Subject 624

by Scott Ferrell

  “What?” Harris looked up from his cell.

  “No.” Mom shook her head. “No, you boys are not going out until this whole mess is sorted out.”

  “What?” Harris asked again.

  “You boys are staying home.”

  “Really?” Harris asked.

  “Mom—” I started.

  “Yes!” Harris punched a hand in the air.

  “Harris! Didn’t you see that poor woman?” Mom asked.

  “No.”

  “You shouldn’t be taking this so lightly,” she said.

  “Mom—” I said again.

  “What are we not taking lightly?” Mitchell walked into the room wearing a t-shirt cut off just under his ribs and a pair of sweats three sizes too big.

  “No school,” Harris informed him on the way out of the room. “Nice shirt, by the way.”

  “I got dressed for nothing?” Mitchell asked, not caring why there was no school. “I’m going back to bed.” He walked back down the hall, stripping and dropping clothes as he went.

  “That poor woman,” Mom said again, her blue eyes wide above her hand.

  That poor woman? I thought. How about I show you a few of these bruises. “I can’t stay home, Mom.”

  “Of course you can,” she said. “And you are.”

  “But, come on. Where else would I be safer than school? I mean, you haven’t heard anything about trouble at school, have you?” I remembered the exact trouble there had been at school and a mild panic set in. “Have you?” I asked with a little less surety in the question.

  “Of course not, but I don’t think it’s safe to be out there right now.”

  It hit me that Principal Walker hadn’t told my parents about the incident in class. That’s something they would pass along to the parents, isn’t it? Why hadn’t he?

  “Look, Mom. Nathen’s going to be here soon.” Right on cue, a thumping bass began to rattle the windows. “And the school is safe. We have a security guard and everything.”

  She put her fists on her hips. “Why do you want to go to school so badly?”

  “I, uh. We have been talking about all this in sociology,” I explained. “I really want to find out what’s going on, you know? We’ll be fine. Nathen will drive us straight to school and back. Nothing to worry about.” I put on my best smile.

  The thumping outside grew louder.

  “Straight there?” she asked.

  “And back. Thanks, Mom!” I hopped up from the couch, ignoring the painful bruises and screaming muscles. I kissed her cheek as I passed on the way toward the front door.

  “You have your phone?” she called out.

  “Got it!” I snatched up my backpack by the front door. “Bye, Mom. Love you!” And I was gone before she could change her mind.

  8:35 a.m.

  The on air attack served one very selfish purpose for me. People at school talked about that rather than my antics in class the day before. The whole school buzzed with it. One girl even went as far as to claim she recognized the attacker as a second cousin, twice removed by marriage or something like that. I was more than happy to let them forget about me.

  “Too bad you weren’t there,” Nathen said as we found our seats in first period.

  So much for letting what happened the previous day go away.

  “What could I have done?” I asked.

  “I dunno. Use your kung fu stuff or something. Bam! Pow!” He kicked his leg out from under his desk.

  “I don’t know kung-fu,” I said.

  “Then you could have put him in a reverse headlock and DDT’ed his butt. Er. Head.” He somehow managed to mime the wrestling move from his desk.

  “Settle down,” Ms. Griffin said as she swept into the room.

  Students settled into their seats and Nathen mimed dropping an elbow on somebody before turning to face the front. Ms. Griffin stood at the front of the class, her book of poetry clutched against her chest. It was kind of routine for her and we all waited while she collected her thoughts on where to start. I figured she knew exactly where she was going to start, but standing there with her book, a look of intense thought on her face, gave the dramatic pause she desired.

  She was by far my youngest teacher. I guess she was only in her mid-twenties, a few years out of college. She wore a long, ankle length dress and her hair was barely combed out straight. She was kind of fun as far as literature teachers went, but had a bad habit of quoting Emily Dickenson too much. When she first spit out a few lines of poetry in response to somebody’s question about The Great Gatsby, I was completely confused. It took a few times to realize that she altered her voice when quoting Dickenson, or any other poet come to think about it. She talked slow and low.

  She took in a deep breath. “W.B. Yeats—” she started, but was interrupted by an electronic DONG from the intercom.

  “Attention, all students.” I recognized the assistant principal, Mrs. Dasher’s, voice. “We will have a special assembly in the auditorium in fifteen minutes. All student and teacher attendance is required. Please move toward the auditorium now. Thank you.” The intercom squealed off.

  Heads turned around the class as students looked to each other for an idea as to what the special assembly could be about.

  “Once more the storm is howling,” Ms. Griffin said, her voice low and slow.

  Nathen took that as a dismissal and tossed his book into his bag and stood. We all followed suit, filing out of the room.

  Chapter 12

  8:37 a.m.

  We met Carina in the halls heading toward the auditorium. She wore a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt with two sock puppets printed on it with Puppets! written underneath. She had her hair pulled back, but I tried really hard not to notice how a few strains of hair hung loosely down her cheek, framing her face perfectly.

  “Any clue what’s going on?” she asked.

  I gathered up enough motor function to shrug. I winced at the pain under my arm and did my best to hide it behind an awkward smile. I was glad Nathen hadn’t seen it or I’m sure he would have commented.

  Luckily, he was intent on spotting Clarissa. He hadn’t seen her that morning. It was something to envy (or fear) that he was capable of spotting her in the crowded school hallways. It was a gift he proudly displayed. He looked all around, standing on tip toes, but she was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if her mom had kept her home like mine had tried.

  We streamed into the auditorium, going with the flow. The room was large, but couldn’t quite handle all of the students and teachers. Metal folding chairs had been set up on the stage, but even those were filling up quickly. Nathen, Carina, and I lucked out and snagged some of the last cushioned, theater style seats. By the luck of the draw, I wound up between the two.

  Nathen slouched down, propping a foot up on the back of the seat in front of him until that seat’s occupant turned around to glare at Nathen’s sneaker. Given the fact that the dude was a massive football player twice Nathen’s size, I didn’t blame him for dropping his foot to the floor with an award winning smile.

  Carina’s knee brushed mine as she turned to look around the auditorium. She spotted a friend and waved. I had to play it cool, so I turned and nodded at our shortstop, Dennis, sitting several rows behind us. His mouth moved, but the noise in the place washed away whatever he said.

  “All right, students. Settle down.”

  I turned straight in my seat. Principal Walker stood on the stage in front of the rows of chairs filled with student butts. He held a microphone, its black cord draped across the floor and running somewhere offstage.

  “Settle down,” he said into the microphone again.

  The room’s buzz died down slowly.

  “I know it’s unusual to have all of you here,” he said once the room was quiet, “but given the events of the past few days, we thought it expedient to gather you all as soon as possible. As you’re all aware, there has been, to speak with total candor, a huge rise in crime lately. At first, we fel
t the risk to students was low because the crime has been isolated to night time, but it has unfortunately spilled into day and even into our own school, as Mr. Ferguson can attest.”

  Those sitting in my general vicinity turned to look at me. Those who didn’t know exactly where I was sitting tried to find me. I wanted to sink into my seat. I’d have given anything for my abilities to include changing my skin chameleon camouflage style.

  Mr. Walker went on, “I just came from a meeting with the school board and it’s been decided that students would be safer in their homes until the situation is resolved.”

  The buzz of voices erupted again. Many turned to the person next to them to verify they had heard what they thought they just heard.

  “Effective immediately,” he said. “But!” he yelled into the microphone as a large number of students took that as a dismissal and stood to leave. They returned to their seats. “But, don’t think of this as a vacation. It is not. You will be expected to work from home. Our teachers will be emailing your assignments and I can’t stress enough that you check your emails often. If we do not hear from you, we will show up at your front door. You don’t want that,” he added ominously.

  The room was at a low boil with the excitement of actually getting out of school, but Mr. Walker wasn’t quite done with us. He paused while we sat waiting for the word to leave. Carina looked at me, clearly confused.

  “The board felt that you should find this out from your parents, but I disagree. You are all old enough to deal with news such as this.”

  The murmur died out and the room went quiet.

  “It will be well-known news soon anyway, but the education board was informed this morning by the Salt Lake City police department that the National Guard has been called in to help protect our city at night.”

  The buzz erupted with renewed energy.

  “This is why,” he said over the noise, “we feel like the closure of our school will only be temporary. So, I urge you all to head straight home and stay there unless you find it absolutely necessary to go out.”

  It could have been my imagination, but I could have sworn he looked at me when he said that.

  “It would pain me greatly to come back to school only to hear the news that one of my students was caught out after dark by the National Guard. Outside the small incident yesterday in a classroom, our school and students have managed to avoid the recent troubles and I’d like to keep it that way.” He paused and sighed. “The buses have been brought back and are outside waiting to take home those of you who don’t drive. They’ll leave in ten minutes.”

  The room erupted again as students took that as the real dismissal. There was a mad rush to make it to the exits.

  “Go straight home,” Mr. Walker called again into the microphone.

  “Yeah, right!” I heard a student say, but I didn’t know who.

  “This can’t be good,” I muttered.

  Carina nodded.

  Teachers manned the exits out of the auditorium. They handed fliers to the students as they pushed their way toward an unexpected freedom. I glanced at the paper a teacher I didn’t know handed to me. It instructed students to carry all their school books home and stressed that students were to head straight home and stay there unless otherwise instructed by a parent or guardian. I saw more than one student crumple the paper and toss it into the first trash can they passed on their way out the doors.

  Nathen’s locker was the closest, so we headed there. “Was he serious in there?” He casually spun the dial on the lock. “The National Guard?”

  I shrugged. I couldn’t really see a reason he’d lie about something like that.

  “Is it really that bad at night?” Carina asked.

  I had to think twice to keep my mouth closed before I answered. Uh, yeah it is, I answered in my head.

  “I thought it was just a few robberies and people getting into fights and stuff,” she went on.

  “I heard that stuff is starting to spread outside of the downtown area.” Nathen’s voice echoed inside the metal locker.

  “I think it’s all just blown out of proportion,” I said without much conviction.

  Carina turned her deep, green eyes toward me. My heart beat just a bit harder against my ribs. “Didn’t you see the news this morning?” she asked. “That poor woman.”

  “Yeah, I saw,” I said. “I’m just saying that I’m sure after a few days of cracking down, things will probably just go back to normal.”

  I had no idea why I said that because I didn’t believe it. Being out every night in the thick of the crime and violence going on gave me a firsthand perspective on the subject and I didn't think that it would all just blow over anytime soon. I had looked into the eyes of those involved and saw only malice there—a deep-seeded need for nothing more than to create havoc.

  “I hope you’re right,” she replied, her voice quiet in the noisy, student-filled hall. “I should go get my stuff or I’ll miss my bus.”

  “We can drive you home.” Her house was a little out of the way, but I was quick to offer up Nathen’s gas.

  “We will?” Nathen asked as he turned from his locker, shoving his world history book into his overstuffed backpack.

  “I don’t see why not,” I said.

  “It’s ok,” she replied. “I can ride the bus.”

  “It’s not that far out of the way,” I insisted.

  Nathen looked from me to her and back. “Yeah, it’s no big deal. Besides, if I remember right, the buses stink like overripe gym socks.”

  I resisted the urge to tell him his car sometimes smelled worse.

  “No, really. I’ll be fine,” she said. She turned to head towards her locker.

  “What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t see you home safely?” I tried.

  “No kinda friends!” Nathen said, slinging an arm over my shoulder. I again had to fight off the urge to wince. “Besides, your boyfriend here will pay for the extra gas!”

  I elbowed him in the ribs. “No really,” I said, trying to cover up the ‘boyfriend’ comment, “it’s no big deal. We’ll take you home.”

  Carina didn’t react to the boyfriend part and I was glad Nathen rarely took anything seriously. She probably thought he was joking as usual. She looked at us and I saw her mind working behind her eyes. I don’t know what made her hesitate, but finally, she relented. “All right.”

  “Great!” Nathen exclaimed. “Excellent! You go and grab your stuff. Conor will grab his and I’ll, you know, sit around and wait for you two. Sounds like fun to me!”

  8:56 a.m.

  As we neared Nathen’s little Toyota, I had a choice to make. A choice with world altering consequences. Normally I sat shotgun, but some odd part of me screamed that it would be nice to let Carina sit up front. I stepped around her and went for the backseat. She hesitated and for a moment I thought she would get in with me, but no such luck. She pulled the front door open, making a face at the loud screech the hinges made, and flopped into the front seat.

  I slid into the backseat, settling behind Carina’s seat. My butt stuck to something sticky on the seat when I tried to adjust, so I pushed myself behind the driver’s seat.

  After a false start, Nathen got the car running. He turned to Carina. “Right! Where do you live?”

  Neither of us had been to her house. When we had hung out with her outside of school, it was always somewhere else like the movies or the mall. The one time she came to my house to chill, the twin terrors caused so much grief I wasn’t keen on asking her back. I knew vaguely where she lived based on the route the bus she rode took. That sounds a little stalkerish, but it’s not like I ever followed her home or anything.

  “Turn west out of the parking lot,” she said.

  “Go west, young man!” Nathen shouted. He clunked the car into reverse and forced his way into the stream of cars heading for the exit with barely a glance backward.

  Carina turned in her seat. “So, how’s Martin doing?” she asked w
ith a smirk.

  Martin’s none stop flirting was one of the many reasons why I never asked her to come back to my house. He was all over her like snot on a finger. No matter how hard I tried to flick him off, he clung to her. At one point, he left the room without warning. I thought we were finally rid of him, but he returned a few minutes later wearing nothing but shorts that were way too short. I had no idea where they came from, but they were ridiculously short. Like, butt cheek hanging out of the bottom kind of short. He sat across from her and tensed up his chest, declaring how hot it was in the living room. I could tell he was trying to flex non-existent muscles. One of the most embarrassing moments in my life. Carina thought it was funny.