Just Another Hero (18 page)

THURSDAY, MARCH 10

EVERYONE SEEMED TO LOOK UP TO THAT
third-floor window at the same time, stunned by the
rat-a-tat-tat
of some kind of unidentified series of explosions, and the fracturing sights and sounds of fragmenting glass cascading to the ground.

Arielle didn't scream at first. It took her a moment to make sense of what she was seeing and hearing. Kids around her yelled and ran for cover, but she just stood there, stupidly staring at the gaping holes in the windows of what she knew was room 317.

Finally someone grabbed her and dragged her behind a tree. It was Mrs. Witherspoon. Several other students hovered there as well, peeking out to see what was happening.

“What's going on, Spoon?” Arielle asked fearfully.

“Sounds like gunshots,” the teacher replied, her voice sounding as scared as Arielle felt.

“Gunshots? That's crazy!”

“Somebody from off the street, maybe?” Mrs. Witherspoon trembled as her arms held Arielle.

“He took the time to go to the third floor to shoot up the place?”

“You want this to make sense?” asked Mrs. Witherspoon, exasperated.

“But that's my chemistry class!” Arielle shouted. “I'm supposed to be up there.”

“Well, thank God you're not.”

“But my friends are in there! They might be hurt! They might be…” She started to cry. She couldn't bear to think that something might have happened to Dana or November or Jericho, or even Olivia. And Osrick. She'd almost forgotten him.

Mrs. Witherspoon patted her gently on the shoulder. “Stop talking like that! I'm sure they're all just fine.” But she didn't sound confident.

Arielle looked back up at the shattered windows. No sounds or movement came from the room upstairs with the shattered windows. It was ominously silent above, but the area below had become a hurricane of activity.

The police who had been called for Miss Pringle were already in action. More police cruisers rushed to the scene, followed, seemingly instantaneously, by ambulances and EMT trucks.

Students were pushed back behind lines of yellow tape that appeared from nowhere, it seemed. Officers scurried around, barking orders and calling for backup.

“Shots fired! Shots fired at Douglass High School!”
the police radios reported to one another as officers surrounded the building and prepared the approach.

“We have a possible hostage situation.”

“Bring in the SWAT team, George!”

“Take all possible precautions.”

“Repeat—we have a possible hostage situation.”

“Shots
have
been fired!”

“SWAT team at the ready, sir!”

Arielle shuddered next to Mrs. Witherspoon. All around her, other students were making frantic phone calls.

“Mommy! Come get me!” one girl cried. “Somebody is shooting people here at school!”

“Hey, Dad,” a boy's shaky voice whispered. “Come to the school and pick me up. No, Dad—I'm not in trouble. But somebody has a gun. I heard the shots. Come quick!”

Another caller cried, “Grandma! Grandma! Turn down the TV so you can hear me! Tell Uncle Louie to come up to the school and get me! He's not answering his cell phone!”

Teachers called 911 on their cell phones. “Hello. We have an emergency here at Douglass High. We think somebody has been shot. Please—please hurry!”

Parents started to arrive in minutes. Cars screeched to a stop and parked sideways on the lawns of homes near the school. Mothers screamed their children's names. Students screamed out for parents. It was absolute chaos.

Arielle had no phone. She had no way to reach her mother.

Since nobody knew exactly what was happening, some of the calls she overheard were wild, fueled by terror
instead of facts. And somehow, the information about Miss Pringle had leaked out and spread like a disease.

“Is this Channel Five? Connect me to Natasha Singletary. Tell her she'd better get down to Douglass High School. All hell is breaking loose! We got gunmen running up and down the halls! And a teacher has been arrested as a thief.”

“Hey, Mom! Bombs exploded and blew up the whole third floor of the school!”

“It's the terrorists, Daddy! They've taken over the school building!”

“People are dead and dying! Hurry!”

“There's a teacher shooting at kids upstairs, Mom!”

“I heard screams and gunshots!”

“Somebody shot the teacher who stole everybody's stuff!”

“They wore hoods and vests and had bullets roped around their chests!”

“I heard ten students are dead—maybe more!”

Mrs. Witherspoon reached over to one of the callers and said, “Don't exaggerate, sweetie. We really don't know about any injuries yet. Let's just wait and pray, okay?”

The girl nodded but flipped her phone back open to make another call.

News trucks with huge antennas spiking to the sky arrived next, with perfectly coiffed reporters breathlessly repeating themselves and telling nothing at all. The only information they had was that shots had been fired, windows had been broken, and one class was unaccounted for.

Arielle thought it was a good example for a multiplication
lesson: Take a little info and multiply that by a lot of hype, add in a little speculation, and you've got a news story that can run for hours.

She recognized Natasha Singletary from Channel Five. Arielle thought she was a pretty good reporter. She'd seen the woman do interviews on TV, and she usually asked sensible questions and tried to be sensitive to the feelings of the people she talked to. She was taller and thinner than she looked on television. Her makeup was perfect, as if it had been painted on.

“This is Natasha Singletary, News Five Live,” she began. “I'm standing outside Douglass High School, where just minutes ago shots were fired. We do not know yet of any injuries, but the entire window of a third-floor classroom has been just about disintegrated. Ominously, no students have shown themselves at that window, and we know that one class of seniors did not come out of the building during the fire drill. Rick, show our viewers a close-up of that area.”

Ignoring the reporter, Mrs. Sherman, with her usually perfectly combed hair disheveled and unpinned, ran over to Mrs. Witherspoon. “Maggie, I need your help,” she said.

“Of course,” replied Mrs. Witherspoon. She moved from her hiding place to accompany the principal to an area where police had set up tables and communications devices. Arielle, fascinated with the news reports but not wanting to be alone, followed quietly.

“I was just about to go up to the third floor, give those seniors a piece of my mind, and drag them out of there by their ears,” the principal told Mrs. Witherspoon. “But then
the shooting started. The police wouldn't let me into the building!” She sounded distraught.

“You thought they were blowing off the fire drill?” the teacher asked.

“We've had so many false alarms, and you know how seniors can be this time of year. But now they're…they're…” She paused, seemingly overwhelmed. “I should have gone in to rescue my kids.”

“Your job right now is to take care of the hundreds of students and families standing here outside,” Mrs. Witherspoon said, her voice soothing. “They need you too.”

Mrs. Sherman glanced up at the gaping hole above her. “You're right,” she said quietly.

Arielle stood silently to one side.

“Thank you for letting me help,” Miss Pringle told the principal. “They were just about to drive me away.” Her hands uncuffed, her face a mask of confusion, she looked dazed.

“Well, it's
your
class up there.” Mrs. Sherman looked angry, as if she needed someone to blame, Arielle thought.

“Tell us now, who are the students in that classroom?” a police officer who introduced himself as Officer Johnson asked Miss Pringle. “Is there anyone with a social or emotional problem who might be up there?”

“What makes you think it's a student?” Miss Pringle asked, a quiver in her voice.

“We don't know if it is, ma'am. But you know best who's up there and what the dynamics of that class should be. Am I right?”

“Yes, sir. You're right. But suppose someone off the street is up there shooting at my”—she choked back a sob—“my kids?”

“You didn't seem to have any problem taking their stuff,” another police officer commented, but Officer Johnson—his superior, Arielle supposed—shot him a look and he said nothing more.

“We have another team working on that angle, ma'am,” Johnson told her. “Just answer my questions, please. Who's up there that could maybe go bananas?”

“Well, there's Eddie Mahoney. He's just back from juvenile detention, and he's got a real mean streak. Lots of students are afraid of him, and I think there's bad blood between Eddie and a kid named Kofi Freeman.” Arielle was amazed Miss Pringle knew so much about her students—she always seemed to be a little distant.

“Bad enough for a gunfight?” the second police officer asked. His nameplate read
TORINO
.

“I don't know. In my day, things like this were settled with a fistfight. Kids today shoot first and ask questions later.”

Mrs. Witherspoon spoke up. “Kofi and Eddie had an altercation in my classroom a couple of weeks ago,” she offered.

“Do you know what started it?” Officer Torino asked.

“Yes. It was over a girl. Dana Wolfe. She's Kofi's girlfriend.”

Arielle held her breath. Hearing her friends' names being discussed like characters in a police television show was unsettling. Surely this couldn't be something Eddie had planned.

Officer Johnson jotted down the three names. “Anyone else?”

“Well,” Miss Pringle continued, “there's little Osrick Wardley, but he's more of a computer geek than a fighter. He
is
a little odd, however. Kids pick on him—quite a bit.” Miss Pringle bit her fingernails while the officer wrote down Osrick's name.

Arielle spoke up. “Excuse me, sir, but I'm enrolled in that class, and Osrick couldn't hurt a fly.”

“Who are you, and how do you know?” Officer Johnson asked.

Arielle thought about it, and surprised herself by saying, “Because he's my friend.”

That didn't seem to mean much to the officer. Instead he asked her pointedly, “So why aren't
you
in class, young lady? I need your name for my records.” Arielle heard suspicion in his tone.

She shrugged. “My name is Arielle Gresham. I had to go to the bathroom. Then the fire alarm went off. So I never got to class.”

When she said the words “fire alarm,” Mrs. Sherman, Miss Pringle, and Mrs. Witherspoon all looked at one another and said at the same moment, “Jack Krasinski!”

“Who?” asked Johnson.

“The kids call him ‘Crazy Jack,' but he's harmless. He plays the cymbals and the drums in the band, and he likes noise—lots of noise,” Miss Pringle explained.

“And we've had a rash of false fire alarms lately,” said Mrs. Witherspoon. “Nobody could prove it, but we all suspected Jack.”

“I'd even planned to sprinkle the antitheft powder we used to catch you, Peggy,” Mrs. Sherman said sadly, “on the fire alarms so we could catch that person as well.”

Miss Pringle looked away, her pale face even more ashen.

“Well, the alarm
did
go off just before the shooting started. And Jack
is
in that class,” Mrs. Witherspoon said, her voice trailing off as if she were thinking hard.

“The fire drill was a good thing, actually,” Officer Johnson said. “It cleared the building of most of the students.”

“We have standard emergency procedures in place that we practice once a month,” Mrs. Sherman explained. “Each teacher has a kit that includes a clipboard of names and contacts, basic first aid supplies, and a flashlight. Every student, teacher, and administrator knows exactly what to do. My assistant principals tell me all students have been accounted for.”

“Except for the kids in room 317,” Arielle said, fear catching in her throat.

The principal frowned, thinking back. “Jack was acting unusually strange this morning, now that I think about it. I told him to get some food and see the nurse. Jack's one of our kids who is given his meds at school each day.”

Torino and Johnson both scribbled furiously.

“But he's
never
shown any signs of aggression or violence,” Mrs. Sherman added. “He's usually just fun-loving and noisy. We've learned to ignore him.”

Officer Torino looked up. “Maybe he got tired of being overlooked.”

THURSDAY, MARCH 10

IN THE CLASSROOM, SHOCKED SILENCE
followed the gunshots and screams. Then a few whimpers. Some soft cries. No one moved.

Ducking just before Jack had unloaded the rifle on the windows, Kofi had dropped to the floor and crawled on his hands and knees to the far wall. Glass cut into his palms and knees.

He reached Dana, who grabbed him and pulled him to her. Her heart beat wildly against his, and he could tell from her forceful breathing that she was more angry than afraid. He knew she wanted to lash out somehow, but he held her tightly, sending her a mental message to be still and silent.

The class, suddenly cold with the rush of outside air, waited expectantly.

“How dare you try to destroy my kingdom?” Jack screamed at Kofi. “What were you trying to do—play the hero?”

“No, you the man,” Kofi whispered evenly. He looked directly at Jack but didn't dare say more with the rifle pointing at him. The gun, about three feet long and made of polished brown wood and gleaming gray steel, was tucked securely in the curve of Jack's shoulder. The magazine protruded like a deadly appendage, ready to unleash more terror into the room. Kofi had never smelled gunpowder before, but he knew in an instant what that odd burnt smell had to be.

“This is
so
much better than a drum! So much louder!” Jack said, suddenly sounding almost gleeful. “SO MUCH BETTER!” He pointed the rifle wildly at the cowering students in front of him. “It's even better than the fire alarm. A gun blasts, and echoes, and destroys! And everyone hears it!” Jack was sweating profusely now, his eyes manic.

Kofi glanced over at Jericho and made eye contact. Jericho sat on the floor not far from him, blocking Olivia. The slightest tilt of Kofi's head sent a message:
Can we take him?

Jericho blinked back with a tiny shake of his head.
Not yet.

Jack then climbed up onto the front table of the classroom and aimed randomly at first one student, then another. “I'm the king of the world! I am power! I am light! I am better than fireworks! I am THUNDER!”

At that, he pulled the trigger once more. The room exploded with screams.

Pow-POW-POW-thwack! Rada-rada-rada-rada-rada! Rhacka-rhacka-rhacka! Throp-throp-throp!
With a crunch
and a crash, the first computer exploded in fiery blue and orange splinters.

“Blue light! More blue light! Did you
see
it?” Jack cried out as if to prove his theory. “They were hiding in the computers, spying on me! You saw them! You saw the blue poison come out of the monster! I have to make them stop!”

With that he shot three more computers. Sparks flashed out of one of them, so Jack shot it again.

When Jack eased his finger off the trigger, the screaming stopped, only to be replaced by the wail of what Kofi imagined had to be dozens of sirens. Although he couldn't see outside, he knew the authorities would rescue them soon. At least he hoped so. He didn't know how much longer Jack would be content shooting computers instead of people.