by Jack Heath
‘Didn’t you practise?’ whispers Fiona.
‘I did. I think my reed might be broken.’
‘Let me see.’ She takes my clarinet and inspects the mouthpiece before handing it back. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Again,’ Mrs Blatt says, and counts us in.
The first note is deafening, from everybody except me. The clarinet refuses to make any noise—and suddenly I realize why. I can’t breathe.
My chest rises and falls, and I can make breathing sounds with the speaker in my throat, but no air is actually moving.
I puff out my cheeks in order to get some pressure, and squeeze the mouthful of air through the instrument. It rattles, and makes an embarrassing squeak, but no actual notes come out.
Mrs Blatt cuts us off again. ‘Can I hear just the second clarinets, please?’
That’s us. There are no other sounds to hide behind.
Mrs Blatt raises the baton.
A pause.
She drops it. Fiona chimes in, extra loud, but it couldn’t be more obvious that she’s on her own. Now even my shaking fingers refuse to obey me.
Mrs Blatt cuts us off. ‘Chloe …’ she begins.
‘I’m having some trouble with my reed,’ I say.
‘That doesn’t sound like reed trouble,’ she says. ‘It sounds like silence.’
Everyone in the room stares at me.
I know what the notes are supposed to sound like, but I have no way of producing them. Chloe spent months assembling my body and brain. Why didn’t she realize that this would be a problem?
She would have. And she would have given me a solution.
I fiddle with the reed some more. ‘Can I try again?’
Mrs Blatt raises an eyebrow, and wordlessly counts us in.
Putting the clarinet to my lips, I finger the keys as though playing, and a pitch-perfect melody rises through the air. But it’s not coming from the instrument. It’s coming from the speaker in my throat.
Fiona looks visibly relieved when we make it to the end of the phrase and are cut off. Mrs Blatt stares at me for a moment, probably wondering whether my silence was a peculiar tantrum. But she just turns to the rest of the orchestra and says, ‘From the top.’
And then the fire alarm goes off.
As always, a couple of students cheer. As always, several start packing up their instruments. As always, Mrs Blatt shouts at us over the honking of the alarm and the muttering of the students: ‘Sit down! All of you!’
This deafening beep, beep, beep is designed only to get our attention. We’re not supposed to evacuate until the danger has been verified and the sound is replaced by an oscillating siren.
It’s rare for a band lesson to get interrupted in this way. The alarm usually goes off during Chloe’s history class, which coincides with an irresponsible science class in the year below. They’re always looking for opportunities to set things on fire with the Bunsen burners.
Everyone seems to have lost interest in me and the way I couldn’t remember how to play the clarinet for a few minutes. Maybe after the alert is over, the incident will be forgotten.
Some kid starts wailing, imitating the evacuation siren. Mrs Blatt opens her mouth to tell him off when the principal’s voice comes over the loudspeaker.
‘Attention teachers. Please keep the classroom doors shut. Escort your students from the premises via the windows. This should be done in a quick and orderly fashion.’
Her voice wobbles on the last few words. Mrs Blatt stares at the ceiling as the announcement is repeated, baffled and alarmed.
Just what kind of danger are we in?
‘OK,’ she says, recovering. ‘You heard her. Leave your instruments on your chairs. Percussion, you make your way over to the windows first.’
The drummers leave their sticks on their stools and begin sliding back the bolts on the windows.
‘Why would they tell us to do that?’ Fiona whispers. ‘Won’t it take us longer to get out of the building that way?’
I nod. ‘Maybe a fire started in the corridors rather than one of the rooms.’
She peers at the window in the door. ‘I don’t see any smoke.’
‘Can’t smell it either. But it can’t be a drill, or they’d take us out the usual way.’
‘Low brass,’ Mrs Blatt says. ‘Follow percussion.’
‘We always do,’ a trombonist jokes. One of the tuba players laughs, but it sounds forced. They start climbing out of the window into the shrubbery. The percussionists huddle on the grass beyond them, like lost sheep. Groups of students from other classes shamble towards them.
‘A bomb threat, maybe,’ Fiona says.
‘You would think the teachers would want to get us out the quickest way, if that were the case.’
‘Maybe the caller said it had to be like this. Part of their demands.’
‘Wouldn’t the caller tell us not to leave at all?’
Her hands are crushed into fists by her sides. ‘I don’t like this,’ she says.
‘Woodwinds,’ Mrs Blatt says. ‘Your turn.’
Fiona and I follow the saxophonists and the other clarinettists to the windows. Rust lines the frames; they haven’t been opened since last summer. Luckily, the school is a one-storey building, but the bushes outside are laced with tiny thorns.
The other musicians didn’t complain, so I don’t either. I’d rather get a few scrapes than have to stay in here with whatever the danger is.
Just the same, I tell Fiona she can go first. She almost throws herself out of the window, and runs across the oval to join the others. I climb after her, avoiding the prickliest branches, and stumble out onto the grass.
The sunshine highlights my fake skin. I stick my hands in my pockets.
Henrietta is standing on her toes, peering over a group of her classmates. I walk over to her. ‘Hey Hen.’
She turns around. ‘Hey sweetie. I hear you’re pregnant.’
Word travels fast. ‘It’s triplets,’ I say, just as Chloe would have. ‘Want to adopt one?’
‘Only if its hair matches my furniture. What do you think of the new evacuation route?’
‘Way cooler than the old one. And it saved me from a tricky piece of music.’
‘It saved me from some tough grammar. I don’t think I should be forced to learn no Italian until I figure out how to speak English good.’
I chuckle politely.
‘I’m going to go find Pete,’ Henrietta says. ‘OK?’
‘Want me to come?’
‘Are you going to embarrass me?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then you’re staying put, young lady.’
She gives me a hug and trots off into the crowd. I wander over to a group of people and hover near the edge, trying to look like I’m with them.
‘It’s a gas leak,’ one of the boys is saying. ‘I overheard Mr Fresner talking about it. He said the sensors picked up chloroflurane in the air, or something like that.’
The rogue science class once left a gas tap running, which could have created a devastating fire if someone hadn’t smelled it in time. Afterwards, all the smoke detectors were replaced with chemical sensors, which would sound the alarm if they found any of a thousand dangerous chemicals in the air.
‘So the school might explode?’ someone else says.
‘It’s not flammable,’ the first boy says. ‘It’s toxic. That’s why they wouldn’t let us go in the corridor. The gas, like, kills you.’
‘You’re making that up.’
‘I’m not! That’s what Mr Fresner said.’
‘Chloroflurane,’ a girl reads off the screen of her phone. ‘A halogenated ether historically used for inhalational anaesthesia. Exposure causes unconsciousness in an adult male within two minutes. Permanent brain damage results after twenty-four minutes. Prolonged exposure of forty-five minutes or more causes death.’
‘As if anyone would bring that to school,’ the first boy says.
‘You’re making that up
,’ the other kid says again.
The girl hands him the phone.
‘Chloe.’ I turn around to see Henrietta wringing her hands. Her dark eyes glisten. ‘I can’t find Pete.’
I look around. ‘They’ve evacuated the school,’ I say. ‘He’s got to be here.’
‘He’s not. I’ve looked everywhere. And I’ve called his phone. It just rings out.’
Exposure causes unconsciousness within two minutes.
‘Hen, you have to tell a teacher,’ I say. ‘Right now.’
‘I already did,’ she says. Her face is as colourless as an old photograph. ‘But they won’t let me go in and look for him. They said there’s a gas leak. What do I do?’
The world is starting to spin. I can’t think straight. ‘The fire department gets called, right?’ I say. ‘Automatically, when the alarm goes off?’
‘But what if they don’t get here in time?’ Henrietta’s voice is almost a whisper, like she’s afraid to say the words out loud. ‘Last time it took twenty minutes!’
Permanent brain damage results after twenty-four minutes.
It’s a big school. How long will it take them to find Pete?
‘OK,’ I say, grabbing Henrietta by the shoulders. ‘Listen to me carefully. I want you to keep ringing Pete. Don’t stop for any reason, and don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone. OK?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to get Pete. But you can’t tell anyone. OK?’
‘But … the gas …’
‘Just trust me, OK? Call Pete. Right now.’ And I run back towards the school.
RESCUE MISSION
I can’t get back into Scullin High the way I came out. A teacher or student will see me and intervene.
Instead, I jog further out onto the oval, circling the school, not close enough that anyone would suspect I’m going back inside. I run slowly, so the movement doesn’t draw attention, but still fast enough that I’ll be out of view before anyone happens to look over. I hope.
In twenty steps I’ll be out of sight. Fifteen. Ten.
Someone shouts, ‘Hey!’
Can’t tell if they’re talking to me. I don’t look back. Five steps.
Finally I’m around the corner of the building. The nearest entrance is near the art rooms. I break into a sprint, the wind blustering in my ears.
Through the windows, the school looks as cold and dead as it must on the weekends. But a living thing is in there, somewhere. According to Chloe’s watch, I have sixteen minutes to find him.
The door is up ahead. My fingers wrap themselves around the handle.
Even without lungs, I have a sense of smell. Open AI programmed me with human weaknesses—a wobbling voice, shaking hands, the sensation of a heart thumping so hard that it hurts. Could they have programmed me to lose consciousness when I smell the gas, the same as a human would?
Perhaps. But I can’t let Pete die out of cowardice. Gritting my teeth, I yank on the door and the air washes over me.
It has a faint odour of wet acrylic paint, which could be the gas or could be art supplies in nearby classrooms. I don’t pass out. Perhaps it will take two minutes. I’m not going to stand here waiting to find out.
This corridor contains the lockers for the Year Seven kids. A jungle mural, painted by students who have long since graduated, decorates the walls. Someone has overturned a rubbish bin, spilling snowballs of scrunched-up paper and a slick of chocolate milk across the floor.
I creep down the corridor, listening for Pete’s phone. Thanks to the blaring of the alarm, I’m unlikely to hear it from more than twenty or thirty metres away. If it’s set to vibrate, I might not find him at all. He’ll get brain damage, and I’ll have no explanation for abandoning Henrietta.
I have to find him now. Both our lives depend on it.
A faint thud from somewhere nearby.
Could be a window slamming shut in the breeze. Could be Pete, finally losing consciousness—although that should have happened a few minutes ago.
I keep listening, but hear nothing but the siren. I keep walking, peering into every shadow.
Soon I reach a T-intersection. I don’t know what class Pete had, so I don’t know which part of the school he should have been in. Most of the building is to my left, so I go that way, stepping over the scuff marks in the linoleum.
A drinking fountain protrudes from the wall. The puddle of water beneath it fizzles in some kind of chemical reaction. Something bad is definitely in the air, but I’m unaffected. It can’t kill me. I’m no more alive than the paintings on the walls.
Another thud. And another sound—a throat being cleared.
That’s Pete’s ringtone. He recorded it so he wouldn’t have to turn his phone off in class. He must be somewhere nearby.
The doors to the toilets are a little further along the corridor. If Pete had excused himself to go to the bathroom, he might have been caught out in the open when the gas leak happened, and been unable to evacuate with everyone else.
I press my palm against the door to the boys’ toilet, surprised by how wrong it feels to go in, even under these circumstances. The door creaks open.
The bathroom looks deserted. The smell—bleach and urine—seems loud, somehow. My fake face stares back at me from the grimy mirror.
I walk in, and crouch down to look under the cubicle doors.
Pete is slumped face-down in the second-last cubicle, a pool of blood growing under his head. His nose is twisted sideways, broken when he fell. The whites of his eyes are visible under half-closed lids. His jaw is stretched into a silent gasp, and saliva bubbles like acid around his lips.
I drag him out of the cubicle, roll him onto his back, dig the ringing phone out of his pocket and answer it. ‘I found him, Hen. See you soon.’
I hang up before she has the chance to say anything. Eight minutes before Pete gets permanent brain damage. I haul him onto my shoulder. He’s heavier than Chloe was. I’m not going to be able to move as quickly. His arms are so long they almost drag on the ground behind me as I stagger out of the bathroom, my forearm locked across the backs of his thighs. I head back towards my science classroom, where the nearest exit is.
When I reach the corridor in which I was accused of being pregnant, the clomping of boots stops me in my tracks.
The fire department must already be here. If they see me, I’ll find myself answering difficult questions about how I can breathe. I’ll have to avoid them on my way out.
I keep moving, my ears open. A black can of soft drink lies on its side up ahead, hissing. A white spray hangs in the air above it—another chemical reaction. Except …
I slow down as I approach. That’s not a soft drink can. It has a handle. A trigger. A pin. It’s a chemical grenade.
This is no gas leak. This is an attack.
My stomach churns as the footsteps get louder. A dark shape rounds the corner in the distance, followed by three others. Each of them wears a gas mask, but they’re not fire fighters. Four pump-action shotguns swivel in their gloved hands.
HUNTED
I duck sideways into one of the classrooms and press myself against the wall, hoping the four armed men didn’t see me.
Their footsteps don’t seem to change tempo. I’m safe—unless they come in.
‘This is the spot,’ a voice says. It’s muffled by the gas mask, but filled with testosterone. Deep and aggressive.
‘Anybody see a box?’ someone else says. ‘A bag?’
‘No sir.’
My first thought—that this was a terrorist attack—wasn’t quite right. They’re here to pick something up. But what could be so important that they would attack a high school in the middle of the day?
‘OK,’ the leader says. ‘Fan out. We’re on the clock, so do it quick. The package could be in a locker, on top of one, or stuck to the underside of a chair or desk. Report when you’ve found it.’
‘Yes sir.’
The combat boots stomp away in various directio
ns.
The fear feels like a noose around my throat. Whatever ‘the package’ is, I hope they find it soon. Because if they don’t, sooner or later one of them will come looking in here. And I have nothing to defend myself or Pete with. I may be immune to the gas, but one shot from those guns could carve a chunk out of me as big as a bowling ball.
Would I die right away? Or would I be crippled until someone found me and switched off my remains?
There must not have been a class in here when the alarm went off, because the windows on the other side of the room are closed. The hinges look rusty and stiff. Could I open one before they hear me and come running?
Too late. One of the hunters is coming this way.
I could lie next to Pete. They will expect a few sleeping bodies. But the gas is lethal, so they’re prepared to kill. If they see two unconscious students, they might finish us off.
Instead, I slink over to the teacher’s desk and crouch behind it, but not under it. I tuck Pete’s limbs in to keep them out of view.
The door opens. A chair rattles. The hunter is inside.
He comes over to the teacher’s desk first. His ammunition pouch jingles as he walks.
I hold my hand over Pete’s mouth, momentarily stifling his breaths. The desk bumps and creaks as the hunter reaches beneath it, feeling the underside with his palm.
Apparently satisfied, he moves away. Slowly, carefully, I slide across the floor, keeping the desk between us and him as he walks deeper into the classroom, checking the chairs and tables of the students.
I crawl under the teacher’s desk and drag Pete in with me. We’re crammed together so tightly that I can see the fine hairs in his ears.
Furniture rattles. Feet thud. Hands scrape. If the hunter doesn’t give up soon, Pete is going to be a vegetable.
The footsteps get closer. Closer still. And then further away as he clomps back out of the door. Moments later, I can hear nothing but the siren.
I crawl out from under the desk, climb to my feet …
And see the hunter, still in the doorway. He’s facing away from us but, as I duck back down, Pete lets out a phlegmy snore.
The hunter whirls around. His small, bright eyes lock onto mine as he raises the barrel of the shotgun.
