Keith raised his hands. “Everybody up,” he said. The class rose. He led them through a rapid exercise routine. “Sit down,” he said after a couple of minutes. “Time to move on.
“Yes, we will still be going to Veracruz and Tabasco for the Spring Break trip. We will see the stone heads, and the ball courts, and the other Olmec things you’ve heard about. We’ll also see some things you haven’t heard about.”
“And we’ll find more tablets for your Golden Testaments search, right?” Jimmy asked.
“We’re praying so,” Talia replied. “Oh!” she said.
“What’s wrong?” Keith asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Talia said. She smiled.
“What’s a ball court?” Mark asked.
“They played ball there, stupid,” Greg replied.
“Yeah, and the losers got their heads cut off!” Adam chimed in.
“Another ‘fact’ we don’t know,” Talia said angrily. “They made rubber balls, and they had big, elaborate courts, but assuming it was part of a worship ceremony and that people were sacrificed there – that’s all it is, an assumption.”
“But there are pictures of how they did it! Right here, on these tablets you gave us last year,” Rikki exclaimed, holding hers up.
“Remember we told you it’s best not to use those?” Keith asked.
“Wasn’t that the whole point of everything we did last year?” Daryl asked. “To get these? They’re cool. It’s free wifi forever, and you can find anything you want to know.”
“You want to get your searches redirected to only what they want you to find?” Keith shot back. “You want to be spied on and followed around? You want to forget how to think, and just accept whatever your tablet turns up in a search?”
Sean raised his hand. He stood to his feet when Keith nodded at him. “I thought we got put in jail because we wanted to find out the truth. The government lied to us about that explosion, and about tearing Bradley Central down. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley got blamed for stuff they didn’t do. Whoever really did all that almost shut this school down. Doesn’t anybody care why what they’re trying to teach us would be important enough that anybody would care to stop it?”
“Yeah!” Tom exclaimed, but flushed and raised his hand. He stood up also. “Somebody was chasing Mr. and Mrs. Bradley around in a robot van last year. That’s because they’re trying to teach us stuff people don’t want us to hear. They’re trying to find stuff people don’t want found. How many people got shot at and had bombs thrown at them and had people try to kill them because they did exactly what the government told them?”
“Thanks, guys, but this is not about rebelling against the government,” Keith said. “We’re not trying to be revolutionaries or play Robin Hood. This is about a simple thing : preserving and teaching the Word of God. We don’t even know for sure it’s the government doing any of this. But we know people get chased and imprisoned and beheaded every day because they believe in the Scriptures. Here’s all we want to teach you. Let God’s Word be your standard for what you do and how you think. If it’s clear in the Word, you’re all set. If it’s not clear, give it just as much importance as God gives it.”
“And if you get a piece of garbage that won’t even let you find your own Bible studies on the site they told you to upload them to, maybe you shouldn’t use it.” Jayna snatched Gail Sheldon’s tablet off her desk. “Look at you. You’re playing one of those games right now. Don’t you know they mess with your head? Besides the fact that this is a class. In class we are supposed to listen to the teacher, not play games.”
“Give that back! It’s mine!” Gail screamed.
Talia stepped forward and took the tablet from Jayna. “Thank you Jayna, Gail, you can get this back after you serve a detention next week.”
“What? This is unfair! You gave us those tablets. You can’t just take it away.” Keith had to get between Gail and Talia and the girl clawed at him, trying to get past. “Did you forget my dad got elected to the school board last year? He said they’re watching you because they don’t want all kinds of trouble over this class like last year. If I tell him you took my tablet, and that you’re telling everyone to get rid of them, he’ll tell Dr. Williams you’re not keeping to the agreement. You will both lose your jobs, and so will Principal Bradley!”
“Sit down, Gail,” Keith said.
“No! You keep talking about how important it is to tell the truth, but you’re hiding stuff from us. What about those Bibles and notebooks that have fallen apart? Are you going to warn people that it’s not safe to be in a room full of Bibles, like this one is, because they can get radiation sickness? Are you going to tell them people already have gotten sick? When they scanned the Bibles and notebooks, they found that radiation! Dr. Williams posted articles about it on the Repository Site. But you’ve been telling us not to go to that site. And you never warned us about the radiation.”
“We told everyone we could contact that there could be radiation danger. But the scanning didn’t find it. It wasn’t there before.” Talia breathed in sharply, and retreated back to sit down at the desk.
Keith cast a worried glance at her. “Gail,” he said, moving closer to the girl. “I need you to sit down.”
Gail shook her head and backed toward the rear of the classroom. “I heard about how Mrs. Bradley threatens people – how she attacked that man at the airport who was just trying to pick everybody up after the trip last year. There was a reporter trying to find out the truth about what she’s really doing on all these trips out of the country. She almost ran her down with her car! Nobody talks about that, either. Is she going to come after me for speaking out?”
“Does she look like she’s coming after you?” Keith kept walking toward the girl. “But I am going to make you sit down and get yourself under control. You are disrupting the class. ”
“Don’t you touch me!” Gail shrieked. “My dad will sue you! My parents have been keeping records of everything! We have evidence you don’t want people to know about, trust me!”
“Well, as long as I still have a job here, I’m going to follow the school’s rules, and make a disruptive student stop being disruptive,” Keith replied.
Gail dodged as he lifted his hand, but he only reached out an arm and pushed the intercom button by the door.
“This is Mr. Bradley. Please send someone to my classroom to remove a disruptive female student as soon as possible.”
“On my way,” Principal Bradley’s voice said.
“You might shut me up for now, but wait ‘til my parents hear about this!” Gail said.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bradley didn’t do anything to you!” five students said at the same time.
“What are you going to tell on them about?” Jayna asked.
Principal Bradley appeared at the door. “What seems to be the problem here?” he asked. Keith was startled to see that a female security guard in full uniform stood behind him. On taking a second glance, he saw that it was Cara Townsend. I guess I have to find out later what she’s doing here.
“I’ve been trying to tell everybody the truth about these secret trips, and the radiation, and everything you people don’t want us to know!” Gail said.
“Well, let’s have a chat about what’s bothering you in my office, and this class can continue without any more interruptions,” Principal Bradley invited. He stepped back and Cara moved toward Gail.
The guard reached out a hand. “Come on, sweetie,” she urged. “We’re going to listen to whatever you have to say.”
Gail let herself be guided out of the room, suddenly calm. Cara paused and looked back into the classroom.
“Mrs. Bradley, are you all right?” she asked. Keith saw that Talia had let her head droop over the desk.
She snapped back up. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”
Keith’s dad approached him and whispered, “This is the fifth student today who’s erupted like this. It was about secrets and radiation, right? It’s like they�
��ve been programmed with a countdown, and today was the day to go off at their teachers.”
He cleared his throat. “Any other student who has questions or concerns about the school or any of its policies or teachers, my office door is open. Please – let’s have no more of this spouting off during class. We have a lot of work to do before Spring Break.”
Keith walked back to the front of the classroom as the door closed. Rikki held out her tablet as he passed her desk.
“Mr. Bradley, I think these things are making people crazy,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t even know why I said that about that ball court thing before. I’m sorry. Can you take this, please, and get rid of it?”
“What makes you think the tablets are making people crazy, Rikki?” Keith asked.
“Just before Jayna took Gail’s tablet, and she stood up and started screaming, my tablet flashed on all by itself. I shut it off. I swear I did. But it came on, and that game was there, just like on Gail’s. The game is all about judging for yourself, figuring out who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. It says people hide things from you, and talks about radiation poisoning innocent people. All that stuff Gail was saying – it’s in the game, Mr. Bradley. The more you play it, the more paranoid you feel, like you can’t trust anybody except this ‘Mentor’ who gives you advice.”
“Has this happened to any of the rest of you?” Keith asked. Heads nodded. “So the game is telling you that you can’t trust us? It’s making you afraid of us?”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “This class used to be fun, and we were learning stuff, but now … Seems like all we do is fight with you. Why are we doing that?”
By the time the bell rang, ten tablets lay on the desk in front of Talia. The kids filed out, silent and shooting uncertain backward glances. Adam ran back and grabbed his, pushing his way past the others in both directions.
“Talia, what’s the matter?” Keith asked as soon as they were the only ones in the room. “You kept sitting there … are you okay?”
“I was praying,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just had to sit down and pray. Something was happening. Something evil was in the room, and God said pray.”
“So maybe that’s why Gail calmed down,” Keith said, “and the others gave up their tablets? I was trying to pray, but you’re right – Gail just had a kind of a barrier around her.”
“She was twisting everything around,” Talia said, a tear running down her cheek. “Adam was right. These kids don’t want to learn anymore. They just want to argue. It’s like we’re being attacked.”
Keith cupped her face and wiped the tear away. “Only God can change people’s hearts,” he said. “The Devil, he can only do what they let him do. Let’s pray a few minutes together.”
“Oh …” Talia touched her middle just as they finished. “And that was the other reason I sat down. I felt this … I think Cherub is starting to move.”
“Really? Where?” Keith put a hand on her midsection.
“Not sure it’s enough for you to feel it yet.”
“Cherub’s ready to come out fighting evil, maybe. Come on. Time to get home.”
“What are we going to do with these?” Talia pushed around the pile of tablets.”
“Good question. We need to dispose of them safely. Can’t just take them to a recycling center. Somebody else might end up controlled by the Mentor.”
“Are we going to get in trouble again over this?” Talia asked. “Was Gail right about us not abiding by the agreement for the grants?”
“Let’s go talk to my dad and see what he says. We can probably lock those up in the school safe for the time being. It’s supposed to be shielded against electronic interference, and lead-lined.”
Chapter Seventy-five –Testing and Arresting
“Those tablets.” Joshua Bradley sat down at his desk and put his head in his hands. “This school year is the worst ever for kids being defiant, questioning what they’re taught, and having no attention span whatsoever. I think it must be partly because of them. From what you told me about what Rikki said, we need to confiscate them all and melt them down.
“I don’t know what it will mean for the grant agreement. Not sure I care. I’m more tired than I’ve ever been in all my educator years. Tired of fighting for control with these kids. Tired of being buried in compliance paperwork. It actually seemed like it would be a relief to hide out in the mountains and teach through a website. I sometimes wish the board hadn’t agreed to open the school up again.”
“I’m starting to understand what you mean,” Keith said with a sigh. “I almost wish we’d never gotten started with all this.” He glanced at Talia. “Well, no, not really, because then there would be no Mrs. Bradley and Cherub Bradley. All I can think of is that whoever’s doing this has a plan, and it’s not finished yet. Were you able to talk Gail Sheldon down?”
“She kept insisting I call her parents, so that’s what I did. Both of them came and picked her up. They didn’t say anything except, ‘You’ll be hearing from our attorney.’”
“I’m so sorry,” Talia said. “I feel like all this is my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” Joshua Bradley said. “You didn’t put me in a headlock and make me sign those grant forms. You didn’t make the school board agree to it, either. As much as they’ve complained, they never turned down any of the cash the state has thrown at them.”
“Dad, what is Cara Townsend doing here?” Keith asked.
“Drew Summers called me first thing this morning,” Principal Bradley said, “Just after classes started. He explained that since he got involved in protecting believers like us – apparently he works with other people, not connected with Naddy or the Golden Testaments, even – he’s developed a threat alert, similar to the terrorism assessments governments do. Red, orange, yellow, blue, and green, from highest threat to lowest. He told me Cara would be coming to help us today because the threat alert was considered to be at yellow today. They had definite indications that something was going to happen.”
“So Cara’s back working for him?”
“He said he made her serve a suspension and get counseling for the incident with Eva Sanchez, and now she’s conditionally reinstated. I have to report to the board, and try to explain why we have a security guard who’s not on the payroll. I just hope they’re glad enough to have someone for free that they don’t question us about it too closely.”
“So Drew got word that there was a credible threat to us?” Keith exclaimed. “And all these students went crazy on command from tablet messages?”
“Thank the Lord they didn’t all do it at the same time,” Joshua Bradley said. “Throughout the day, in different grades, different students were caught playing the game, and they went into screaming fits when someone, teacher or anyone else, tried to confiscate the device. Gail was the second one who demanded that her parents be called. That one’s mother is also a board member.”
“Rikki said her tablet turned on at the same time Gail went crazy,” Talia said. “Apparently she resisted it. So I guess we had more kids who might have gone off, except people were praying, and God minimized the attack.”
“I have no doubt people were praying. I know I was. Cara was invaluable, too,” Joshua said. “Some of the classes were in chaos when we responded to a teacher’s call for help. Most of the students calmed down as soon as she showed up. I thought maybe seeing her in a uniform like that put the fear of God into them, but maybe God put it in them Himself.”
Keith, Talia, and Principal Bradley were commanded to appear at the next school board meeting. To their astonishment, Dr. Williams showed up as well. They were not the only ones surprised by her appearance. Keith watched her sit through the preliminaries with obvious impatience, checking her watch and fiddling with her briefcase. At last she stood up.
“My time and patience are exhausted,” she said. “I have been at six of these school board meetings over the last two weeks, trying to deal with a certain event that
seems to have caused some school discipline issues. I am here to clear up the confusion that seems to have resulted from a staggered tablet update glitch.”
Keith saw that all of the board members seemed to be variously surprised and angered by the interruption. The chairman, however, said, “We’re sorry if our procedures bore you, Dr. Williams, but they are established by the state board of education. You of all people should realize we have an agenda to follow.”
“Yes, yes, and I apologize for interrupting,” Dr. Williams said in a more conciliatory tone, “but I simply have no more time to waste. Let me just deal with the issue I came to address and be on my way. Your meeting can continue however it needs to after that.
“It has come to my attention that classroom disruptions occurred, all on certain days –” she named the dates “– involving quite a number of students, and that they coincided with a program update that accidentally activated the tablets given out last year as part of the Bible as Literature program. This caused an unfortunate distraction and disruption, more extreme in certain students than others.
“We have concluded that extensive psychological testing needs to be done on all students – in fact, on everyone who possesses the tablets – to account for this phenomenon. I am here to personally hand you the schedule and accompanying compliance paperwork for these tests.
“They will be carried out during what would normally be standardized testing time, replacing those tests. Members of the community who have received the tablets are also required to be tested, and at that time tablets will be inventoried to ensure that all are accounted for and in the hands of those who are supposed to possess them.”
The board sat in stunned silence as Dr. Williams stood up, removed a thick stack of papers from her briefcase, dropped them in front of the chairman, and turned to go.
“Just a moment!” the chairman exclaimed, standing up. “We can’t just cancel standardized testing to do these tests instead. And we can’t force members of the community to agree to or submit to such an irregular proceeding.”
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