Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Saturday night with Jonah had faded like a lackluster mid-season win against a non-division rival by Tuesday afternoon.
Not that it had been bad. His attention had been exactly what she needed to shake the sting of Jordan’s words, but facing down a defensive line of third graders would terrify even the most seasoned quarterback.
For Jif, they were a delightfully complex challenge requiring all her intellectual and emotional energy to manage.
“Okay, y’all, finish up your math wraps and turn them into the basket, then you can have twenty minutes of quiet reading time. Scout and Emma, it’s your turn in the book nook. Elias, buddy: tool, not toy. Please don’t lasso your table mates.”
While her voice remained firm, amusement brought a flutter to the corners of her lips.
She had a couple tough kids this year, but they didn’t mean any harm.
What elementary schooler didn’t occasionally have some impulse control problems?
But they could all read, and most of them could work independently.
Hormones hadn’t hit yet, so they were still mostly respectful, although a few needed a little more structure at home.
Jif empathized; sometimes, structure at home didn’t come easily.
She’d kept her promise to help Britt grade on Sunday, and one of those students had drawn a penis as his coordinate plane design. A middle schooler. Jif shivered. Nope, she’d take elementary any day.
Her eyes darted over her class as they shuffled, giggled, and finally settled to their tasks. In the corner, two girls bent their heads together.
“Shera, Laila, what are you supposed to be doing right now?”
Both shot guilty glances her way, then cracked open their books.
Jif kept an eye on them as she collected the pages for their next subject and pulled up the lesson, sending it to the classroom smart screen.
An ear-splitting screech shattered the quiet, followed by a deafening boom, then a crash. More sounds followed: shattering glass, rending metal. The lights flickered, then went out. A series of pops echoed outside.
Jif’s heart nearly stopped in her chest, a wave of adrenaline hitting her system more intensely than a Hail Mary pass at the end of a championship game. Had those been gunshots?
Her hands shook as the quiet classroom turned chaotic in an instant. Students leaped out of their seats, squeals of fear bombarded Jif’s ears, and Hannah curled under her desk, arms over her head.
“This isn’t an earthquake, Hannah, please come out.” Jif took a steadying breath, but her voice trembled as she clapped for quiet. “Everyone, please line up by the door.”
While they gathered, she poked her head into the hall to find other teachers milling with their students, as well.
“Do you know what happened?”
“Should we evacuate?”
“I think we’re supposed to stay in place.”
So much for all those drills the district insisted on practicing.
Jif squeezed her hands together. Should she clear her classroom? Those pops, though. If they were gunshots, she should lock the door and pull the shades.
Before she could act, another boom sounded—closer this time.
Several more followed. A moment later, the fire alarms went off, shrieking a warning and flashing strobes of light.
Almost all the kids ducked, and more wails of fear chorused up, magnified by the students in the hallway and several teachers.
Her stomach churned.
“Let’s go, we’re leaving. Now. Elias, get in line. Jacob, leave Danny alone.” Her voice snapped commands, and the kids were scared enough to follow her instructions, though a few took a moment to obey, their eyes wide and terrified.
God, she hoped she wasn’t leading them into a worse situation than the one they were leaving behind.
Those stupid trainings hadn’t prepared her for the indecision, the panic, the weight of almost thirty small lives, now fully her responsibility.
Hannah slid her hand into Jif’s.
“Everything is going to be okay. I’ve got you,” Jif reassured her. “Come on, y’all.”
They followed another class down the hall and out the side door, then Jif chivvied and cajoled her kids across the street and into a big, empty field. Like ducklings, their line wavered, but she herded them toward the edge, under the shadow of the large magnolias lining the grassy area.
Her eyes flitted from group to group, then scanned the sidewalks and the abandoned school, searching for anything suspicious. Anyone suspicious.
More likely a fire drill than an intruder, she told herself, but what were those sounds before?
The crashing and popping? Had someone pulled the alarm to force everyone outside?
Jif’s stomach roiled, and her breath came in quick gasps, but she turned to her class and herded them a few more feet under the trees, eyes constantly moving.
Elias edged toward a line of red madrona trunks, and Jif pinned him with a hard glare.
“Why don’t we all sit down in a circle?” She dropped to her knees in the grass, avoiding the piled red dirt of a fire ant nest. Usually, she had a classroom full of tools to help manage downtime, but for now, she’d be on her own. “Let’s play Twenty Questions. Hannah, you go first.”
The field settled slowly around them, other teachers corralling their classes and finding ways to keep the kids busy until the all-clear came from the administration.
Tense minutes passed, Jif craning her neck to watch in all directions at once, her heartbeat spiking with every stranger in the distance, every vehicle of curious rubber-neckers slowing to a crawl as it passed the school.
From where they waited, the strobing white, blue, and red lights reflected off some distant buildings, punctuated by an occasional siren, but no one came out to reassure them.
Had someone been hurt?
On purpose or by accident?
“I’m sorry, what?”
Scout repeated her question, but Jif kept only half her attention on her students, her nerves trembling, her muscles poised to react to any threat.
Under the trees, she’d tell her kids. Hide! Don’t come out! Stay low and find cover. Go!
They played another round of Twenty Questions, then switched to an alliteration game.
Jif’s head remained on a swivel as Danny searched for a food a cranky kangaroo from the Caribbean might eat.
“Canned corn,” she snapped, then bit her lip. “Sorry, you can choose whatever you want, Danny.”
“I hate corn,” Shera announced, and several kids in the next group over glanced at their circle.
“Shh, Shera. Quiet voice, please.” Jif swept her eyes over the field again, hands shaking as she eyed the cover of the trees again. Should she move them now, just in case?
Dana’s class had circled up too far from the verge; they’d be easy targets if someone came after them.
Her breathing quickened and she pressed her hands to her chest, willing herself to calm, but she couldn’t quite manage it.
What was taking so long?
Lauren, the principal, exited the school, stepping quickly across the street and waving them in.
At the sight of her, Jif’s shaky breaths steadied.
She and several other teachers leaped to their feet. Waving Chase, a second-grade teacher who had gathered his students nearby, onward, she stood between the two classes as he hurried off to get an update.
Jif shifted from foot to foot while she waited, smiling reassuringly at any kids who made eye contact with her.
Without their teacher, Chase’s class turned squirrely, so she combined the two groups, quickly pairing her students with the younger ones, hoping they’d set a good example.
A few moments later, Chase tromped back through the grass.
“Someone hit a utility pole out front, taking out the transformers for several blocks. The pole came down on part of the roof and the truck slid through the parking lot into the main office. No one is hurt and the fire department is sweeping the building, but it’ll be a couple days before all the damage can be evaluated. They’re sending the kids home early.”
Jif’s head spun as the last vestiges of adrenaline bled out of her system and she wanted to sink to her knees. Instead, she forced her shoulders back. Her students needed her to stay strong, no matter how much she wanted to curl into a ball and sob her relief.
A car accident. Nothing worse. Those pops... She hadn’t really thought they were gunshots, but with all the drills they did...
Just transformers blowing up.
She took another steadying breath. “Okay.”
“Lauren says she’ll let us in class by class to get our stuff once the fire department is done.”
Jif waved her kids into a group while Chase gathered his back into a second circle.
“Everything’s okay, y’all,” she reassured them. “Just a car crash. We’ll be able to get our stuff in a little while, and then you’ll go home as soon as we can call your parents, okay?”
It took several hours to clear the school, help students gather their things, then get them on buses and into their parents’ cars, and by the end, Jif’s nerves were shot.
The initial fear, followed by the rush of adrenaline, then the long, grueling wait for their turn, never mind fielding the dozens of emails thrown around by administration and a few nervous parents demanding answers directly from her.
At least everyone agreed the school would have to close for a day or two.
Initially, there’d been rumblings about switching to online school for the duration, but the teachers scuttled that idea pretty quickly.
With no prep time, Jif didn’t have the resources she’d need to keep the class engaged for a full day.
Never mind more than one. The last email of the night warned her to stay tuned in the morning while admin came up with a workable solution for the interim.
Jif toasted her laptop, then swallowed the last of her wine, a light, sweet pink, much more palatable than Jordan’s red and well-deserved after the day she’d had.