Anger Is a Gift Sneak Peek

by Mark Oshiro

  Moss laughed, but it was cut short by the sound that rose sharply from in front of them. It was difficult to discern individual phrases or words in the din that echoed down that long hallway, but they knew something had gone horribly wrong when the kids at the back of the pack turned suddenly and began sprinting toward them. “Oh, shi—” Moss uttered before he felt someone jerk him into a nearby office. He fell to the floor, knocking his funny bone against the tiled floor. Pain shot down his arm to his fingers.

  “Sorry!” Rawiya shouted. Moss swore and scrambled back to his feet in time to see Kaisha shove Reg’s chair into the room after them, right as the first group of stampeding teens surged past. He couldn’t even make out what the sound was that roared into his ears. Feet on tile. Shouts and yelps. Whoops of excitement, terror. Moss and his friends watched, frozen in place, as two cops clad in all black chased after the fleeing students, one of them with a baton raised in the air.

  Another student dove into the room, scrambled to their feet, and shut the door behind them. It took Moss a few seconds to realize it was Njemile, who sat with her back to the door, her breath heaving her chest up and down. When Moss took a step forward, she raised her hand. “No,” she said. “Don’t. Don’t go out there.”

  “What’s going on?” Rawiya said, her hands on her head, terror in her eyes. “What’s happening?”

  “They knew,” Njemile said. “They knew.”

  “Well, that’s not a surprise,” Kaisha said. “We figured that out this morning when those stormtrooper dudes were posted up in front of the school.”

  “But they knew when we were walking out—which exit we’d take!” Njemile shouted. “There were so many of them, just lined up in front of the entrance, and I think only a few people slipped past them before they started firing.”

  “Firing?” Moss exclaimed.

  “I don’t know what it is,” she said. “It’s not a gun or anything I’ve ever seen. It hurts so bad.”

  Njemile raised her hand up, her whole arm shaking, and they all saw that the skin on the back of her hand was raised and swollen. Rawiya cried out in alarm and rushed to her side, but Njemile gestured her friend away again. “No, no, don’t touch me!” she said forcefully. “It was some kinda liquid, and it burns like hell.”

  Moss crumpled into a chair placed in front of a desk. This must be one of the counselors’ offices, he thought, and he looked around for anything they might be able to use to get out of there. He pushed papers around on the desk, then stood up and rushed around it, pulling open a drawer. A stapler. Post-it notes. Pens. Standard office fare.

  “What are you doing, Moss?” Reg said, his own voice cracking in fear.

  “I don’t know, man, I don’t know. Looking for anything.” He spied a small container of hand sanitizer sitting on the right side of the desk and grabbed it. He tossed it over to Njemile, who caught it with her uninjured hand. “I don’t know if that’ll work, but it can’t be worse, can it?”

  Njemile struggled to open the bottle before Rawiya took it from her, flipping the cap open and liberally pouring its contents all over the other girl’s swollen hand. Njemile yelped at first, trembling in pain, but she breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s working,” she said. “Don’t know why, don’t care.”

  Kaisha had her face buried in her phone, and her fingers flew across the screen. Without looking up at Moss, she said, “I’m letting everyone know what’s going on. You know, updating Twitter and the Facebook group that—”

  She began tapping her screen harder and hard. “No, no, no!” she screamed. “Not now, please not now!”

  “What is it?” Reg asked, his face lined with worry.

  “Of course this is exactly when service drops out on me. Of course!”

  Rawiya pulled her own out and handed it over to Kaisha after standing up. “One-oh-two-seven,” she said.

  Kaisha didn’t even get to enter the passcode before she also swore louder than Moss had ever heard her speak before. “No service on yours,” she said.

  Reg reached into his own pocket and examined his phone as well. He didn’t say anything, just shook his head at them all. Moss knew what his phone would say, but he still pulled it out of his pocket, his hand shaking.

  NO SERVICE.

  They all remained silent for a few seconds, the sounds of students running and shouting outside the office haunting them. “What’s happening?” Rawiya said, her voice soft and afraid. Moss saw the tears that brimmed in her eyes. They sprang to his own, his mind filling in the blanks. It’s happening again. They’re going to do the same to us.

  “This is exactly what my parents were worried about,” Rawiya said.

  Moss stood from the desk, heart thumping, mind reeling, and the solution came to him suddenly. “We need to get out of here now,” he stated.

  “Why on Earth would we do that?” Njemile said. “We safer in here.”

  “No, we’re not,” Moss insisted. “They’re gonna come down that hallway, open this door, and see five students trespassing in a counselor’s office. What you think they’re gonna do to us then?”

  “But how do we get past them?” Reg asked.

  “We don’t. We go out the back,” said Moss.

  “What?” Rawiya said. “The back what?”

  “You know that hallway down by the science labs? The creepy one where the football players always take their girlfriends to make out?”

  As most of them nodded their heads, Njemile quickly stood up. “There’s an exit there for the janitors,” she said excitedly. “It lets out right by the dumpsters.”

  “Exactly,” Moss said. “Let’s not even try to go out the front.”

  “But what about those things they have?” Kaisha asked. “I ain’t about to get sprayed by what they got Njemile with.”

  Moss quickly surveyed the room, then began ripping the poster-board displays off the wall. He handed one to Reg, who inspected the front.

  “‘Five Ways to Tell You’re Depressed’?” Reg said. “Seriously, man?”

  “Okay, it’s not the best idea, but it could work as a shield,” he said. He grabbed some masking tape out of the desk drawer and began to create makeshift handles looped on the back of the poster.

  “I’m not taking my chances again,” Njemile said, ripping down a poster about the stages of grief. “I’m taller, so let me go first.”

  “I’ll take the back,” Moss said. He finished looping tape into a handle on the back of the first poster and handed it to Kaisha. “You remember how to get there, Njemile?”

  She nodded. The noise outside the hallway was no longer a roar, so after they assembled in a rough line—Njemile, Reg, Kaisha, Rawiya, then Moss—Njemile gently opened the door, pulling it inward. She peeked out, then turned back to the others. “There are still some students down at the front exit, yelling and stuff. We gotta go now.”

  Njemile slipped out the door, and the rest followed. Moss left the door open, unwilling to risk the sound it might cause if he shut it. They crept down the hall, then headed back down the English wing. Moss found it unnerving that every classroom he passed was either fully empty or had its door closed. Where was everyone? Even the teachers. Where had they gone? He hoped to see Mrs. Torrance in her classroom, but the room was just as vacant as the others.

  They hooked a left at the next wing and found chaos. Students darted from one hallway to the next—Moss realized that they must have known how futile it was to get out of the school through the front entrance. Two students—young women, one of them Carmela—sat near a door, tears streaming down their swollen faces. Moss wanted to stop and help them, but Rawiya pulled him along without any hesitation. “Keep moving!” She only briefly looked at Moss as she yelled, then continued to run.

  He glanced back at Carmela. Her face was wrong, misshapen. What the hell had caused that?

  They passed one person after another, crouched in the hallways or in doorways, their bodies red and puffy, some of their eyes swollen shut, while others c
lutched arms and legs, wailing in terror. When they reached Mr. Roberts’s classroom, they saw him on the floor, his mouth on some kid’s face, then pulling away, his hands on the young man’s chest, pumping up and down. He looked up, his face covered in sweat, his bald head gleaming. “Go!” he shouted. “Get out of here now!”

  They darted away from that doorway and picked up the pace. Kaisha was now pushing Reg as fast as she could, but she was losing ground on Njemile. “Lemme help,” Rawiya said as she grabbed hold of one side of Reg’s wheelchair. Together, they glided Reg toward the end of the science wing as Moss himself struggled to keep up.

  “Moss!”

  He nearly tripped trying to stop. He whipped around and saw Javier’s beanie-clad head pop out of one of the labs.

  “Javier?!” he exclaimed. He shouted back at the group, “Hold up!”

  Moss jogged back to the classroom, confusion slowing his steps. “I thought you were meeting us at the rally point,” he said. “How did you even get in here?”

  “I snuck in,” Javier said, his face a vision of joy as he smiled. He kissed Moss, hard and quick. “We were just going to meet you outside, but the back gate wasn’t locked. Figured it would be a fun surprise. We found your friends, by the way!”

  We? Moss thought.

  Javier stepped aside and Moss saw what he meant. Bits and Shawna were huddled together near the back of the room, and they lit up when they saw Moss, rushing to his side. As they hugged him and shouted greetings, he saw three other kids standing awkwardly in the room. “Who are they?” Moss asked once his friends gave him some breathing room.

  “My friends,” Javier replied, stepping aside. “I’d make more introductions, but I get the sense that we gotta get out of here now.”

  Moss glanced at the others, the kids from Eastside. There was a short black girl, her hair in tight braids, her hand interlocked in someone else’s. They were Filipino, dark, with silky black hair. And behind Javier, a shy boy, young and mousy, his hair black, his skin a light brown, peering out at Moss. He nodded his head. “Hello,” the boy said, so soft that Moss barely heard him. “Javi has lots of good things to say about you.”

  That must be Carlos, he thought.

  As frightened as Moss was, he felt an affection for Javier fill him completely. Moss looked upon the boy he’d become so enamored with, and he suddenly felt that everything was worth it. “Thank you,” Moss croaked, the emotion getting the best of him. “For this.”

  Javier smiled and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Anything for you.” He turned to gesture at his friends. “Okay, real quickly: This is Carlos, and that’s Chandra over there, and that’s her partner, Sam.”

  “This is super cute,” Rawiya said, standing in the doorway, Kaisha and Reg just barely behind her, “but can we go?”

  Moss laughed at her, a bashful smile spreading over his face. “We’re close, everyone,” he announced. “At the end of the hall, you’ll follow the others through the service exit. It’s a quick sprint to the back gate.”

  “Nobody move!”

  Moss hadn’t even seen the cop slide up next to Rawiya, Kaisha, and Reg. The man pushed her into the room. “All of you, on the floor now!” he ordered, his voice muffled by the helmet. “Now!” the cop repeated.

  Moss stood as still as he could, but he motioned for Rawiya to move closer to him. He knew this was her worst fear. It was his, too, but Moss had to help his friend.

  The cop pushed her forward, and she stumbled a few times before gaining her balance back. The man reached to his belt and grabbed a bullhorn that hung from the right side, raising it in front of him. “Get out of the way!” Njemile yelled, and instinctively, a few of them raised up their pathetic poster-board shields that they still carried. Moss dropped into a squat behind a desk right as the cop pressed a button on the front of the device, and he shut his eyes tight, hoping that whatever he was about to be sprayed with wouldn’t hurt him.

  Nothing happened.

  He opened his eyes after a few seconds, and that’s when one of Javier’s friends groaned and dropped to their knees. “Chandra!” Sam rushed to her side, only to pitch forward and start groaning, too, their hands clutched to their head, their black hair brushing against the ground. “Make it stop!” they shouted.

  “Make what stop?” Bits yelled. They were still in the rear of the room, their face in an expression of bewilderment.

  Chandra threw up. It was violent, loud, and her wrenching caused Sam to do the same, and it was in their hair, all over the floor.

  Moss stood up, looking at the two kids writhing and vomiting on the floor. “What did you do to them?” he yelled at the cop, advancing on him. The man raised the device and pointed it directly at Moss, and despite wanting to appear fearless, Moss still flinched. The man kept firing it at him—

  But nothing happened.

  The cop held the gadget up to his face as if inspecting it. “No, this is supposed to work,” he said. “Why isn’t this working?” He banged it on his hand a few times, then tossed it to the ground. He reached to his utility belt and pulled out a canister. He fumbled with it for a second and then it slipped out of his hand and dropped to the floor. The cap flew off and rattled across the floor. The cop took a step forward, but the canister had rolled towards the man, and he stepped on it. It sent him airborne briefly, and Moss knew this was their only chance.

  “Go, go, go!” Moss yelled, and his feet obeyed his own order. He sprinted toward the doorway as the guard, dazed by the shock of the fall, struggled to stand upright. He reached out for Moss, and Moss danced away.

  And they all ran. Their steps echoed in the empty hallway, the groans behind them growing softer and softer. Moss glanced to the side to see Javier keeping pace. “That was a close one,” Javier said in between breaths. They darted for the doorway that Rawiya now held open and Moss burst out into the sunlight, his eyes overwhelmed by the sudden brightness. Moss stopped and rested against the dumpster, desperate to catch his breath as his friends poured out of the doorway. Njemile, then Reg and Kaisha. Reg’s laugh was infectious and loud as Kaisha wheeled him out the door.

  “Did you see that jerk hit the ground?” Reg said. “I’d be so embarrassed if I were him.”

  Out came Rawiya, then Carlos, then everyone else in a brief flood of panic. Everyone had made it except for Chandra and Sam. They’d been left behind. “Should we go back for them?” Javier asked, Moss’s hand still clutched in his. More students dashed out of the open door; the silence was terrible.

  “Don’t,” a guy answered, his skin darker than Moss’s, his breath wheezing out of his mouth. “That dude is on his way, man. We all gotta keep movin’.”

  No one spoke after that; they simply turned and jogged down the alley between two different wings of their school and out into the practice fields. In the distance, a crowd had formed beyond the back gate. Who were they? Had the rally moved out already?

  Moss experienced a jolt of excitement as they picked up the pace and crossed over the baseball field. They each ducked through a passage in the chain-link fence that surrounded it. Moss glanced over his shoulder briefly. He saw a few more students scrambling out of different parts of the building, and he was certain he saw someone climbing out of a window on the first floor. But there was no sign of the cop who had cornered them, so he kept going. They were less than a hundred feet from the back entrance of the school, less than a hundred feet from freedom.

  It was not a terribly fancy entrance, but it still gave Moss a sense of grandeur when he saw how many people stood outside of it, clogging up the entire block that sat behind West Oakland High. There were so many faces struggling to catch a glimpse of someone they knew that Moss himself could not recognize any of them. Some people clutched signs. “NO DETECTORS AT SCHOOL,” one read. A long banner strung on two large poles said, “STOP CRIMINALIZING STUDENTS,” and it was bookended by sets of handcuffs. People were shouting, but Moss couldn’t make out the words. His focus was now on the group of people
he’d not been able to see from so far away: a line of imposing cops in riot gear who stood in front of the gate. On the inside. Moss made a quick count: eight of them, batons held at the ready, their faces unseen, their motives unknown. Would they dare harm anyone in front of so many witnesses?

  Moss slowed down, then came to a stop, and the rest of the students who had been following him did the same. Javier squeezed Moss’s hand. “Dude, what do we do?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” Moss answered. Louder, he added, “Anyone have any ideas?”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” a voice said from behind him, and Moss whirled around in time to catch a baton on his shoulder, instead of somewhere much more painful. The cop from earlier shoved Moss to the ground, and the roar from everyone around them seemed deafening. Moss heard Rawiya shout, “Leave him alone, you asshole!” and he felt Javier’s hands grab him under his arms and yank him to his feet. There was a figure sprinting toward them from the school, hands in the air. Moss couldn’t hear—was it Mr. Jacobs?—because there was simply too much noise coming from behind him.

  “Get your hands off him!” the cop shouted at Javier. “He’s mine.”

  Javier laughed, his voice full of mirth. “You can’t do anything to me,” he said, amused. “I don’t even go here.”

  The cop twisted his head to the side, and a low groan left Moss’s mouth.

  “Oh, damn,” Javier said, and Moss felt Javier droop against him.

  The cop covered the last few feet between them in no time. “What was that?” he demanded, raising the baton to point directly at Javier’s face. Moss positioned himself so that Javier remained behind him, their hands still locked together. “What did you say?”

  “Stop it, stop it!” Mr. Jacobs shouted as he arrived, his face red and sweaty. “You have to stop this.”

  “I don’t answer to you or this school,” the cop sneered. He pointed the baton at Mr. Jacobs this time, waving it just inches from him. “I’ve had about enough of your interference anyway.”

  Moss felt Javier gently pull him backward, and he obliged, realizing that this might be the only chance for them to escape. His eyes darted over to his friends, and it was clear that they had the same thought. All of them began to slowly back up, and Moss hoped desperately that they could find a way past the cops who still stood motionless in a line by the gate.