrgWqXSEL
A hand on his shoulder. Shaking him. Hard.
"Owen." Maya's voice. Close to his ear. Her breath was warm and fast. "Owen, wake up. You have to wake up. Please. Please, Owen —"
He didn't wake.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMbOdrGR9uo
"Owen." Another voice. Benny. High and cracking. "Come on — come on, you have to get up — there's — everyone's screaming — you have to get up —"
"He's not waking up." Maya. She coughed — a deep, hacking sound — and he felt her hand leave his shoulder. When it came back, it was slick. "He's breathing, but he's not — Owen — Owen, please —"
A third voice. Michael. Shouting now, the tremor in his voice breaking every word. "We can't stay here — we have to go — Maya, we have to go NOW —"
A fourth voice. A girl from the next row. Sobbing. "What are you doing? We have to go — didn't you hear? Liam from Year 5 — he bit Miss Torres — he bit her and she wouldn't stop screaming — and Mr. Davies — Mrs. Kimura — we have to GO —"
"He won't wake up," Maya said.
"Then leave him! LEAVE HIM!"
"I'm not leaving him!"
The girl didn't answer. Her footsteps, running. The door banging open. Someone else was screaming in the corridor — a name, a word, just a sound. Someone was still calling for their mother.
Another voice. A boy. Older. "Move — MOVE — what are you — is he asleep? Is he ASLEEP?!"
"He won't wake up —"
"Then leave him! You can't carry him — you'll get yourself killed — people are — just LEAVE HIM —"
"No!" Maya's voice broke. She was gripping Owen's arm with both hands. "No — he's my friend — I'm not leaving him —"
The boy made a sound — not a word, just frustration and terror and something close to a sob — and then his footsteps were gone. The room was emptying. Footsteps, voices, the scrape of chairs. Outside in the corridor, someone called a name — "Sophie! Sophie, wait for me — please —" — and then the voice broke, became a scream, became nothing.
Mr. Alderman was at the door. He already had his coat on. He already had his briefcase in his hand. He had been in the doorway for several seconds, one hand pressed flat against the doorframe, his eyes on the corridor ahead. His face was pale and wet with sweat. His glasses had slipped down his nose. He was breathing through his mouth. His newspaper was still on the desk where he'd left it, still open.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuGG5NotK9M
He didn't tell anyone what to do. He didn't call out instructions or point toward an exit. He was just standing there, gripping his briefcase, and his free hand was shaking.
Benny saw him. "Sir — sir, please — what do we do — where do we go —"
Mr. Alderman didn't turn around. But he stopped. Just for a half-second. His shoulders went still. His hand tightened on the doorframe. He looked back — not at Benny, not at Michael, but at the room. At the scattered desks. At the boy with his head down. At the girl kneeling beside him, gripping his arm, tears cutting tracks through the blood on her cheek. His face did something — a flicker, a tightening, something that was almost expression and then wasn't. His mouth opened. Closed.
Then he ran.
He bolted into the corridor and turned left — away from the main entrance, away from the screaming, toward the side door near the staff car park. His briefcase banged against his leg. His coat flew out behind him. He didn't look back. The turn in the corridor took him, and he was gone.
Maya watched him go. Benny watched him go. The newspaper sat open on his desk.
"He left," Benny said. His voice was small and blank, the voice of someone stating a fact they didn't understand yet. "He just — he left."
The side door banged open. The sound of it carried back up the corridor — the heavy metal door hitting the outside wall. Then footsteps on tarmac. Fast. Desperate.
And then the footsteps stopped.
For a moment, nothing. The silence where the footsteps had been.
Then Mr. Alderman screamed.
It was not a scream of fear. It was a scream of someone who had just understood something, too late, and the understanding was physical. The sound went on and on, rising in pitch, becoming something that wasn't a voice anymore. And underneath it, other sounds — a heavy sound, a tearing sound, the sound of a briefcase hitting the ground, the sound of too many bodies moving in too small a space.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2I37tvOZYE
Mr. Alderman's scream cut off.
There was a moment — just a moment — where the only sound was the heavy wet noise from the staff car park, and the distant crying of children somewhere in the building, and the hum of the fluorescent lights that were still on, that were still working, that didn't know anything had changed.
Benny was frozen. His face was grey. He was staring at the corridor, at the direction the scream had come from, and his mouth was open and no sound was coming out.
Maya's voice cut through. "Go."
Benny didn't move.
"GO!" She was shouting now, her voice cracking, tears running into her mouth. "Go — both of you — I'll catch up — I'll find you — GO —"
Michael grabbed Benny's arm. Benny was crying. Michael's hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold on.
"Maya —" Michael started.
"Go. Please." She looked at Michael. Her face was wet. "Take him home. I'll find you."
Michael hesitated. He looked at Owen — the slumped shoulders, the crooked glasses, the slow rise and fall of his breathing. He looked at Maya — the blood on her palm, the tremor in her hands, the way she was already bracing herself to lift him. Then he nodded. Once. Small. He pulled Benny toward the door.
"Come on — come on —"
"But Owen —"
"I know — we can't — come on —"
Benny looked back. His face was wet and white. His mouth moved — something that might have been a name, might have been a word — and then Michael was pulling him, and they were running, and the door slammed shut behind them. They turned right, toward the side gate, toward Cedar Avenue, toward home. Their footsteps faded and were gone.
The classroom was silent. Empty desks. Scattered books. Owen's page still open on the desk, the two sentences facing the ceiling. His backpack still hanging on the back of his chair, the pewter wolf glinting in the grey light. Mr. Alderman's newspaper open on his desk, the page he'd been reading still damp from his finger.
Maya's breathing was ragged. She stood over Owen, small and trembling, blood on her palm and on her skirt. She looked down at him. His face was slack. His glasses were crooked. He didn't know what was happening. He didn't know what she was doing.
She hooked her arms under his shoulders. He was heavy — heavier than she'd expected, the dead weight of a body that was entirely unconscious. She pulled. His shoes scraped against the linoleum. She pulled again. Her arms burned. Her cough came — a deep, hacking spasm that doubled her over — and she had to stop, had to press her hand against her mouth, had to wait for it to pass. When she straightened, there was blood on her palm. She wiped it on her skirt and kept pulling.
The storage room was at the back of the classroom — a small, dark space with shelves of textbooks and old papers and a smell of dust and glue. The door was heavy. She pushed it open with her shoulder. She pulled Owen inside. His head lolled. His legs dragged. His shoe caught on the doorframe and she had to stop and lift his foot — gently, carefully, as if he were a child she was putting to bed. She got him through the doorway and propped him against the back wall, between the shelves, where the shadows were deepest and the door would hide him.
She knelt beside him. Her chest was heaving. Her skin was hot and damp. She looked at Owen. His eyes were closed. His breathing was slow and even. His glasses were crooked on his nose. He didn't know what she'd done.
"Owen." Her voice was very quiet. A whisper. "I have to go now."
He didn't answer. He didn't hear.
"I'll come back." She stopped. There was a sound in the corridor — a voice, Mr. Hendry, shouting something she couldn't make out, and then another voice, a child's, high and terrified — and then a crash. She flinched. Her whole body tensed. She looked at the door. Then back at Owen.
She touched his hand. Just for a moment. Her fingers were cold. She curled them around his and held on.
"I'll come back."
Then she stood. She pulled the storage room door closed behind her. The latch clicked into place. Her footsteps, running. The classroom door opening. The classroom door closing.
Silence.
Owen was alone in the dark. The storage room was very quiet. The only light was the thin grey strip beneath the door — the light from the classroom, from the windows, from the world outside that had stopped making sense. The shelves were full of textbooks and old papers and the smell of dust. Owen's breathing was slow and even. His head was resting against the wall. His glasses were crooked. His exercise book was still on his desk in the empty classroom, open to the page where he'd written The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley and Lennie wanted to tend the rabbits. Two sentences. The rest of the page was blank. His backpack still hung on his chair, the wolf on the zip catching the light from the window and holding it, waiting for him to come back.
He slept. He dreamed of nothing. The door stayed closed. And the light through the crack under the door, thin and grey and unchanging, was the only thing that stayed.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd4GEumTOg1
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