I used to believe all the things she said about my dad. She made me think he didn’t love us and didn’t want to be with us. Only recently, I’ve realized that maybe he left because she tried to control him, too. I called him once last year when I started figuring things out, but she caught me and didn’t speak to me for a week. And it was really awkward talking to him when we’ve lost so many years. She’s made it so difficult for us to have any kind of relationship. Sometimes I feel like all I’ll ever have is a few fuzzy memories.
Dancing with my feet on his shoes.
Being lifted up in his strong arms in my pajamas to watch the Fourth of July fireworks.
Wearing the mittens he made from socks so I wouldn’t scratch my chicken pox.
And sometimes when he’d come home from work really late, he’d wake me up and we’d sneak into the kitchen and eat ice cream. He always made me promise not to tell Mom, but he said he was missing me and wanted to see me. We’d giggle while we washed the bowls to hide the evidence, and then we’d tiptoe back to bed.
I’ve saved the images of my father like pretty shells collected on the beach. I keep them mostly locked away, but every now and then, late at night, I take them out. They always make me cry.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be bad at relationships, too.
• • •
Simon raises his hand and catches my eye. I stand up to go help him, and I feel my blood pressure shoot up. My head feels light and my hands are shaking. I can’t let the kids see I’m having trouble. I have to hold it together for them.
Before I was diagnosed with POTS, before I knew what postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome was, I didn’t know what was happening to me. When I started high school, I had these spells where I was sure I was having a heart attack. I’d go to stand up and my vision would dim, my heart would race, and I’d fight to keep from passing out. After it passed, I was always drained and exhausted.
Mom thought it was some kind of teenage hypochondria, but by tenth grade things were worse, so she started taking me to doctors. At first no one could find anything wrong, and after trips to three different doctors, even I was starting to think maybe it really was all in my head.
Finally, thank God, Dr. Blackwood diagnosed me with POTS. It turns out one in a hundred teens have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, but most doctors have never heard of it. It’s this malfunction in your autonomic system—the system that controls involuntary stuff like breathing and heartbeat. What happens is that sometimes when I stand up, instead of my heart rate speeding up just a little to adjust to the change in gravity, it goes all haywire and shoots up to 130 beats per minute. So I get light-headed and have to sit back down. Some people faint, but I’ve always been able to ride it out, although it makes me feel awful when it happens.
When Dr. Blackwood showed me how my blood pressure spiked when I stood up, I cried—because I was so happy to finally know what was wrong with me. I knew I could deal with it if I just knew what it was.
Doctors don’t know what causes POTS. Some people get it after an illness like mono or some trauma like a car wreck, but I hadn’t had either. Since so many high schoolers get it, some doctors think it could be from growing a lot in a short time.
POTS is complicated, so I don’t tell many people about it. It’s worse in the mornings when I get out of bed and at night if I stand up too fast from lying on the couch. At school I’m able to hide it, probably because I’m sitting instead of lying down so it’s not as severe when I stand up.
I told Molly because I tell Molly everything; she’s always so sweet and understanding. I wound up having to tell Tab because she got all mad when I didn’t want to hang out because I was tired. With POTS, it’s like you’re running in place all the time, so you’re worn out sometimes just from taking a shower or walking to your car after school. Tab acted like she understood, but then she still got all bent out of shape anytime I wouldn’t do something with her.
I didn’t tell Jake when we first started going out; I hated how it made me feel like some kind of Southern belle stereotype, feeling faint all the time. When I did get up the nerve to tell him, he wanted to know everything about it, and I noticed he was careful not to keep me talking on the phone so late after he knew.
The good news is, for most people POTS goes away after a few years. And it’s pretty easy to treat with meds. I take beta-blockers, drink a lot of water, and get eight hours of sleep every night—well, most nights—and I have way less trouble than I used to. Up till now.
The worst part is that anxiety is a trigger. Dr. Blackwood said to try to keep a slow pace and avoid stress.
Um, right . . .
• • •
Stutts, who is definitely raising my stress level, watches the kids, then walks to look out into the hallway, his hand in his pocket on the gun.
“Patrick, you be ready when I tell you, you hear me?” Stutts says. Patrick nods. “What are you looking at?” he yells at Jake, making all of us jump practically out of our skin.
Jake holds both hands up. I can tell he’s fighting to stay calm. “Nothin’, man.”
“Alla you, quit staring at me,” he snarls at the kids.
Dear God, I’m thinking, they’re just babies. And they’re scared. And how can they not look at him when he’s holding a gun and taking their friend away? If he didn’t want people to look at him, he shouldn’t have gone stark raving mad in front of eighteen kids.
The kids pretend to be absorbed in their work—except for Alicia, who really is, her head bent low over her paper, one of her yellow butterfly barrettes coming loose. I walk over and reposition it, careful not to look at Stutts.
“There you go, buttercup,” I whisper. “That’s better.” She rewards me with a half smile.
“I love the way you’re working so quietly,” Mrs. Campbell says to the kids. She has this great way of turning criticism into positive statements. Instead of You didn’t raise your hand, she’ll say, “I like to listen to people who raise their hands.” Instead of Clean off your desk, it’s “Everyone with a clean desk can line up for our bathroom break.”
She does such fun stuff with them, it makes me wish we could stay all day. One morning the whole room smelled like shaving cream because the kids had squirted it on their desks to write down sight words. Kids are hardly ever absent in Mrs. Campbell’s class because they know they’ll miss something good.
They respond to her now as she circulates among them, straightening Natalie’s sweater and smoothing down Simon’s bed-head hair. Her touch is magic; they seem to have forgotten there’s a crazy man in the room. I watch her, without any clue that within just a few minutes these kids’ lives will be in our hands—after Jake carries the limp body of their teacher out of the room . . .
CHAPTER 6
JAKE
I GLANCE UP AT THE CLOCK: 9:20. IT clicks randomly—not a noise you’d notice unless there’s an asshole with a gun in the room to keep things quiet.
“Mrs. Campbell,” Kenji calls out from the back of the room. Everybody turns around to look at him. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he says, a look of panic on his face.
“Sweetheart, you’ll have to wait,” Mrs. Campbell says. “Can you hang on for just a little while?”
He nods and looks back down at his book. After about ten seconds, he yells out, “I can’t wait. I have to go now.”
Mrs. Campbell looks over at Stutts, who glares at Kenji. Then he looks at me.
“You. You take the kid to the bathroom, and don’t try to pull anything cute.” His eyes go squinty, and he adds, “You don’t wanna make me mad.”
No sir, we do not.
I tell him, “No problem, I got this.” I motion for Kenji, and he’s at my side in a flash.
“You got two minutes,” Stutts says.
“Two minutes? Um, I don’t know how long this is gonna take. Kenji”—I lean down to him and lower my voice—“is this a pee trip or a poop trip, buddy?”
“I gotta p
ee,” he whispers.
“Okay, that’s good.” I turn back to Stutts. “Listen, stay cool, man. I’ll get him back here as quick as I can.”
“You don’t talk to anybody in the hall. I can see you from right here.”
“Got it. C’mon, sport,” I say, but Kenji’s already out the door.
I usher him down the hall, trying to go slow so I can see if there’s any way to get help, but he’s doing a pretty desperate pee-pee dance, so we pick up speed. I feel Stutts’s eyes on my back.
Kenji reaches up to take my hand. I’ve learned that first graders are very affectionate—and right now, we could all use a hand to hold.
There’s nobody in the hall to even try to signal, and all the other classroom doors are closed. I move my eyes around searching for a security camera. Shit, no luck. I’m not sure there’s anything I could do, anyway, with Stutts staring a hole in my back. Does anyone even monitor those things during the day?
As soon as I open the bathroom door, Kenji runs into a stall and slams the door shut. I slump against the wall and look at my face in the mirror. Sweat beads dot my forehead and my eyes have a deer-in-headlights look. I reach for the faucet and splash cold water on my face.
“Kenji, you okay, buddy?” I ask.
“Yep” is the answer, accompanied by a steady stream of water on water.
I notice that the stall door next to Kenji’s is closed. “Hey, is somebody in there?”
Dead silence, then a small voice. “Yes.”
“Hey, can you open the door? I need help.” Crap, I sound like a perv; now the kid’ll never come out. “Listen, I’m a teacher. It’s okay. You can come out.”
The door opens slowly; big brown eyes look up at me from a small face.
“Hey, pal, what’s your name?”
“Sebastian.”
“Listen, Sebastian. I’m Jake; I’m a student tutor in Mrs. Campbell’s class, and she, Mrs. Campbell, needs you to do something for her. It’s very, very important, okay? You know Mrs. Campbell?”
He nods. “Uh-huh, I had her last year.”
“Great. She needs you to take a message to the front office. Can you do that?”
“Mrs. Boyd said to come right back.”
“I know, buddy. But she’ll be okay with this. I promise I’ll fix it with your teacher.”
Sebastian gazes at me, expressionless.
“It’ll only take a minute. But listen”— I’m thinking fast—“after I tell you the message, you have to count to twenty before you leave here to go to the office, okay?” I don’t want to scare him, but I need to make him understand the danger. “There’s a man in the hall who might see you if you leave right away—and we don’t want that. So you’re gonna count to twenty first—can you do that before you leave the bathroom?” He nods, so I continue. “And then go down to the office and here’s what you tell them: Tell them that there’s a man . . . there’s a man with a gun in Mrs. Campbell’s room.”
Big eyes go wide.
“Can you remember that?”
“Is he a bad man?” he asks.
“Well, kind of. Okay, yes, he is, and that’s why we need help.”
Sebastian turns his back on me abruptly and heads back into the stall.
“Sebastian, hey, where’re you going?”
He tries to pull the door shut, but I’m holding it. “They told us if anybody bad comes in the hall while we’re in the bathroom, we’re supposed to sit on the toilet with our feet up so nobody can see us.”
Aw, man, that’s about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. Kinda makes me sick thinking about a little kid in the toilet with his feet up, all by himself and scared out of his mind. For the first time today, I actually feel like crying.
“Hey, Sebastian, listen, it’ll be okay. The bad man’s in the classroom, and I’ll make sure he stays there.”
Sebastian reemerges from the stall and studies me, considering. I’m running out of time before I have to get back.
“You like Mrs. Campbell, right?” I’m guessing everybody likes Mrs. Campbell. Sebastian nods. “Do it for Mrs. Campbell, okay?” I use my most persuasive voice. “She needs you.”
The toilet flushes and Kenji comes out. He moves to the sink and turns the water on.
“The bad man’s not gonna see me?” Sebastian looks over at Kenji, who’s washing his hands like a madman—completely focused on foamy soap and serious rubbing. I can just see him singing that damn happy birthday song over and over in his head like they tell them to do when they’re washing their hands, so it’s long enough to get the germs off. It’s like he’s trying to wash the morning off, too.
“No, dude, I’m gonna talk to him so he doesn’t see you leave.”
Dude looks back at me.
“You got it, little buddy? You can do this. You da man.”
He nods again.
“Listen, we have to go back now. Remember, count to twenty—then go to the office and tell them we need help.” It seems like a good time to beat a dead horse; this kid’s got to get it right. “Which teacher did I tell you?”
“Mrs. Campbell.”
“Good. It’s up to you, little man. I don’t have any other way to let them know we’re in trouble.” I smile and he looks at me and nods once. “Okay, Kenji, let’s go.”
Kenji says quietly, “Can I go to the office, too?”
A tear slides down his cheek.
I kneel down beside Kenji and give him my full attention. Some things can’t be rushed.
“I wish you could, Kenji, but you heard the man. I think we both have to go back.”
Another tear rolls, and he drops his head.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I promise. Look at me.”
He looks up.
“Everything’s gonna be okay. The school has all kinds of people who can help us, and they’re going to come take care of this. And until they get there, you can count on me. Okay?”
Kenji nods, stone-faced.
“Listen, tell me who’s better—Superman or Batman.”
“Batman,” he says definitively.
“Well, then, I’m gonna be Batman and you’re gonna be Robin, and nobody can hurt the Daring Duo, right?”
He shakes his head, lips pressed together.
“What?”
“I want to be Batman.”
“Okay, cool. You be Batman and I’ll be Robin.”
I reach out my hand, and he locks on me with a death grip as I stand up, and we walk back out the door. He glances down the hall at Stutts waiting for us and turns back to the water fountain. I need to clear him out of here fast so Sebastian can leave, but I can’t blame him for wanting to put off the inevitable, so I give him a boost. “Real quick, okay?”
He drinks like his head’s on fire, but I stop him after a few seconds.
“Come on, Batman,” I tell him. “We gotta get back to the cave.”
I scoop him up and carry him in a football hold so I can move him quickly down the hall. He yells at first, then giggles.
Still no doors open. Still no people in the hallway.
Come on, Sebastian, get it right. I speed up some more.
I step back into the room and set Kenji upright.
Stutts watches me suspiciously from the doorway, then glances down at the bathroom. “Was anybody in there?”
“Nope, just me and Kenji. Batman and Robin.” Kenji gives me a look. “I mean Robin and Batman.”
Stutts eyes both of us, then reenters the room. “No more bathroom trips,” he says. “Patrick, you be ready. When the hall’s clear, we’re going.”
Patrick nods, head tucked.
“Thank you, Jake,” Mrs. Campbell says.
“No problem,” I tell her, and she smiles.
I feel a tug on my pants leg and Simon’s there again. How does he do that? I never see him coming. “You came back, Jack,” he says seriously. Before I can answer him, Stutts is yelling orders at us again.
&nb
sp; “All right, everybody stay put. I’m just gonna take another look out there.”
He turns toward the hall—just about the time Sebastian will be leaving!
“Mr. Stutts,” I call out, frantically thinking of a way to stall for time.
“What do you want?” He stops and looks back at me.
“I, um, I have an idea.” Damn, I wish I had an idea.
“Spit it out, kid. I don’t have all day.”
“Listen, what if we called your wife to come down here and straighten all this out? We can all have a big meeting and try to—”
“I don’t need your help, kid. And I don’t want her here. She’s trying to take me to court to keep me from seeing my boy.”
“I’m sure she’ll listen to—” I’m just babbling now, and Emery’s frowning at me.
“She changed the locks!” he yells. “On my own damn house! She won’t listen to anybody, except her mother, and that woman’s hated me from the first day I met her. She never thought I was good enough for her precious daughter, and she poisoned her against me.”
“There must be someone else who can help you with—” I start out, but he cuts me off.
“That’s enough,” Stutts says. “It’s none of your business. Now, everybody stay right where you are. Nobody moves.”
I hold my breath while he steps out into the hall, his hand on the gun in the pocket of his pants.
“What are you doing?” Emery whispers.
“I’ll explain later,” I tell her.
And then he’s back. Sebastian must have made it out, thank God. “Hey, Teach, do they have any kinda schedule—those guards?” he asks.
“Not really. They move around during the day to different halls.”
There’s a long silence.
“Mr. Stutts, I’m sure you’re not the kind of man who—” Mrs. Campbell starts.
“You don’t know what kind of man I am!” he yells in a sudden rage, slamming his fist against the door, making everyone jump again. “You don’t know anything about me! I’m not the kind of man to kill people? Is that what you were gonna say? That’s not what the US Army says. They think I’m exactly that kind of man!” He steps toward her, his finger stabbing the air as he yells. “They trained me to kill and sent me to Iraq to do it. They give medals for it, did you know that?” His face is red. “You gonna argue with the US government, Teacher Lady? You think you know more than Uncle Sam? They’ll tell you what kind of man I am.”
This Is Not a Drill Page 4
