by Chris Jordan
“He wouldn’t want this.”
“And how would you know what Arthur wants?” she says, taunting. “He hasn’t spoken to you in months.”
“I visit his bedside many times a day,” Weems responds, defensive despite himself. “He speaks to no one. That part of his mind has been damaged.”
“He speaks to me,” she insists.
“Prove it,” he suggests. “Make a digital recording.”
“It’s more a mind-meld kind of thing,” she says with a seductive smile, shaping her recently plumped lips. “I look into his eyes and I know what he wants. I know it as deeply and as surely as if he’s spoken. Arthur is beyond words now. He wants me to act as his voice to the world.”
Weems sighs, puts a hand to his forehead, intending to shield the flash of cold rage in his eyes. “If it was only speaking, that would be one thing,” he says, in his most reasonable voice. “But to hatch this lunatic plot? Endangering God knows how many children? To put us all at risk of arrest? Not to mention what it will do to recruitment and revenues if the truth comes out. It’s insane, Eva. And whatever our differences, I never doubted your sanity.”
“There is no God.”
“What?”
“You just said ‘God knows how many children.’”
“It’s an expression, Eva. Don’t try to change the subject. You reached out, willful and shameless in your ambition, you set loose a man you know is capable of murder, and now terrible things are going to happen in some little town that’s never done us any harm. If your hand is found in this, and surely it will be, we’ll all be destroyed.”
She laughs. “Wendall, don’t be so dramatic. You sound like some old fruit from a daytime drama. ‘Dear me, we shall all of us be destroyed!’ You’re being ridiculous. No one will ever know-Vash will see to that, and when it’s all over, Arthur’s wish will have been carried out.”
“And you’ll take control of the entire organization. You, speaking for Arthur, with the help of that thug Kavashi.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“And where do I figure in your great plan? Me and those I represent?”
She shrugs. “You don’t. Retire. Write your own book. Start another enterprise. It makes no difference to me. You and all your friends ride off into the sunset, that’s the bottom line.”
“Which you think will happen because why? Because you want it to?”
“No, Wendall. Because he wants it to.”
Weems shakes his head. They’ve had variations on this conversation before, never settled anything. “You lie so well,” he says, almost with admiration. “If I didn’t know better.”
“When it comes to lying, I stand on the shoulders of giants.”
“Naked ambition,” he says.
She stands up from his custom-built command chair, strokes her hands on her hips playfully. Poisonously. “What are you saying, Wendall? You want to see me naked? Does little Wendy have a woody for pretty wittle Eva the Diva?”
“Get out,” he says.
She gives him an air kiss as she passes him by. “You’ll try and stop me,” she whispers huskily. “You’ll fail.”
7. The Bad Clown
Most of the kids, as they stream into the bleacher seats, contrive to sit with friends. The teachers remain at the aisles, directing traffic, making sure the individual homerooms don’t get blended. Order must be maintained or, as Mrs. Delancey is fond of saying, all heck will break out.
All heck. Noah loves the way she says it-the twinkle in her eye-and also her other favorite phrases like “think smart and you’ll be smart” and “one fish doesn’t make a school,” which she had to explain to some of the slower kids wasn’t about school construction but the way fish-and people-react to other fish and people.
Although most of his classmates find Noah interesting or at least entertaining, he doesn’t have any particular best friends-friends who might ask about personal stuff-and so his goal upon entering the gymnasium is to end up sitting as close as possible to Mrs. Delancey. Preferably a spot, an angle, where she won’t be aware that he’s keeping an eye on her. Because Mrs. Delancey is very careful about not playing favorites, and she’s already giving him special time, what she calls ‘one-on-one’ sessions, when he’s supposed to be out on the playground.
One-on-one. He likes that phrase because he sees it as one raised to the first power, or one times one, or one divided by one, all of which result, amazingly enough, in one. You can’t escape one-no matter where you go, it leads you back. It stands alone but takes care of itself. According to the book, one is not a prime, although Noah hasn’t quite figured out why not, if it is only divisible by itself and by one, which it is. That’s the first definition, right? So why make an exception? Mrs. Delancey explained that once upon a time the number one was considered a prime, but in modern math the primes begin with two, the only even prime number.
Noah intends to pursue this further, the next time he has a chance. The next time he has Mrs. Delancey one-on-one. Right now she’s concentrating on getting her students seated and behaving.
“Bethany! Christopher!”
That’s all it takes, just their names announced with a certain tone, and both kids stop what Mrs. Delancey sometimes calls ‘skylarking.’ Skylarking being okay at recess, even at certain times in class, but never at assembly.
Noah has often been guilty of skylarking, or worse-right here in the gymnasium, in fact-but this morning he vows to behave himself, not wanting to embarrass his homeroom teacher in front of the principal, Mrs. Konrake. Often called Mrs. K. Who stands by the gymnasium doors in her dark mannish suit, her prim, pursed mouth a little pink O, as she oversees the assembly. What she lacks in stature-in heels she’s not that much taller than the biggest fifth grader-Mrs. K makes up in voice power.
If most people have voices like car horns, Mrs. K is a big truck. An 18-wheeler. When she honks, you pull over just to get out of the way. First graders have been known to wet their pants upon being sent to her office. There are even rumors of a spanking machine, something with paddles and a big crank handle. Noah, who has spent some considerable time in Mrs. K’s office, has never seen such a machine and knows from his own experience that when it gets down to one-on-one-those magic numbers again-Mrs. K is actually pretty nice, and her office voice is much less threatening than her hallway voice. As if she has different horns for different places.
When all of the students have been seated, Mrs. K raises her right hand for silence and waits until all one hundred and fifty-seven students have raised their hands to indicate compliance. Aside from the squeaking of the wooden plank seating, the resulting quiet is remarkable. As Noah’s dad used to say, you could hear a germ fart.
“Thank you,” says Mrs. K. “As was explained to you in your homerooms, this morning we have a very special event. Chief Gannett has taken time out of his busy schedule to give us his presentation for the D.A.R.E. program. He’ll be telling you about drug abuse resistance education, and the new Web site for kids, and a lot of very interesting stories from his own experience as a police officer. Let me stress that this is very important and that we are very fortunate to have Chief Gannett with us today. I’m confident that you will give him your full attention, and that when the time comes for questions you’ll be polite and respectful. So without further ado let’s put our hands together and give our guest a great big Humble Elementary welcome!”
The chief has been waiting patiently, looking very somber and formal in his dress uniform. He’s the only man Noah has ever seen who wears white dress gloves. It reminds him of a cartoon character, because in cartoons the hands look like gloves. Thinking of the chief as a variation on SpongeBob or Goofy makes Noah smile. His secret, you’ll-never-guess-why-I’m-laughing smile. He stares into his folded hands, grinning to himself and fighting back a giggle.
The giggle wins when the clown suddenly enters the gymnasium. Noah knows he’s not a real clown-there’s no rubber nose or makeup-but like all of the other
children he can’t help but laugh when the man with the little janitorial cart bumps through the gym door. Because at that precise moment the police chief has stepped behind the podium and is testing the microphone by tapping it with one of his white-gloved fingers. Tap, tap, tap. There’s something comical about the contrast between the somber, formally dressed policeman and the disheveled-looking man hurriedly pushing the little cart right out onto the gymnasium floor. The man pushing the cart has a pinched look on his face, as though he’s smelling something bad. A fart maybe. That’s funny. He’s wearing earbuds and bobbing his head to the beat, and that’s funny, too, because no one else can hear the music. Even the mop sticking up from the cart looks comical, as does the fact that one of the cart wheels is spinning wildly around.
The children laugh uproariously.
Noah notes that Mrs. Delancey is smiling, too. So maybe the sudden entrance of the funny man with the cart is part of the D.A.R.E. presentation. That’s how it looks. The puzzled expression on the policeman’s round face appears to be exaggerated, as does Mrs. Konrake’s look of stern consternation. It’s all part of the entertainment, like at a circus or a TV show, with everybody playing his or her part.
The funny man reaching into the funny cart for some sort of funny prop. The nice policeman reacting hastily, awkwardly, fumbling at his belt.
A loud popping noise like a balloon exploding, or a really loud party favor.
Noah is studying Mrs. Delancey when it happens, so at first he has no idea why the shrieks of laughter have turned into shrieks of screaming.
8. A Very Dangerous Word
I’m in the library discussing books with Helen Trefethern when the first siren goes by. Helen runs our little two-room public library with a velvet fist, and she almost always has suggestions on what books Noah and I might enjoy reading together. Stormrider was her idea.
“There’s a bunch more books in that series,” she tells me. “And if he gets sick of spy stories and wants something funny, you might try Hoot. Really smart and sassy, and it will make you laugh out loud. I think Noah will like it-he’s a tough one to pick for-but I’m certain you’ll love it.”
Helen is about my mother’s age-or the age my mom would be were she still alive-and a real Humble native with family roots that extend back a century or more. Unlike most of the local best and brightest who go away to college-in her case Syracuse-she had returned to marry and raise a family. Her husband had passed away a year or so before we lost Jed, so that was another thing that bridged the age difference and made me think of Helen as one of my trusted local friends. As opposed to my old New Jersey posse, who have no idea why I vanished, or where I might have gone.
“So how’s he doing?” she asks. With her it’s not a casual question-she really wants to know.
“Better,” I tell her, with great relief. “New year, new teacher, it’s really made a difference.”
Last year Noah went through this disruptive behavior phase, mostly by acting the clown. They told me-very pointedly-that you can’t teach a classroom of children when they’re howling with laughter because my son has attached erasers to his ears like headphones, or when he is making ghostly noises from inside the air ducts. He always had the tendency to go his own way, right from kindergarten, and for a couple of months after the accident it got worse. Much worse. There were many calls from the principal requesting that I take Noah home, which of course I did. What I would not agree with was the advice offered by the school district’s child psychologist, who thought my son’s behavioral problems could be improved with psychotropic drugs. A cocktail of Ritalin and Paxil. As if grief can be erased by a pill. And even if it can, would you really want to?
The psychologist pushed, but I stood my ground and this year has been better. This year Noah has a crush on his homeroom teacher, and if you think that makes his mother jealous, you’ve no idea how relieved I am that my brilliant little boy has been trying to impress Mrs. Delancey with his good behavior.
It helps that Irene Delancey has a graduate degree in mathematics. No doubt she could be making a lot more money as an actuary, or whatever else math types do when they focus on making money. Instead of chasing the bucks, Irene decided to teach in public schools, this being her first year at Humble. I find her a bit cool and cerebral-she’s one of those unflappable types-but she’s been devoting a lot of extra time and energy to dealing with Noah, and for that I am grateful.
It’s the second siren that finally gets my attention. Two sirens in less than a minute. Must be an accident. Traffic or farm-and around here farm accidents tend to be the most horrific.
Helen says, “Humph,” and ambles over to a window overlooking the street. “Haley? Those were troopers.”
I join her at the window. “Not local cops?”
“State police. Must be serious. Escaped prisoners, maybe?”
The nearest prison is in the next county, fifty miles distant, but we Humble residents worry because four years ago Mildred Peavey was tied up and gagged and had her car stolen by one such escapee. The really tragic part is that Mildred lived alone and it was several days before anybody missed her. By then she’d died of a stroke, still bound and gagged. So the notion of an escaped prisoner is our local boogeyman.
Here comes another siren, a shrill wee-waw wail from a light-flashing ambulance. And this time we’re both able to see it take a left turn onto Academy Road.
“Oh my god,” says Helen, stealing a look at me. “The school.”
By the time I get there, half a dozen state cop cars have arrived, as well as the ambulance. A young trooper with a bright pink face is frantically trying to control the incoming traffic.
Hopeless.
Parents, mostly mothers, are converging from every direction. Most are not bothering to find a parking space, but are abandoning their vehicles and running toward the school, eyes wide with concern, or panic-both.
I’m one of them. Under normal circumstances I’m a pretty calm and rational person. But this is not normal. You can feel it in the air, pick it up from the way the young cops don’t want to look us in the eye. Something terrible has happened.
There’s talk among the moms about panicked phone messages from inside the building. From teachers and also from a few students who apparently ignored the ban on cell phones. Something terrible has happened but no one seems to know what, exactly.
All I know for sure is that Noah doesn’t have a cell phone. Since when do fourth graders need such things?
Since right this very minute.
What kind of mother am I, not foreseeing the need?
“Get them out!” someone shouts.
The crowd surges forward, and me with it.
Uniformed state troopers armed with shotguns are barricading the school entrance.
“Nobody gets in! Stay back!” one of them bellows, his voice cracking.
“What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
That’s me, pleading. Sounding like a frightened ten-year-old, and feeling that way.
The young trooper with the big voice and the baby-blue eyes shakes his head reluctantly, as if he’s under orders not to divulge information. “You’ll have to get back!” he repeats, pointing a finger at me.
Beside me, a furious, tubby little woman ignores the shotguns and the big shoulders barring her way, and attempts to burrow through the troopers, screaming, “They’ve got the kids! They’ve got the kids!”
It’s Becky Bedlow. She has a boy in Noah’s class, a shy little guy, small for his age. And when she says they’ve got the kids in that desperate tone of voice we all know what it means.
Mad bombers, terrorists, Columbine. Every fear we’ve ever had, every nightmare news story, has come careening into our little school. It’s like the entire town is having a panic attack. Mothers are shouting, demanding to be let into the school. The troopers look shocked and maybe a little frightened by the raw passions being expressed-some of it scatological-but refuse to back down.
“Estab
lish a perimeter!” one of the older troopers bellows. From the way they react he’s the big boss, the man in charge.
“What’s happening! Somebody tell us what’s happening!”
The trooper in charge-he’s got a jaw as big as a clenched fist, eyes as pale as gray ice-wades into the crowd, holding up his hands, palms out like a traffic cop.
“Stop it!” he commands. “Stop right there!”
Amazingly enough, he’s rewarded with a cessation of shoving. As the volume lowers, I can hear women weeping. I’m one of them.
“We have a hostage situation!” the big trooper explains. “Man with a gun, barricaded inside the gymnasium with most of the children and teachers.”
“What about the children? What about the kids?”
“As far as we know, no children have been harmed. But if anybody tries to force their way inside, that may change, do you understand? You’ll only make it worse, maybe get somebody killed. So allow us to establish a perimeter. Allow us to do our jobs. Please!”
It takes more persuasion, but within a few minutes he has managed to get us all back behind a flimsy barricade of yellow crime scene tape that has been hastily erected at the far side of the parking lot.
Before I can get my breath I notice a nearly hysterical Meg Frolich waving around her iPhone. Evidently she’s just received an image from her daughter’s cell phone, somewhere inside the school. “Look at this!” she’s screaming, trying to get a beleaguered state trooper’s attention. “They shot Chief Gannett! He’s dead! They killed him! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”
I try to get a glimpse of the tiny image on the iPhone screen, but someone else wrestles it away. Can it be real? Does she have it right? Could the child have misunderstood whatever it is that’s happening inside? Maybe this is all a scary mistake, a group panic kind of deal. But it seems so real, this strange gravity of fear that thickens the air somehow, making it hard to breathe.