#NotReadyToDie

by Cate Carlyle

  “Let’s go check on Miss Jones, Ginny. She’s way worse off than I am.”

  We were not prepared for what we found when we got to Miss Jones. She was still lying stretched out on the floor under the windows where we had left her. Jace’s jean jacket was still draped over her but it was now a deep red color, drenched in blood. Miss Jones’s eyes were closed, her lips clamped shut, and a crimson pool of blood surrounded her. The blood had seeped down the length of her body to her head and the ends of her silvery blond hair were now matted in it on the floor. It looked as though someone had spilled red paint and she had fallen backwards into it. There was no one around Miss Jones, no other students by her side. Kayla quickly got to work checking Miss Jones’s pulse, first at her wrist, then at her neck. This time she didn’t turn back to me with a thumbs up. She leaned down and listened at her mouth, then pried it open and puffed a few breaths into Miss Jones. She stopped and listened, glanced down at Miss Jones’s body.

  Even I could tell by the amount of blood and the soaked jacket that Kayla should not compress, or even touch, Miss Jones’s chest

  “Damn it!” Kayla whispered. She then went back to breathing into Miss Jones for a few seconds, then looking at her chest, then breathing into her mouth again. I could see Kayla grimace with each movement, her shoulder must have been killing her. I realized that Kayla was trying to bring our poor Miss Jones back to life.

  I crawled back a little bit and sat on my heels, giving Kayla some space to do what she needed to do. The silk scarf underneath that we had wrapped around the wound in Miss Jones’s torso must have soaked clear through.

  I zoned out for a bit and looked around at our classroom, reminding myself again that this was temporary and not in any way normal. We were all in lockdown and under our desks. There was a shooter in our school trying to kill innocent people, and he may very well have already killed Miss Jones and my Owen. I was now beside a Barbie who I had just stitched up, and who had become a friend I trusted completely. My Owen was gay, and we would not be going to prom together, or to college together, or getting married and starting a family.

  On this one random, strange Monday, our lives were all irreversibly changing. Some would survive and some wouldn’t. Those inside, and many of those outside, would struggle to deal with the aftermath of what was unfolding. Even Mrs. Turner, who Miss Jones was filling in for, would feel the effect of this day, though she wasn’t here living it. How random that she was on leave and spared this tragedy? Would she be relieved? Would she feel guilty that she wasn’t here with us? Would she feel safe when she returned to work, or would she even return at all? Would the school still be here after today or would bombs destroy it, or the government remove it and start fresh?

  Stop it, Ginny. Enough! Get it together! I realized that I had to get out of my head, that I was spiraling out of control. My thoughts were taking me down some dark paths that were of no help to anyone. I scooted closer to Kayla who was hunched over Miss Jones. Kayla’s back was heaving up and down, so I assumed she was still trying CPR. It wasn’t until I leaned in closer to offer to help that I could hear Kayla’s sobs.

  “Whoa, whoa, what’s happened Kayla?” I asked quietly.

  “Sh ... sh ... she’s gone,” Kayla sobbed. “I tried to save her, but I think she was gone before we got over here.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, not truly believing what was happening. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” Kayla said a little too forcefully. “I know what death looks like, Ginny!”

  “Damn it,” I exhaled.

  “Do you have a mirror, Ginny?” she asked.

  “What?” I replied. “I don’t think this is anytime to worry about what you look like, Barbie!” I lashed out. I was angry at Kayla, and the shooter, and the world, even Miss Jones for getting shot.

  “No, it’s not for that,” she said with a huff as though explaining something to a dimwitted toddler.

  I handed over the bedazzled compact I kept in my back pocket that had been a gift from Mom for my twelfth birthday. Kayla opened the compact and held the mirror up to Miss Jones’s mouth, which she had opened with her other hand. Kayla and I sat there motionless for a minute or two. I clued into what she was doing, having watched a few crime dramas over the years. No fog on the mirror.

  “She’s not breathing,” I confirmed.

  “She isn’t,” Kayla agreed, “and hasn’t been for a while, I don’t think. No pulse or eye movement either.”

  “Oh, man,” I said, at a loss for any words. A few salted tears trickled down my face and into the side of my mouth as it sunk in that Miss Jones was gone. Kayla looked around and then scooted along the windows a bit to the supply cupboard. She opened one of the wooden doors and rummaged around inside. Kayla then shimmied back with a green plastic tablecloth, unfolded it and gently covered up Miss Jones. We looked at each other.

  “Now what?” I asked helplessly.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “This is kind of getting out of my depth now.”

  “Yeah. She’s really dead? I mean you’re sure, right?” I asked.

  “Yes, Ginny. She is. I could only be more sure if I were a doctor.”

  “Well then, I guess you should let someone outside know. Text your mom or the news or someone?”

  Kayla pulled out her phone and fired off a quick text. The tears slowly started to stream down her cheeks again.

  “I told my mom,” Kayla said. “She can decide who to tell. She’s a nurse.”

  I nodded my head. This was bringing back too many awful memories about my dad. The suddenness of someone being around and breathing and full of life and then just like that, poof, gone — it was like a magician’s disappearing act gone horribly wrong. I tried to recall the sound of Miss Jones’s voice from this morning and pictured her rushing Owen into the classroom and running around the room barking orders and slamming down window blinds. She had done what she could to save us. She had taken a bullet for Owen and secured us safely in her classroom. A hero.

  “Kayla,” I whispered, “should we do something to mark her passing? I mean we can’t just leave her lying under this sheet for God knows how long. And maybe we need to let the others know what happened before someone lifts the sheet.”

  “I don’t know, Ginny. I work at the hospital and all, and I have seen people die, but I’ve never had anyone close to me die, no friends or family or classmates or teachers.”

  “Oh, lucky you,” I said a little bitterly. “I have had lots of people close to me die and it sucks.”

  My Uncle Stew and my dad dying weren’t my first brushes with death. When I was in elementary school, I had a best friend named Daisy. Daisy lived down the street and we had been friends since we were newborns. Our moms had met at a book club; they had both brought their baby daughters in bassinets to sleep while the women discussed the book of the month and laughed and drank wine. My mom always said that my love of reading came from those early book clubs.

  “You soaked in all that literature and book talk in your sleep, Ginny,” she would say. “Maybe you’ll end up with a love of wine and brandy by osmosis too! You can blame me if you do.”

  Daisy and I went to mommy and me swim classes, Gymboree, and library story times together. When we grew into toddlers, we attended the same preschool, Southwestern Snuggles, and sometimes our moms would dress us alike and then pretend as though they were going to take home the wrong child.

  “C’mon Daisy, time to get home for dinner, then bath and straight to bed,” Daisy’s mom would say, picking me up and hefting me over her shoulder.

  “Noooo, I’m not Daisy! It’s me, Ginny! You’ve got the wrong girl again!” I would yell, banging my fists on her back and dissolving in a fit of giggles, waiting for our moms to switch us back

  Daisy and I eventually attended the same elementary school, the only one in our town. Every Labor Day weekend we would rush up to the schoolyard to check the class lists posted on the school windows to see which teachers we had
been assigned to. We would clasp hands, close our eyes and count to three before looking at the list for our year, hoping we would end up together. We usually got the same teacher. There was only one year that we didn’t. We were inseparable, and I think the principal knew that there would be hell to pay from both of our moms if we were split up. It wasn’t worth the fuss.

  Daisy and I did everything together, shaved our legs for the first time (we had no leg hair to shave, so it was a bloodbath that got us both grounded), experimented with her mom’s cache of false nails and eyelashes, and taught each other how to kiss like in the movies, a skill we were eager to test out on a boy one day.

  While I was an only child, Daisy had an older brother, Chad, from her mom’s first marriage. Chad was often at Daisy’s house and would sometimes play with us when he wasn’t doing homework or cutting lawns for spending money. He’d voice the Han Solo character, really a Ken doll, when our Barbies went into outer space, and he’d hold one end of the skipping rope and tie the other end to Daisy’s fence so she and I could skip together.

  Chad also made us micro-nachos if he was around when I went to Daisy’s house after school. Chad’s famous micro-nachos consisted of nacho chips with ketchup and cheese slices on top, nuked for thirty seconds. We thought he was an ingenious chef. I knew some of the other girls at school had older brothers who teased them, bullied them, or just refused to even acknowledge they existed. Not Chad. He loved Daisy and I, and we idolized him.

  Early in September the year that Daisy and I were in Miss Murphy’s fourth grade class, Daisy’s mom came to the school and pulled her out of the classroom. Daisy didn’t want to leave as it was twenty-five-cent hot dog day at lunch, an event we all eagerly awaited, but Miss Murphy took Daisy by the hand, whispered something in her ear and they both left the room. When I got home that night, eager to tell my mom about the four hot dogs I had managed to scarf down, a new personal record, Mom cut me off quite quickly and the tears started. She told me as gently and clearly as she could that Daisy and her parents were having a tough time because Chad had fallen off his skateboard and hit his head. I asked Mom if he was in the hospital and if we could go see them all and take some Sour Cherry Blasters, Chad’s favorite candies, with us for a get-well gift. Mom then got to the crux of her story; Chad had been left brain dead as a result of his fall and had not survived the day.

  I was ten years old when Chad died. People didn’t die in my life. I had never experienced a pet dying or a grandparent. I was stunned and a bit confused by Mom’s news. How could Chad, who had been the banker when the three of us had played Monopoly just the day before, now be gone forever? How could that happen? Didn’t he get to grow up and have girlfriends, kids, and a career and grow old like everyone else? I broke down in a fit of sobs, big heaving gasps, snot pouring from my nose, and I couldn’t stop. When my dad came home from work, Mom left to console Daisy’s mom. Dad gathered me in a big bear hug and sat beside me on the couch until I fell asleep, then he carried me upstairs and tucked me in. I still remember what he said.

  “Ginny, it doesn’t make any sense and it’s not fair, you’re totally right. Chad was a great kid. But we have to dust ourselves off and keep living. For Chad’s sake. Because he doesn’t get to.”

  I thought of that advice when Dad died, and I have tried to follow it. I’ve tried to live for the people who don’t get to. But it sure is hard when your heart isn’t in it and you’re not sure you can even get up and face another day without those people.

  Daisy didn’t come back to school that week, or ever again. I asked Mom every day if we could go and visit her at her house, but when Mom would call Daisy’s mom to ask, the answer was always “maybe tomorrow.” I never got to see Daisy again. She and her mom and dad moved away that Christmas, maybe to Edmonton or Calgary. I’m not sure anymore.

  I did hear rumors at school the following year that Daisy’s mom tried to commit suicide with pills the Christmas Eve after Chad died and that the family had left to try and start fresh, without reminders of Chad and the tragedy. I Googled Daisy a few times over the years but found nothing. They’d vanished. Maybe it was for the best, since I wasn’t sure what I would say or how we could reconnect and go back to normal anyway. I did always think of Chad whenever I had nachos or even just saw them on a menu though.

  Experiencing a death when you’re so young changes you forever. You never quite get over it; you never get that innocence back, that feeling of invincibility, that belief that a long life is a foregone conclusion and yours to do with as you please. Although my “lucky you” comment to Kayla was admittedly more sarcastic than heartfelt, she really was lucky to have avoided all that pain for so long. Unfortunately for Kayla, and others in Homeroom A, that grace period of innocence was up.

  We knew we had to do something about Miss Jones, but we just weren’t sure what.

  “I know someone who might be able to help,” I told Kayla. “Back in a sec.”

  I crawled off to MJ’s desk. MJ had been worrying over a cross on a chain all morning and seemed to be much more lucid when we’d talked earlier. I wasn’t religious, and my family didn’t go to church, so I thought maybe MJ could do some kind of ceremony for Miss Jones. I had been out of it at my dad’s funeral and didn’t remember what happened that day. MJ was worth a try at least. We didn’t have many options.

  I filled MJ in on Miss Jones’s passing, and when I saw the tears start to trickle down her face, I quickly informed her that I needed her and now was not the time to fall apart. MJ took a big breath in and seemed to center herself before crawling back with me towards Kayla and Miss Jones’s body. Along the way I whispered to a few of the students, ones who seemed calm and able to handle the news, that Miss Jones had succumbed to her gunshot wound and that we were going to pay tribute to her in a few minutes if they wanted to meet over by the windows. I told each person I spoke with to pass along the message to anyone who they felt could handle it.

  When we got back to Kayla she was sitting beside Miss Jones, her hand resting protectively on top of the green tablecloth.

  “MJ is going to help us say a few words about Miss Jones, Kayla,” I told her. “And I let a few of the others know in case they wanted to join us.”

  Kayla looked skeptically at me, then over at MJ. I knew she was probably wondering why the heck I would ask MJ to help out when she had been a complete mess all morning.

  “You’ve got this, right MJ?” I said pointedly.

  “I think so,” she replied. “I run the Sunday School program at our church twice a month. I can think of something to say for Miss Jones.”

  “Great, thanks,” Kayla patted MJ on the shoulder.

  I had to give props to Kayla, she was awfully chill, and nothing phased her. She just rolled with the punches and got on with it. I was impressed.

  MJ, Kayla, and I sat alongside Miss Jones and watched as classmates crawled over and formed a large semi-circle around us. Some of the guys lifted a few desks and carried them a bit farther away to make room for the gathering crowd, all without a sound. When it seemed like everyone who was coming had arrived, I crossed my legs and raised one hand in the air.

  “I hate to have to say this, but Miss Jones was hit by a bullet as she was getting us all locked in here this morning. Her wound was pretty awful, and she didn’t make it. Kayla, MJ, and I thought we should do something for Miss Jones while we are all stuck here, to thank her for being such a nice teacher this year and for s ... sacrificing herself to keep us safe today.”

  I stumbled on the word sacrifice when I pictured Owen running in the classroom door this morning and Miss Jones trying to get him inside safely. I choked up and tears started to pour uncontrollably down my face. I had been worried about MJ keeping it together and now I was the one losing it. Get a grip, Ginny. You can fall apart when you get out.

  Kayla leapt to my rescue.

  “I think what Ginny is trying to say is that we should all be grateful to Miss Jones and thank her in our own way for
all that she has done for us, not just today but all year. I’ll start. Whenever one of our cheer group does something amazing, we all grab hands in the center and then lift them to the sky and call their name as we let go, and I’m sure Miss Jones is looking down and watching us now.”

  Kayla held her hand out and everyone grabbed on.

  Kayla whispered, “We love you, Miss Jones. We will see you again someday.” Then we all raised our hands and let go in midair. After that, others started to speak up and recount memories of Miss Jones. One of the Jocks recalled how she had given him a free pass when he hadn’t finished a paper for class because he’d been playing in a semi-final the day before. Two girls told how Miss Jones had French braided their hair at lunch one day as they chatted outside on the grass. A super timid girl who never made a peep spoke up and told how Miss Jones had lent her money for the bus and bought her lunch when her purse was snatched on the way to school. Everyone had a story, memory, or a nice comment about Miss Jones to contribute. Finally, it was MJ’s turn.

  “Um ... so,” she started a bit nervously. “I don’t really have a Miss Jones story, but I thought she was a great teacher and we were lucky to have her while we did. I am really sorry that she won’t be walking out of this room with us.”

  MJ looked over at Kayla, unsure how to proceed. Kayla gave her a thumbs up and then waved her hand at MJ to keep talking.

  “Um ... I know that now Miss Jones is in a better place, whatever you believe, a safe place,” MJ’s voice got stronger as she went on. “She is with the people in her life who she loved and who have passed on. She is somewhere where the sun always shines and the birds always sing. And she isn’t hurting anymore.”

  Kayla and I exchanged a look. Was this the same girl who had been sniveling loudly under her desk just a few hours ago, unable to move or speak?

  “Wow,” I whispered to Kayla. “That was perfect. I was worried she might be all churchy and preachy, but she nailed it.”