Out There - Book One: Paradise

by David Gordon

At lunch the next day, the cafeteria tables were completely filled. There were kids crammed in from several grades and classes. And there were still more coming in. A rowdy line of seventh graders stretched from the food pickup window, past the cooler filled with cartons of milk, along one wall, and all the way to the cafeteria entrance, which was clogged with even more kids trying to get in. The noise was deafening. A few teachers—including Miss Fox—roamed between the tables, telling kids to stop yelling (they resumed yelling as soon as the teacher walked away), stop shoving (they resumed shoving as soon as the teacher walked away), and to finish eating so that other kids could sit down (they resumed playing with their food as soon as the teacher walked away). In short, it was a typical lunchtime at school.

  Sami and Brian were sitting together at their usual spot, at the far end of the farthest table. In fact, Brian sat at the farthest spot at the far end, so that the only person sitting next to him was Sami. Sitting there had been Sami’s idea, as a way to reduce the number of other kids around them to as few as possible. More kids only meant more potential trouble for Brian. Other kids from their class, including Alejandro, were also at that table, but they were too busy eating and yelling at each other to bother with Brian and Sami, way down at the end. Which was just fine with Sami and Brian, of course.

  Sami hated Alejandro and, so, did her best to pay no attention to him. If she had paid attention to him that day at lunch, however, she might have noticed that he was acting strangely. Usually he was one of the noisiest and most obnoxious kids at the table. But today he was quiet. He ignored the noise and confusion around him, and instead kept watching the door to the cafeteria. And he looked worried.

  Then Alejandro went stiff. The knot of kids at the door had started bulging into the cafeteria, like a growing gum bubble. Then the bubble of kids seemed to pop open. Suddenly, four men were now standing in the doorway, their heads turning this way and that as they scanned the wild room. Two of them were policemen in uniform. The third was in a dark suit and wore sunglasses. The fourth man was Mr. Sombra.

  The cafeteria quieted down as dozens and dozens of heads turned to see these unexpected men. Miss Fox recognized Mr. Sombra. She glanced briefly across the room at Brian, then hurried to talk with the four men.

  “That’s Mr. Sombra,” said Brian. “Perhaps something is wrong with my parents. Perhaps I have to go home early.” He started to slide off of the bench but stopped when Alejandro hissed, “Wait!” at him. And, surprised by this, Brian waited.

  The three of them could not hear what the adults were saying at the door, but they could see that they were arguing. The men looked annoyed, especially the man in the suit. He was doing most of the talking. Miss Fox was stabbing the air with her finger and using her “I really mean it!” voice. The men rolled their eyes and tried to push past Miss Fox, but she held up her hand and started yelling at them. Now everyone could hear her.

  “You have NO right to even be here!” she thundered. “You will leave this instant! Is that clear?!” This did not work on the men as well as it did on the kids. They just got angrier and started threatening to arrest her. Mr. Sombra was not participating in any of the arguing. Instead, he was looking past Miss Fox’s head, scanning the room for Brian.

  Then Mr. Sombra saw him.

  Alejandro saw that Brian had been spotted. Alejandro rolled off the back of the bench, then scooted up behind Brian and pulled him backward off the bench and to the floor.

  “Hey!” Sami yelled and grabbed at Alejandro’s shirt. But before she could say, do, or even think anything else, Alejandro had yanked her down, too.

  “Quiet!” he snarled at her, startling her into actually being quiet. “Now listen,” Alejandro continued rapidly, “in a minute all hell is going to break loose in this place! When it does, you get him out of here!” He jerked his thumb at Brian. “Got it?!”

  Before she had time to answer, Alejandro was up, had grabbed his tray of food, and had run off. Sami peeked up over the table and saw tiny Miss Fox struggling to keep Mr. Sombra from coming towards them. At that moment Sami realized that something awful was happening, and that Brian was in danger.

  Brian started to rise. “Maybe I should—”

  Sami dropped back down, dragging him with her. “No! Stay here!”

  The next thing they heard was Alejandro’s voice blasting above the noise of the room. “Hey Robbie,” he yelled, “this is for getting me into trouble!” Sami peeked up in time to see Alejandro fling his tray of food into Robbie’s face.

  “Whoa!” said Sami. “Right in the kisser!” Then she saw Robbie rise up with a roar and fling his tray Alejandro. He missed, but hit other kids, who jumped up, screaming and delighted to be suddenly included in the food fight. Sami dropped back to her knees. She no longer needed to see what was happening to know what was going on. Within seconds, kids were flinging food and running around at all of the tables. The noise was terrific.

  “Come on!” she said to Brian, and took the lead as they scuttled along like crabs across the floor, staying behind tables as best they could.

  Halfway across the cafeteria, Sami pulled Brian under one of the tables. Peering over the table bench, they got a good view of the cafeteria entrance. The two policemen had waded into the riot, the same way you might wade into the water at the ocean. Kids were splashing up against them from every side, splattering the policemen with food and managing to stay just out of reach of their big hands. The man in the suit had mashed potatoes on his head and cherry cobbler on his shirt, and he was shaking Robbie like he was a doll. Miss Fox and the other teachers were screaming in every direction at once, trying to get the kids to stop. And Mr. Sombra was shoving through fighting kids, heading toward the farthest table, where he had last seen Brian.

  Sami and Brian watched as Mr. Sombra passed by the row of tables they were hiding under. “Go!” ordered Sami.

  They ducked and slid out beneath the bench, but stayed down on their knees. Food was flying everywhere. Sami decided that there was enough confusion to risk standing up to make a run for it. She grabbed Brian’s hand and shouted, “Come on!” They jumped up—ducked to avoid being hit by a sandwich—then banged their way through the rioting kids as fast as they could go. As they neared the door, Sami saw Miss Fox holding two food-encrusted kids by their collars. At that moment Miss Fox looked up and saw Sami and Brian looking at her. Sami automatically skidded to a halt because her teacher was looking at her. Then they heard Mr. Sombra’s voice cracking through the noise.

  “There he is!”

  The heads of Miss Fox, Sami, Brian, the two policemen, and the man in the suit all snapped in the direction of that thundering voice. Mr. Sombra was now at the far end of the farthest table, furious and pointing back across the room, right at Sami and Brian. “At the door!” he yelled, and he started bulldozing his way back toward them. Of course, now the policemen and the man in the suit spotted Brian, and they also started heading for him. Sami looked back at Miss Fox, who got a wild look in her face and jutted her chin toward the door. Sami unfroze.

  “Let’s go!” she barked at Brian, and yanked him through the last layer of kids and out the door.

  Sami and Brian stopped when they popped out the door, looking left and right, trying to decide which way to go. Just then Mr. Horace (carrying a mop and bucket) walked up, drawn by the racket coming from the cafeteria.

  “I hope you kids aren’t making a mess in there,” he said, glaring down at Sami and Brian. A glob of mashed potatoes sailed out the door and plopped onto his shoe. “What in the world?” he said, and leaned into the cafeteria to take a look. His jaw dropped open and he dropped the pail. Then he clamped his teeth together and straightened up. He threw his mop down on the floor. “That’s it,” he announced. “I’m outta here!” He marched off.

  “We have to go, too!” said Sami. She hurried away, yanking Brian after her.

  They ran down one hall, then another. Most everyone in the school was already in the cafeteria, so the only p
eople Sami and Brian passed were a few adults and children racing toward the sounds of rioting. Out of breath, Sami pulled Brian into the girl’s bathroom. They leaned against the wall, panting. Then Brian looked around and noticed there were no urinals. “This is the girl’s, Sami!” he said, starting to panic.

  “Yeah,” panted Sami. “They’ll never look for you in here.”

  From down the hall they heard the man in the suit call out, “You check the bathrooms!”

  Sami and Brian looked at each other with big, alarmed eyes. Then Brian ran to the closest stall and jumped up to stand on the toilet seat. Sami looked in at him and said, “What are you doing?”

  “Now we close the door so they cannot see that we are in here!” he explained. “I saw this in a movie.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Well…no.”

  Sami made her I’m-going-to-kill-you face. Then they heard heavy footsteps pounding toward the restroom. Sami waved frantically at Brian and whispered, “Over here!” He hopped down and the two of them rushed to stand against the wall beside the door. Sami whispered to Brian, “When he opens the door we’ll be behind it. We go out after he comes in. Get it?”

  Brian nodded enthusiastically and whispered, “Great plan!”

  They waited breathlessly as the heavy footsteps arrived at the bathroom door. Then it swung open.

  Unfortunately, Sami had forgotten which way the door opened. Instead of being behind the door, suddenly she and Brian were face to face with one of the policeman!

  Fortunately, the policeman was as surprised as the children. Sami recovered her wits first. She stepped in front of Brian to hide him and screamed up at the policeman, “This is the GIRL’S room! GET OUT!”

  The startled policeman turned red and backed out. As soon as he was out, Sami dragged Brian to the other side of the door. In the next instant the door opened again, but this time they were behind it. The policeman was still red, but with anger now. “Just a minute!” he barked as he barged back in. As soon as he was inside and let go of the door, Sami and Brian slithered around from behind it and darted out of the restroom. The policeman spun around and shouted, “Hey you!”

  They wheeled to the left and ran down a long hallway. “We have to get out of the school!” Sami shouted to Brian as they ran. She pointed down the hallway to the daylight at the end and the dead grass beyond. “Through there! We can get to the bus gate!”

  Suddenly someone stepped into the opening at the end of the hall. He was just a black form, silhouetted against the bright sunlight behind him. But they could see the bottom of his suit jacket flapping. The kids skidded to a halt. “Hey!” yelled the black form and then it started running toward them. Sami pulled Brian into another hallway and they ran on.

  No matter where they ran, they heard echoing down the hallways the pounding footsteps and shouts of people chasing them. There seemed to be no escape. Sami and Brian had to stop for second. They were gasping for breath and had no idea which way to go. The frightening sound of their pursuers boomed all around them. Suddenly Sami heard someone run around a nearby corner and skid to a halt. Without wasting time to look, Sami grabbed Brian to take off in the opposite direction.

  “Wait Sami!”

  She knew that voice all too well. She looked behind her and there was Alejandro, holding up his hands like a crossing guard. “What are you—” she began.

  “Never mind!” Alejandro cut in, and he ran up to them. “You’ve got to get out of the school!”

  Sami looked at him like he was an idiot. “No kidding!”

  They heard the shouts of the men getting nearer. All three of the kids looked frantically in every direction, trying to find a way out. Alejandro spotted a clothes rack down the hall. The rack was over-flowing with coats, sweaters, shirts, backpacks, and lunch boxes. The sign taped above it read, “Lost and Found.”

  “Come on!” he told them, and they raced to the clothes rack.

  Alejandro started pawing through the piles of clothes. Sami complained, “But they’ll look in here for sure!”

  “We’re not hiding in here, dummy,” said Alejandro as he continued to search the rack.

  “Who’s a dummy!” yelled Sami.

  Then Alejandro yanked out of the rack a sweatshirt with a hood. “Got it!”

  He immediately started jamming it over Brian’s head. When it popped through, Alejandro pulled the hood up and over Brian’s head. “Keep this up,” Alejandro said as he tied the drawstring under Brian’s chin. Brian wriggled his arms though the sleeves.

  “Okay, now, just walk, like we’re going to class or something,” said Alejandro.

  But instead of walking, Brian started nodding and said, “Ah, I see! This is a subterfuge.”

  Alejandro’s face twisted and he said, “A what?”

  Brian began to explain. “A subterfuge is a trick you use to escape—”

  “Not now, Brian!” Sami pleaded and started to shove him along. “Just go!"

  They started walking down the hallway. They heard some shouting behind them, and Sami turned to look. But Alejandro elbowed her and hissed, “Don’t look.”

  Sami rubbed her arm where he had elbowed her, and hissed back, “Watch it!”

  A few steps later they came to another hallway. Just as they neared it, one of the policemen came hurtling around the corner right at them. He hardly glanced at the three kids as he ran past them.

  “Say,” Sami whispered, “this is going to work!”

  Then the pounding of the policeman’s footsteps stopped. The kids heard his shoes squeak on the walkway as he turned. “Hey!” he yelled.

  Sami looked at Alejandro, Alejandro looked at Brian, then Alejandro looked again at Sami. They could already hear the policeman walking back toward them. Alejandro roughly grabbed Sami’s wrist, which automatically made her hand turn into a fist. He swiftly brought her fist up and used it to hit himself in the face. Instantly, he dropped to the floor, holding his face and screaming bloody murder.

  Sami was stunned. She stared at her fist and said, “Wow, I always wanted to do that.”

  “Run!” Alejandro commanded her from the floor, then continued his screaming and twisting around on the floor.

  Sami snapped out of it, grabbed Brian’s hand, and the two of them disappeared down the hall. Seconds later the policeman ran up. He paused for a moment to glance down at the wailing Alejandro. “You’ll be okay, kid,” said the policeman and turned to run after Sami and Brian. But Alejandro latched onto the Policeman’s ankle with both hands.

  “Don’t leave me! I’m dying!” He pleaded.

  The policeman hobbled down the hallway, dragging Alejandro along the floor behind him.

  Chapter 13

  “We really need your help”