This Is Not a Drill (5 page)

CHAPTER 8

JAKE

I watch in total shock as Willa
Campbell’s body goes completely limp and she slides from her chair to the floor.
What the hell is happening?
She lands facedown with her arm bent under her head, almost like she’s just curled up for a nap. Emery jumps up and runs to her, spilling crayons everywhere, and I race to help—not even thinking about that maniac Stutts for once.

Emery kneels beside her; she reaches down and shakes her shoulder. “Mrs. Campbell. Mrs. Campbell, are you okay?” The teacher’s head’s twisted at a weird angle to the side. Her hair’s covering her face, but it’s obvious she’s out cold.

“We need to roll her over to see if she’s hurt,” Emery says, looking up at me.

I reach down and move her as easy as I can. Her face is pale and sweaty, her eyes are closed, and her mouth is open a little.

“Mrs. Campbell,” Emery says, close to her face. “Mrs. C., can you hear me?”

The kids are starting to crowd around. I hold up a hand. “Hey, guys, everybody move back so she can get some air.”

“Is she dead?” Natalie wails.

Emery looks up in shock. “Oh, honey, no.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Rose asks.

“She’s gonna be fine,” I tell her. “She just fainted, that’s all. People do it all the time.”

“Jake, can you help me lean her up?” Emery asks.

I move closer and slide my hand under her back. I lift her shoulders and lean her body against me, holding her head to keep it from rolling. It feels weird touching her like this.

“Mrs. Campbell, can you hear me?” Emery asks again, close to her ear.

Stutts seems to come out of a daze. “What’s going on? Is she okay?” He walks closer, looking back and forth from her to the door. “Wake her up. You hear me? Wake her up!”

Emery gets very still. She’s taking deep breaths and staring at a spot in front of her and squeezing her eyes shut and then opening them. If she has one of those attacks right now, I’m gonna be on my own here.

“Emery, you okay? Don’t you go passing out on me, too,” I say to her in a low voice.

Emery glances up at me and then I can see she’s about to lose it. I’m not sure if she’s mad at herself for nearly fainting or at me for noticing. Or Stutts for—well, being Stutts. She hardly ever gets really steamed, but she can go from angel to kick-ass ninja in about three seconds if you really get her riled.

“Mr. Stutts, I’m trying.” Emery turns on Stutts, facing him down like a warrior. “We’re doing the best we can, so just cut us some slack. And put that gun away before you hurt somebody. This is no time to be waving it around.”

Ohhhh crap, this is not a good plan. “Emery, here, we can use this to fan her.” I grab a notebook from the teacher’s desk, trying to distract her before she really goes off on him. Stutts looks hypnotized; you can tell people don’t stand up to him very often. He doesn’t put the gun away, but he does hold it more carefully at his side.

“You want my water?” Simon asks, holding a plastic bottle toward us. “Mrs. Campbell can have it.”

“Thanks, Simon,” Emery says. “Good idea.”

“You da man, Tarzan,” I say to Simon. “Pour it on this and you can wipe her face with it,” I tell Emery, stripping off the long-sleeved button-down I’m wearing over my T-shirt and handing it over. Oh great. The
one
day I wear the freakin’ Justin Bieber shirt my grandmother gave me for my birthday. It was all I could find this morning, ’cause my crazy stepmom destroyed all my T-shirts. The Christine went into my room and took scissors and cut out all the slogans she didn’t like. And then she put the mutilated shirts back in my drawer! That woman is crazy as an outhouse rat. I put this one on today ’cause I figured it’d be under my other shirt where no one would see it. Simon checks it out, but Emery doesn’t notice as she pours water on the shirt I’ve handed her.

There’s a soft buzzing sound. Stutts reaches onto the desk and holds out a cell phone to me. It’s mine. “Turn it off. I don’t want to listen to that.” I glance down. Dad. Word has reached the mayor’s office. I turn it off and hand it back to Stutts.

“This one, too.” He hands me another buzzing phone. I switch it off and give it back to him. Looks like the whole town’s heard what’s going on. As much as I hate to worry everybody, I’m glad they know. Maybe somebody’ll figure out what the hell to do.

Emery wipes Mrs. Campbell’s face. Then she stops and looks up.

“Hey, does anybody remember seeing Mrs. Campbell giving herself a shot?”

Mason raises his hand. “I saw her. I came in at lunch one day because I forgot my lunch money, and she had a needle sticked in her arm.” Mason Mayfield III’s very proud of being the keeper of this information; then he looks worried. “She told me not to tell anybody. She said it might scare the other kids.”

“Good job, Mason. That’s important information,” Emery says as she reaches inside Mrs. Campbell’s sleeve. “You did the right thing telling us. Jake, look.” She turns the medic alert bracelet so I can read it.

Emery looks up at Stutts. “She’s diabetic. We’ve got to get her out of here.”

“She has Die-BB’s?” Olivia yells, alarmed.

“It’s okay, honey. She’ll be fine,” Emery says.

“This is some kinda trick,” Stutts shouts, pacing back and forth. “You just want to let the cops in.”

“Mr. Stutts, Mrs. Campbell needs medical attention,” Emery tells him.

“Diabetic comas are dangerous.” I stand up so I can look him in the eye. I’m almost as tall as he is. “This is serious, man.”

Stutts stares back at me. I move closer so I can talk low without the kids hearing.

“Look, she could die. We can’t let that happen.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he says.

I stare him down because I know that one way or another, I’m
going
to get help for her.

“I’m not letting anybody in here,” he says.

“Just let me carry her out, man. I can take her down to the office and they can call the paramedics.”

“Jake, can you bring me her purse?” Emery asks. “She keeps it under her desk.”

I move to the desk, pick up the purse, and toss it at Emery. “You looking for insulin?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what she needs, but I’m not sure what to do with it if we find any.” She digs through the bag. “Nothing here.”

“I’ll try her desk,” I say.

I search quickly, plowing through notepads and rulers and pencils and Band-Aids. Nothing.

“Hey, does it have to be refrigerated?” I ask, moving toward the back of the room.

“I don’t know . . . maybe,” Emery says.

I open the minifridge. “Nothing but Diet Cokes.”

I walk back toward Stutts. Mrs. Campbell needs help, and we’re the only ones who can get it for her. “Mr. Stutts, let me carry her to the front office and I’ll come right back. I give you my word I won’t bring anyone back with me.”

Stutts glances at Patrick, like he’s looking for an answer, his face blotchy red.

“We may not have much time,” I tell him, turning my back to the kids, hoping they don’t hear.

He gives me a long look. I stare back. Finally, he says, “Okay. Just you. You come right back. And don’t try anything. You hear?”

“No problem,” I say, springing into action. Emery helps me lift the teacher as I bend down, slide my arms under her shoulders and knees, and pick her up from the floor. I shift Mrs. C.’s weight onto me and Emery drapes her arm over her body.

“Where are you going?” Natalie asks.

“Jake’s going to take her to find a doctor, sweetie,” Emery tells her.

“Does she have to have a operation?” Alicia asks.

“No, they’re just going to give her the medicine she needs.”

“You okay here?” I ask Emery.

She hesitates, then nods. “I’m fine. Go.”

“Can we go, too?” Carlos asks.

“Not right now, but maybe in a little bit,” Emery tells him. His lip trembles, and she leans down to speak to him; I notice she’s leaning on the desk, like she needs the support.

“Emery, you sure you’re okay?” The color’s gone from her face, and I hate leaving her.

“
Go
, Jake! I’m fine.”

She realizes she’s snapped at me, and she changes her tone as she reaches out and pulls Carlos to her. “I need you to help me with these coloring puzzles,” she says to him. She turns to the other kids. “Will y’all show me what you’ve done so far?”

The kids flock around her, several talking at once. They love to show off their work. She’s herding them to the back of the room as I turn to leave.

I pause at the door, realizing I have no idea what’s going on in the hallway. It seems like a good time to give them a heads-up, so I call out, “This is Jake Willoughby. I’m coming out. I’m bringing the teacher, and she’s unconscious.”

A voice answers, “Come on out, Jake. Nice and slow, okay?” I recognize Reed Walker, the police chief. It hits me they think Stutts might use us as a shield, and I wonder briefly why he doesn’t.

I walk through the door and into the hall, lifting my arms a little to shift Mrs. Campbell’s limp body toward my chest for better support. It’s clear and quiet. All classroom doors are closed. Dark red drops stain the floor—shit—a trail of blood, right where the security guard fell. No sign of his body. A man with a police helmet aims a gun in my direction from around the corner. Chief Walker looks out from behind him.

“Slow and easy, Jake,” the chief tells me. “Just keep coming; you’re fine.” He’s watching the hall behind me.

“She’s diabetic. She passed out. She needs help!”

I round the corner, and two other police officers crouch low, weapons drawn. A guy with a paramedic badge on his shirt comes from behind them to take Mrs. Campbell while they continue to cover the hall I just came from. Farther down, several men lean over a blueprint of a building, I’m guessing this one, one of them pointing.

What the hell? Are they gonna climb in through the air vents or something? Do they think this is a damn Bruce Willis movie?

After handing off the teacher, my arms feel light but my legs are suddenly tired. Just as I’m about to turn back, a familiar figure steps from the front office.

“Dad.” I try to swallow the lump in my throat.

“Jake, are you all right?” he yells as he breaks into a run.

He’s racing toward me calling my name, and I run to him like a first grader.

He reaches me and wraps me in a huge bear hug. It’s taken me years to catch up to my former linebacker dad’s height, and he still has about fifty pounds on me. I’ve only seen him cry once—the night Mom died—but I feel his chest expand sharply and he says my name in a strangled voice. I hang on to him for a few seconds, then pull away.

“Dad, I have to go back.”

“Jake, no! You’re not going back in there.”

“You have ten seconds,” Stutts calls from the classroom. I figure he doesn’t want them to have time to ask me questions or give me instructions. “I’m counting,” Stutts yells through the hallway. “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

“Is everybody okay in there?” Chief Walker asks me.

“Yeah, the kids are fine. Scared, but fine.” Dad’s still holding my arm, but I pull away. “I have to get back or I don’t know what he’ll do.”

“. . . seven . . . six . . . five . . .” Stutts yells.

“No one’s been hurt?” The chief’s holding his walkie-talkie toward me with his thumb on the button, so I know others are listening.

“No, everybody’s okay. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of the kids.”

“Who’s with you?” he asks.

“Emery. Emery Austin’s with me.”

“Jake—” Dad starts again.

“. . . four . . . three . . .” Stutts counts.

The chief starts to ask me something. “Can you tell me—”

“There’s no time. I have to go.” I’m already moving back down the hall.

“Jake, be careful, son.”

“I will.” I stop and look him in the eye so he can see I’m okay. “Dad, don’t worry. We’ll be okay.” Then I sprint toward the classroom.

CHAPTER 9

EMERY

As soon as Jake is out of sight,
Stutts becomes even more nervous and jittery, like he’s afraid he’s made a mistake letting him go. He crouches by the door and points the gun down the hall.

It’s terrible being in the room without Jake.

Several kids try to talk to me but I shush them, herding them all back to the reading carpet and pointing to their papers. It takes all my energy to fight the rising panic. I even drop a couple of books so I’ll have an excuse to lean down to pick them up, a trick I’ve learned to keep from blacking out. If I can get my head down by pretending to pick something up or get something out of my shoe, it sends the blood flow back to my head without anyone knowing I’m on the verge of passing out.

When Stutts starts the countdown, we’re all frozen in fear.

“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

What will he do if Jake isn’t back in time?

“I think I’m gonna puke!” Natalie yells, and I hand her the trash can, barely looking in her direction.

“. . . seven . . . six . . . five . . .”

The kids watch the door as Stutts counts.

“. . . four . . . three . . .”

I look around the room desperately for something—anything—I can use as a weapon if he starts shooting. How can I stop him if he goes crazy?

“. . . two . . . one.”

I know this is it. Jake isn’t coming back. Stutts will kill us all. How will he decide who to shoot first? Or will he just open fire?

Stutts’s flint-hard eyes meet mine. The part of him that’s human seems to have shrunk to a tiny pinprick of light. Madness has taken over.

And then—thank you, God—Jake is there.

Tears of relief fill my eyes.

“I’m here. It’s okay, guys. And Mrs. Campbell’s gonna be just fine. They’re taking good care of her,” he says, looking around at the anxious faces as he enters the room.

Jake gives me a long look, and I turn away to keep from falling apart. I’ve spent so much energy learning to live without him, and now all I want to do is run to him. I don’t want him to know how much I need him. A devastating wave of longing washes over me.

He leans down to Natalie with her garbage can. “Natalie, you okay?” He directs the question to her, but his eyes, full of concern, are on me. I lift my head and lock on his gaze. Natalie nods and sniffles and puts the trash can down, crisis over.

Crisis over. The countdown crisis, anyway. I know there will be others. The kids are watching. I square my shoulders and take a deep breath. Jake and I are now the sole authority figures—the only “adults” standing between them and the crazy man with the gun.

Suddenly Stutts is screaming at Jake. “No one leaves this room again. You got that? I don’t care what happens. No one’s going anywhere.”

Jake holds up his hands and nods but doesn’t speak. He can see how wild Stutts is right now.

Stutts didn’t say—out loud—that he’d shoot us, but we all know that’s what the countdown was about. If he doesn’t get what he wants . . .

“I want to go home.” Natalie starts to cry again.
Me too, Natalie, me too.

Several others start up. The absence of their teacher has sparked a panic. I try to channel her calm presence, the way she anchored the rest of us and made the situation seem somehow manageable. Miraculously, I feel my body relax a little as I concentrate on adopting her rocksteady demeanor.

“Our teacher’s gone,” Kimberly wails.

“Are you gonna leave us, too?” Simon asks, speaking louder than usual above the noise.

“No way, Jose,” I answer. Simon looks up, surprised that I’ve assumed Jake’s rhyming role. Jake grins and comes over to stand beside me.

Suddenly I notice what he’s wearing. “Nice shirt, Biscuit,” I say, giving Justin Bieber an appraising look. I fight the urge to laugh, which seems ridiculous in this setting. I’m afraid that if I start, I’ll never stop.

“Don’t start with me,” Jake warns, one dark eyebrow cocked in my direction, but he’s smiling. He walks over to his wet shirt and picks it up off the floor. I recognize it as one of his brother’s hand-me-downs; he loves them because they’re soft with age. I try not to think about the way the worn shirts felt against my face, with their fresh cotton smell and their hung-over-the-back-of-the-chair wrinkles.

He slides his arms into the damp sleeves and buttons the shirt over the offending photo. “Man, that’s embarrassing,” he says with a grin.

That’s classic Jake. He told me once the thing that’s most embarrassing in life is when other people know you’re embarrassed. So if you just admit it up front, nobody makes fun of you because everybody knows how it feels.

It’s one of the things I liked best about him from the beginning—that he’s totally unself-conscious. Lots of people
say
they don’t care what other people think, but Jake really doesn’t. He’s always the first one to get up and dance at a party—crazy dancing that’s so bad, it’s almost good.

Sometimes he turns the car radio up and sings really loud. He pocket-dialed me once, and when I listened to my voice mail, I could hear him wailin’ on “Single Ladies,” singing with Beyoncé in this high girlie voice. When I played it back for him, he just laughed, and then he put my phone on speaker and played it for everybody in art class.

For me, Champion Sociophobe of the Universe, he was a good teacher. He peeled away my shyness and taught me not to take myself so seriously. When I confessed to him how nervous I am when I think other people are watching me, he said, “I promise you, the world isn’t looking at you. Everybody’s too busy. And basically, most people just care about themselves, if you wanna know the truth.”

When I admitted I’m paralyzed sometimes by fear of screwing up, he laughed and said, “You know, Em, if you do screw up, people will remember it for about two minutes until they move on to the next person who screws up—well, unless you’re Marilyn Holderfield and you wet your pants in fourth grade; people do kinda remember that one.”

Jake makes everyone else feel like it’s okay to mess up. I’ll never forget the day this poor ninth grade girl tripped in the lunchroom and her food went all over her and she slipped and went down in the mess. The whole school was staring at her. People started laughing and pointing. The girl just sat there on the floor, her head down, about to burst out crying.

And then, before she could even try to get back up, Jake was there. He sat down next to her on the floor, like they’d planned a big ole picnic, and started talking to her, telling her jokes and acting like nothing was wrong—he even picked up a cookie off the floor, gave her half, and started eating the other half.

After everybody lost interest in them, he helped the girl up, looped her hand through his arm, and made a big production of escorting her to her table.

Yep, you guessed it. The ninth grade girl was me.

It was the beginning of my heart-stabbing, gut-twisting, butterfly-producing crush on Jake Willoughby.

• • •

“I’m hungry,” Mason Mayfield III yells at the top of his lungs, bringing my thoughts back to the first graders around me. “When do we eat?”

“Is Mrs. Campbell coming back?” Rose asks.

“No, but don’t you worry,” Jake tells her. “We’ll be just fine, Valentine.” He winks at me.

“Quiet!” Stutts barks at them. “I’ve had about enough of all this racket.” But the racket continues.

“There’s ants everywhere!” Mason yells. “All over the place.” He jumps up and starts stomping the floor around him like he’s doing some kind of war dance. Within seconds, all the kids are up and running, jumping across the ants that have appeared out of nowhere and are swirling in wavy lines across the floor.

Lewis immediately begins to howl. “Stop! Don’t hurt ’em. They’re mine.” He shoves Mason to the floor. Mason gets up and makes a dive for Lewis, knocking him down. The two of them roll over each other on top of the scattering ants, punching and slapping and pulling hair, while the other kids gather around to yell encouragement. Great! Just what we need right now!

“Hey, that’s enough!” Jake springs into action, grabbing Mason, so I wade into the fray and pull Lewis off the floor. He’s sobbing uncontrollably, trying to drop out of my hold.

“They’re my ants. He killed my ants.”

“Lewis, stop it,” I yell. “Lewis, listen to me. What are you talking about?” I shout above his crying until he finally hears me.

“I found them. They’re mine.”

“You found them where?”

“Outside.”

“You brought them in from outside? When?”

“This morning before school.”

“How did you bring them in?”

“In my lunch box.”

I look at the trail of ants. It definitely leads to the cubbies in back where the kids’ lunches and coats are stored.

“Why would you do that?” I ask.

“Joey Hopper has an ant farm and I didn’t never have one.”

I let go of Lewis long enough to follow the ant line, which ends at a Spider-Man lunch box. I lift it gingerly by the handle and lay it on the table. When I unlatch the lid and open it, there’s a little pile of dirt, several clumps of grass, and an awful lot of ants—who are pretty disturbed about the sudden change of habitat. I slam the lid on the angry insects.

“Oh, Lewis, you shouldn’t have done that. Did you get bitten, sweetie?”

He holds up his hand and shows me several small bites on his fingers. “Just a little. But it’s okay. They didn’t know I was trying to save ’em.”

“Where is your lunch?”

“My mom gave me money to buy it. I just brought my lunch box for the ants.”

“Get that thing out of here,” Stutts growls, impatient with the whole mess. “Get rid of it.”

I look up helplessly.

“Throw it out the window,” he orders.

“No, no, no.” Lewis sets up a howl. “Don’t throw my ants out the window!”

“Here.” Jake picks up a big plastic storage tub from a shelf and pops the lid off. He dumps some blocks out and throws the lunch box—dirt and grass and all—into the empty bin.

“But what about them ants that got out?” Lewis yells, pointing to the floor.

“We’ll get them. Don’t worry.” I grab a couple of sheets of paper and begin scooping the ants up with them. The irony is not lost on me—that I’m suddenly expending all kinds of energy saving a bunch of ants when a few minutes ago I was worried about children getting killed. You do what you have to do.

I toss the papers into the plastic bin with the rest of the ant paraphernalia.

“But how are they gonna breathe in there?” Lewis whines.

“There’s plenty of air inside the bin,” Jake tells him with a look that dares him to complain. Lewis takes the hint and pipes down.

Then Mason starts up again. “He hit my lip. He made my teeth hurt.”

“There’s no blood, Mason. You’re fine,” I tell him. Several other kids chime in with their versions of the fight.

“These kids are driving me crazy,” Stutts yells. I can tell he’s about to go ballistic over the noise and chaos.

Suddenly I clap out a rhythm—just like I’ve heard Mrs. Campbell do. Magically, the kids respond immediately, stopping all noise and clapping back a matching pattern. Mrs. C. does it to keep from yelling over the noise to get their attention, and they love it. Some patterns are simple and others more complex, but she changes them up so they have to listen to repeat them. Several of them look up at me, smiling, and I’m glad I’ve given them something familiar to hang on to.

“Reading time, everyone,” I tell them, changing gears after a few minutes. Their attention spans are so short. “Everyone move back to the reading corner.”

“Will you read
Giraffes Can’t Dance
?” Janita asks.

“No, read
Strega Nona
,” Alicia says.

“Whoever’s quietest gets to pick the book,” I tell them, herding them back to the carpeted corner lined with bookshelves. I get them seated and start passing out books. Jake takes one to Patrick. “Everyone can just look at the books for a bit, and then I’ll read one to you,” I say.

Lewis is lying on the floor under a nearby desk, but I decide to pick my battles, so I leave him there.

“I want
Interrupting Chicken
,” Nick says, throwing down the book I’ve handed him.

“Nick, it doesn’t matter which one you get right now,” I say.

“Here.” Kimberly hands him
Interrupting Chicken
and he hugs it to his chest.

“Miss Emery,” Natalie says, “my uncle Robby, he ran his truck into a tree and he’s in the hospital and my daddy said it’s ’cause he dranked too many beers, and my momma got mad and told my daddy—”

“TMI, sweetheart.” I cut her off, putting a finger over my lips. Mrs. Campbell always says it in such a kind voice that it doesn’t hurt their feelings when she interrupts their long stories.

“Look at you,” Jake says in a low voice beside me. “I didn’t know you spoke Teacher.”

I take a few steps away so the kids can’t hear me. “I just don’t have time to tune in to the Natalie Channel right now.”

“I hear you.” He grins, then looks again at my face. “Hey, Em, you okay?”

“I’m good,” I tell him, and I’m surprised that it’s the truth, that I’ve somehow managed to channel Mrs. Campbell instead of my mom—at least for now. One of my greatest fears is that I’ll react to every problem in life with anger and bitterness like my mom. I don’t want to let my insecurity drive everyone away. I don’t want to be unhappy and alone.

“Sorry I had to leave you,” Jake says.

“It’s okay. You had to help Mrs. Campbell.” We haven’t had a chance to talk since he got back to the room. “Jake, the security guard . . . Was he . . . ?”

“Didn’t see him, and I didn’t have time to ask.” He shakes his head. “I just don’t know.”

“That’s mine! I had it first.” An argument erupts, this time between DeQuan and Tyler, and Jake moves to separate them.

I turn back to the kids. “Let’s all see if we can count how many animals are in our books,” I tell them, searching my brain for something to occupy them.

Olivia starts counting loudly.

I lean my face down close to hers and whisper, “Count to yourself, lovey.”

She shifts into exaggerated silent mode, pointing to each animal and mouthing her count soundlessly. Honestly, they’re heartbreakingly cute.