CHAPTER 2
JAKE
I SWEAR IT’S ONE OF THE HARDEST things I’ve ever done—keeping still. And what’s up with Emery, arguing with this guy? As much as I want to jump him, I know it’s insanity to take on a man with a gun.
It’s one of those situations where any wrong move can send things in a direction I don’t want to think about. My dad calls it the Law of Unintended Consequences—you can’t predict the chain reaction of disaster one small deed can set in motion, so you have to think before you act.
I know it’s better to feel like a wuss than to do the wrong thing, but it really pisses me off, this guy coming into a room full of little kids and pulling a stunt like this. What kinda freak does that? These kids are gonna need therapy for the rest of their lives. Hell, I might need therapy—shit’ll mess you up.
“Mr. Stutts, you’re going to cause yourself a lot of problems,” Mrs. Campbell says. “This isn’t going to—”
“Just shut up!” he yells. “Shut up so I can think.”
I calculate the distance between me and the gun, even though I know it’s not worth the risk. I can’t do anything that might hurt Emery, the teacher, or these kids. They’re watching us, counting on us to help them, but all we can do is wait silently for Stutts’s next move.
Before we started teaching here, little kids really got on my nerves. Like those obnoxious brats in those skate shoes—Heelys—that come at you in the mall like flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz and then swerve around you at the last minute? I freakin’ hate that.
I only signed on for tutoring because, on the two days a week you’re not at the elementary school, the French teacher doesn’t really expect you to show up in class—kind of an understood senior perk. In my book, a sleeping-in privilege is a big incentive to do anything.
I didn’t think Mrs. Sherrill was gonna let me do it at first. She’s always on my case for not doing my French homework. I had to turn on the charm to convince her to let me tutor. She finally agreed, but I wouldn’t be her pick to defend a bunch of first graders against a nutjob with a handgun—especially after my run-in with the local po-lice this summer.
Hell, I wouldn’t be my pick, either. Anytime a school shooting story comes on the news, I always think about what I’d do if I was there. I wanna believe the next-day headlines would read HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT SAVES LIVES OF CLASSMATES. I always hope I’d be the guy who leaps in front of the speeding bullet to save the beautiful girl. Or at least maybe the dude who talks the bad guy down and gets him to hand over his weapon. Okay, I’m not gonna lie—I just don’t wanna be the kid who crawls out from under a desk with pee stains on the front of his pants after the shooter leaves the building.
My dad says I’m “untrustworthy and irresponsible.” It’s a pretty widely held opinion in this town since my recent arrest. But I’m betting even my dad would agree that I’m doing the responsible thing right now—nothing. I’ve never been face-to-face with a guy with a gun before, but I know right from the start there isn’t much I can do. This dude is well over six feet tall, probably 240 pounds, neck the size of my thigh—and ready to back up any threat he makes.
It’s not something we talk about, but when guys walk in a room, we do this quick, practically subconscious scan of every guy there: If a fight broke out, who could I take and who would I have to watch out for? It happens in a flash—kind of a survival-of-the-fittest thing.
It’s not like I’m a total lightweight. I’m right at six feet myself, I stay in shape for baseball, and I work on my uncle’s farm in the summer and on weekends bailing hay and hauling heavy shit. But this guy is hardcore, man—in every way. Hell, he probably has Kill tattooed inside his bottom lip. He’s got that crazy roid rage look in his eye, the one that says Bring it, you pathetic peon. Give me one good reason to bash your head in with my bare hands. I’ve always been pretty good at reading people’s faces, and what I see in this guy’s eyes is damn scary.
Bottom line, there’s no way to make this right. I’ve always been good at fixin’ broken stuff. I’d rather work on cars and take lawn mower engines apart than make straight A’s like my older brother. Stephen’s the brain of the family, and I’m the hands-on guy. At least, that’s what I tell my dad when he gets on me about grades. But this time, hands-on won’t work. I can’t MacGyver my way out with a weapon made from an eraser and a rubber band. All I can do is wait for Stutts to show me his next move—and pray that his finger on the trigger is steady.
The fear in Emery’s pale green eyes just about kills me. Emery’s solid; she’s the real deal. Most girls don’t stack up to your expectations in the end—kinda like those movies everybody raves about and then when you finally see them, you’re disappointed. But Emery was every bit as cool as I thought she’d be. Her mind is lightning fast, and her mouth is always curled up at the corners like she’s thinking about some private joke.
The first time I really talked to her was in art class. I sat in the seat next to her and tried to make eye contact. She ignored me. So I reached over and picked up the camera she was using for a photography project, put my face next to hers, and turned it around to take a picture of the two of us. She still ignored me. Finally I leaned over and whispered, “So, I hear you think I’m an asshole.”
“I didn’t say you were an asshole,” she said, turning red. “I said you were conceited. And it’s true.” She smiled—that great smile of hers that starts as a wicked grin and spreads—and then she turned back to Molly like I didn’t exist, which, of course, really chapped my ass. So I quit talking to her.
“What’s the matter, Biscuit, got your feelings hurt?” she asked me a few minutes later, grinning. I stop at Hardee’s every day on the way to school for a butter biscuit and eat it before class starts, so I knew she was making fun of me, but I didn’t mind.
There’s tons of downtime in art class, so we wound up talking a bunch that day. Emery’s really funny, but half the stuff she says is under her breath, so you have to listen close to catch it. She made me laugh so hard, I got in trouble with the teacher and had to stay for detention. I don’t even remember what we were laughing about.
After school my buddy Cole said, “I heard you were having a big conversation with Emery Austin. She’s not really your type.”
“You mean smart, Cole?” I asked. “You think smart’s not my type?”
“She’s president of the damn Honor Society, for God’s sake.”
“And your point is?”
“Whatever, man.”
The thing is, I wanted to be the kind of guy a girl like Emery Austin could go for. A girl who’s smart and funny like my mom was before she got sick. Being with Emery reminded me of who I was—or who I used to be. When we lost Mom, I got kind of lost, too, for a while. I stopped caring—about everything. I thought there was no use in being a good person without her watching. It’s like the me that used to be was mostly about her, and once she was gone, there wasn’t much reason to try.
• • •
Stutts doesn’t move. The kids are completely still, which is a miracle, ’cause usually just getting them in their seats is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Even Mason Mayfield III is stone-cold silent, and Lewis is in his chair, motionless.
A horn honks outside, and a door slams down the hall somewhere. The hamster suddenly starts going crazy on his little wheel in the back of the room, like he knows something’s up. The kids named him Mr. Worley after their favorite janitor who just retired.
“Hey, you!” Stutts yells at me.
“Jake,” I tell him. “My name is Jake.”
“Yeah, whatever. I need you to empty your pockets.”
“What for?” I ask.
“Maybe you got a pocketknife,” he says. “I don’t want you gettin’ any smart ideas.”
“All I have on me is some change—and my wallet.”
“Turn ’em out anyway.”
I pretend to empty my pockets onto the desk nearest me, hoping he won’t notice the slig
ht cell phone bulge still there. “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “You won’t have any problem from me. I don’t want these kids hurt, and besides, I’m no hero.” That’s the understatement of the year.
“I don’t wanna hurt anybody, either, kid. I’m just tryin’ to be a good dad. I’m not gonna let them take my son away from me. Not my wife”—he’s getting louder and some of his words are slurred—“and not a bunch of small-town bureaucrats like those people down in the office. I don’t need anybody tryin’ to run my life. You got that, Jake?”
“We’ll do whatever we can to help you, sir,” I say, keeping my voice even and looking him in the eye. “Just don’t hurt the people in this room. We’re not your enemy.”
“That’s the problem, Jake; I don’t know who the enemy is anymore. Maybe I never knew who the enemy was. The enemy’s everywhere.” His voice gets even louder. “You don’t know who’s tryin’ to mess you up. You can’t tell where the shootin’s comin’ from!”
It’s crazy talk so I keep quiet. Emery’s eyes move from the gun aimed at her to Stutts and back to the gun again. The gun changes everything, and there’s no way to know how this will end.
CHAPTER 3
EMERY
“If you put that away, Mr. Stutts, I promise you,” Mrs. Campbell says soothingly, “we’ll meet with the principal to get to the bottom of whatever problems you’re having with the school.” I notice she doesn’t say the word gun.
I can see Jake’s fists clench, and I’m praying he doesn’t try to rush this guy.
“I talked with that lady in the office yesterday. I know what my wife’s told them. You know damn well there’s not gonna be any meeting.”
“Mr. Stutts, please . . . the children.” I realize she’s warning him about his language—a man holding a gun—and I almost laugh.
“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m taking my kid.”
He moves toward Patrick, lowering the gun a little, but Mrs. Campbell steps between them. Rose’s chair makes a sudden scraping sound as she scoots closer to Patrick, her dark eyes solemn. Patrick looks up at her gratefully, picks up Lamby, and tucks the floppy animal under his arm.
“Lady, you better get out of my way,” Stutts growls at Mrs. Campbell. He aims the gun back at her, and I feel a twinge of guilt that I’m happy it’s not aimed at me anymore. She doesn’t look at it, but I can’t look at anything else.
“These children are my responsibility.” Mrs. Campbell lowers her voice. It’s what she does when she wants to get the kids’ attention. If it’s something really important, she speaks almost in a whisper and everyone in the room stops to listen. The screamer who teaches across the hall could take a lesson. “I’m not letting any of them leave the room without authorization from the office,” she says, “and I’m certainly not letting them leave with someone who is armed.”
I glance toward the open door, hoping someone will walk past and see the man with a gun standing in the middle of the neatly stacked red plastic boxes of math toys, the BRUSH YOUR TEETH posters, and the alphabet letters penciled on Big Chief paper. I look around at the kids and wonder if they can hear my heart hammering. Sweet babies, they look so confused. I wish I could cover their eyes like moms do during scary parts of movies.
Simon watches the gun through his big thick glasses with eyes that miss nothing. Alicia moves closer to tiny, apple-cheeked Kimberly with her springy dark curls. Janita pulls at her top lip beneath the self-inflicted haircut that left her bangs uneven. Patrick hunches his shoulders and rocks back and forth, and Kenji, on Patrick’s other side, whispers something to him. Lewis pulls the neck of his shirt up over his nose so his eyes peek out like a turtle head.
• • •
The first week we were here was like a South Park episode. Natalie threw up, Mason Mayfield III got sent to the office for stabbing Tyler with a pencil, Carlos had a nosebleed that left a trail on the floor to the bathroom, and it took three days to track down a bad smell that turned out to be a rotten banana Kenji left in a bag tucked in the bookcase. Oh, and DeQuan stepped on Mr. Worley when he got out of his cage; fortunately, he survived. And when Simon saw Natalie throw up, he threw up, too.
Mason Mayfield III is the original high-maintenance kid, all the way down to his name, which seems to require all its parts whenever you speak of him.
“Hey, do you know my cousin, Mark Mayfield?” he asked us the first day, waving his hand like a maniac. “He goes to Hensonville High, too. He’s the quarterback.” He said it like he was saying He’s the pope.
I’ve heard Jake refer to Mark Mayfield as “one of the biggest dicks around,” but I was pretty sure he would know this was not the time to bring that up.
“I do know Mark. I can see the resemblance,” Jake answered, winking at me. Wicked cute wink, my heart said. Wicked bad boy, my brain reminded me. I was not about to get blindsided by Jake Willoughby’s charm again. It’s taken me months to get that wink, that killer smile, that deep teasing voice out of my head.
These kids make me more sure than ever that I want to teach. They’re so incredibly cute with their big round eyes and wide baby foreheads and turned up noses. We learned in biology that infants are born that way to bring out the protective instincts of adults. Baby animals have the same kinds of features on their furry kitten and bunny faces so you can’t turn them down when they need food or affection.
The kids treated us like rock stars from the minute we arrived, asking a million questions about our pets, siblings, and favorite TV shows, listening wide-eyed to everything we said. Rose especially followed Jake around, smiling up at him like he just finished hanging the moon.
“Is that you?” I asked, peering over his shoulder at a drawing she handed him on our way out one day that first week. It was a picture of a tall dark-haired stick boy with bright blue eyes. There were hearts coming out of the boy’s head. “Someone has a crush,” I said, laughing.
“Rose? She’s really cute.”
“You remember her name; I’m impressed.” It came out snarkier than I meant it. I had actually been making an attempt to get along since we were stuck with each other three times a week for an entire semester. I mean, I needed to show him I’m really over him.
And I was.
I am.
“I’m actually pretty decent with names, you know,” Jake said. “Must be the political gene.”
“Ah, the mayor’s son works the crowd,” I said. “How is the city’s chief executive?”
“Great. You know how he loves life in the fishbowl.”
“It’s not without its perks, you have to admit.”
“Pretty damn few.” He frowned. “In exchange for a few free tickets to stuff now and then, I’m under constant inspection by every soccer mom and little old lady with a vote to cast. Like an ant under a magnifying glass—always getting burned.”
I shifted my backpack, heavy with extra books I’d brought to show the kids pictures of France, and he reached out to take it. Jake Willoughby is very considerate when he wants to be. I’ll give him that.
We walked through the bright yellow elementary school hallway that smelled of old books, overcooked vegetables, dusty cabinets, and dirty socks.
“Sometimes I play a little game,” Jake said. “I do something I shouldn’t just to see how long it will take to get back to my dad.”
“And?”
“The record is ten minutes, but the average is about two hours.”
“I heard about the drug charge.” I lowered my voice as we passed an older kid swinging a hall pass on an elastic cord.
“Who hasn’t? It’s not like you think, Emery.” His eyes clouded. “It wasn’t my weed.”
“It’s really not my business,” I said with a shrug. And it wasn’t. I mean, I cared what happened to him like you’d care about any friend—not that we were friends anymore, but you don’t just turn your back on people who were once important to you.
Even if they do turn out to be unworthy of your trust.
He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. If it wasn’t his weed, I knew he wouldn’t rat out a friend. Especially if the friend was Cole. I’m not a Cole fan. He’s shallow and self-centered, and he turns everything into a big joke. I’ve never understood why Jake is friends with him.
“I know it was stupid,” Jake said. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” I was tempted to say it’s not the first stupid thing he’s done. But we’d reached the front of the building, so I held out my hand for my backpack.
“Look, Emery, I’m really sorry about what happened—you know, between us.”
I held up my hand to stop him. “Over and done with.” Not going there. So not going there.
Jake saw my face and backed off. “Hey, I just wanted to say thanks—for putting up with me as a tutoring partner. I know it’s not what you wanted.” He was making it hard to stay mad, smiling down at me with that charming country-boy grin set in a lean face bronzed from working in the sun.
“No big deal. It’s not like I had a choice,” I said.
“The kids are really into the lessons you put together. You’re so great with them,” he said.
It was obvious Jake wanted to talk. I was suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
“I . . . I gotta go,” I said, moving toward my getaway vehicle.
“Sure, no problem. Hey, we could ride together tomorrow if you want.”
“Maybe later, Jake.” I walked toward my car quickly then, taking shallow gulps of air to hold my insides together, knowing that something was about to fly apart. I drove away fast so he wouldn’t see the gush of tears when the dam crumbled, blurring my vision and shaking my faith in myself.
• • •
Stutts holds the gun out in front of him, still aimed at Mrs. Campbell. Jake makes a small step toward him and Stutts yells, “Everybody stay right where you are! Nobody moves till my kid and I are out of here.”
This Is Not a Drill Page 2