Lockdown (6 page)

I want to believe him.

I bring the gun down from above my head. All the cops' guns come back up. I freeze.

“Adam.” Mr. Connor reaches out his hand.

Two things happen at the same time. I hand the gun to Mr. Connor, and Josh lunges for it. More than two things, actually. Far more than two things, because as soon as Josh grabs for the gun, the officers open fire.

The noise of gunfire in the hallway is incredible. My forehead flattens in the shock wave. It is that fast. Then it stops. My eardrums feel like they are being yanked out of my head, and the hallway starts to spin. I fall to my knees and throw up.

“Paramedic!” one of the cops shouts into his radio.

I blink, trying to clear my vision. Where's Zoe? I struggle to focus. In front of me, the hallway swims with blue armored cops. “Zoe?”

A cop puts his hand on my shoulder. “She's okay.”

I see her then. She's standing with her hands over her face.

“Zoe!” I call to her, and she looks at me. Tears are streaming down her face. She tries to come to me, but a cop puts his hand on her arm.

I try to get up but my feet slide. I look down. There's blood on the floor. I scramble to get up, my hands and legs covered in the blood. I touch my chest, my arms, my legs. I'm not shot. It's not my blood.

A cop pulls me out of the way.

Josh is face down on the floor. A cop kneels beside him and puts his hand on Josh's neck. The cop shakes his head.

The metal doors from the kitchen bang open and a team of paramedics blast in, pushing a gurney.

I look down at Josh. Beside him on the floor, his glasses are twisted, the lenses broken. I reach down and pick up the glasses. I straighten the metal frames the best I can. One of the lenses pops out. I hold it between
my thumb and finger. I clean it on the bottom of my shirt.

The paramedics are running and I think it's weird they're in such a hurry because Josh is obviously dead. Then I see Mr. Connor.

He is on the floor. His face is contorted with pain. A cop kneels beside him, his hands pressing against Mr. Connor's thigh. Blood squirts from under the cop's hand. Josh's gun is still in Mr. Connor's hand. Another cop takes it from him and sets it on the floor.

The paramedics drop the gurney down beside Mr. Connor and surround him. They work fast. One of them holds a mask to Mr. Connor's face. Another rips bandages out of sterile packages. Finally, the cop who was applying pressure to the gunshot wound sits back on his heels. His hands are covered in blood. His face is sheet white.

Collateral damage. I bet this part of his job never feels normal.

The paramedics hoist Mr. Connor onto the gurney.

On the floor, where Mr. Connor was hiding, something catches my eye. I step to
the spot and bend down. It's a photograph, a wallet-size photo, the same as the one on his desk, of his wife and baby. I pick up the photo. In it, Mrs. Connor is smiling and the baby is asleep in her arms.

I think about how Mr. Connor was sitting with his head down. Maybe he had the photo in his lap. Maybe, as he counted the moments of the lockdown, he kept his eyes on the photo. Maybe he wondered if he would see his family again.

The paramedics have the gurney up on its wheels. Mr. Connor is strapped on the gurney. He's covered with a blanket. One of his hands is out of the blanket while a paramedic adjusts an iv.

I cross to the gurney. A paramedic tells me to get out of the way. I ignore him. I place the photo in Mr. Connor's hand. Mr. Connor looks at me. His hand closes over the photo. Then, at a run, the paramedics push the gurney down the hall.

I find Zoe crouched on the floor. Someone has draped a blanket over her shoulders. I sit on the floor beside her and put my
arm around her. She leans her head on my shoulder.

A cop kneels down beside us. He wants to ask us questions but I can't talk right now. He says that it's okay, to take all the time I need. But I'm not sure there's going to be enough time, ever.

All kinds of cops surround Josh's body, snapping cameras, taking measurements. Someone bags the revolver.

I wish they'd cover Josh.

Two regular uniform cops stand together. I hear one say, “Eleven hundred people in this school, and only the principal gets hit. How lucky is that?”

I look at Josh's body. Eleven hundred minus one. Trust Josh. He never intended to kill anyone.

The seawall is quiet at midmorning, just a few cyclists and runners on the path. “Okay, Adam, last interval. Running for one minute.” Mr. Connor snaps a stopwatch in his right hand. Beside him, I break into a run. One minute, and I feel every single second. Finally, the stopwatch beeps and I drop into a walk.

One minute running, nine minutes walking. We do that six times. Next week we'll work up to two minutes running, eight
minutes walking. Slow steps, Mr. Connor says. He says that he learned to run this way the first time, that it will work for both of us now. In a couple of months, we'll be running ten and walking one, the same pattern that marathoners use.

Mr. Connor has been out of a cast for a few weeks but his leg still looks white. It's smaller than the other leg—wasted from being in the cast. I take a swig from my water bottle. Mr. Connor could still outrun me. He could have outrun me even in the cast. But I like this kind of running. I like the way the air smells like the sea. And it beats Mr. Ellington's gym class.

That's the deal. I run with Mr. Connor and I don't have to attend gym.

It's a good deal.

Mr. Connor and I walk back to the school. I say, “It looks almost normal, doesn't it?”

For days after the lockdown, media trucks crowded the school. News reporters clung to every doorway, looking for students with a story. Natalie got a lot of press, of course. She enjoyed it. She told everyone how Zoe and I
tried to stop Josh. It's weird, though. Some people think I was in on the shooting. They want to know how I knew where Josh would be. They think that's why Josh didn't shoot us in the washroom. That Josh and I were friends. That I knew about the shooting. They even say that I was the one with the gun. That I set up Josh. That I got him killed.

Not a lot of people think that. Just some people.

People look for an answer.

After the lockdown, some of the students wanted to lower the flag to half-mast because of Josh, but parents wouldn't allow it. Baker lowered the flag anyway, and I'm glad he did.

For weeks after the lockdown, you couldn't move in front of the school for parents' vehicles dropping off and picking up kids, as if dropping off and picking up could prevent the worst from happening within the school. Now people are walking to school again. Now the parents who still drop off and pick up don't have quite the same crazed wariness on their faces.

When you come so close to losing someone, things will never again be exactly the same. For a while, my parents got weird. They made all my favorite things to eat and let me leave dirty laundry on the floor, and my little sister took out the trash for me. Now we're back to lentil casserole, but that's okay. I hug my little sister before I leave for school.

Now the front of the school looks like it does every day before lunch. A few students lounge on the front steps. Behind the windows, people move about in the classrooms.

Almost normal. Normal to the extreme. I can't think about this school anymore without thinking about Josh.

Mr. Connor turns to me. He says, “They didn't even have a funeral.”

He's thinking about Josh too.

Mr. Connor continues, “They said they didn't want to draw any more negative attention to their son.” He pauses. “What must it be like for them, waking up every day without him?”

I say, “The day it happened, just before
lunch, you got a call on your cell phone. Did you always know the shooter was Josh?”

He nods. “Josh's mother found a letter. She called the school.”

I look at him. “Like a suicide letter?”

Mr. Connor says, “More like a will. It sounded like he was taking care of things.”

Like the note he left with the hamster cage. Josh's mom gave it to me when I went to get the hamster. It's Josh's hamster now. I just take care of it. I never bring it to school. I say, “Trust Josh.”

Mr. Connor claps me on the shoulder. “You'll be with us for the rest of the day?”

I smile. “I'm meeting Zoe for lunch. She'll make me attend classes this afternoon.”

“Trust Zoe,” he says.

I do. I don't want to turn back time, not now. I want to keep moving ahead. I'm starting to trust myself.

From a second-floor classroom, a student pauses at the window and looks down. She waves at Mr. Connor and he waves back. Then her gaze falls on me and she quickly looks away. Almost normal.

Mr. Connor says to me, “If you're off my radar, I guess I can go hunt down Baker.”

“Oh, good luck with that.”

Mr. Connor laughs. Then his face gets serious. He says, “Adam, thank you.”

“For the run, right?”

He smiles. “Yeah. Thanks for the run.”

Mr. Connor starts up the steps to the school. I pause to stretch my aching calf muscles. No pain, no gain. I follow Mr. Connor up the steps.

Instructions for Hamster (Her name is Amergin)

Food: She likes seed mix. I buy her the kind with extra sunflower seeds because she likes those. Don't fill her bowl too full or she'll kick seeds all over your room. Hamsters do that. It's normal. You can feed her some apple if you want, but she really likes sunflower seeds. She also likes peanuts. Make sure they are the kind with no salt.

Water: Change her bottle often. It gets gross if you don't change it.

Cage: Use cedar shavings. They smell nice. Try to change the shavings before they get smelly. When I clean the cage, I put Amergin in my shirt pocket. She likes being in my pocket. If you don't have a shirt pocket, you can put her in a big bowl or something, but make sure she can't climb out. She's a very good climber. Clean the tray part of her cage with mostly water and just a little soap you use to wash dishes. Don't use anything too strong because she has to live in it. You don't need to wash the bars of her cage unless they get gross. Ditto for her wheel.

She likes to chew on toilet-paper rolls. And she loves cotton balls to make a nest. I give her new cotton balls when I clean her cage. I put a little bit of her old nest in with the new cotton balls so that it smells like her home.

Other: She'll try to get out of her cage. That's normal. She's used to being held.
Just be gentle and don't scare her. She's been through a rough time. Maybe just let her be quiet.

Josh

Diane Tullson has written seven novels for young adult readers, including
Saving Jasey
and
Blue Highway
.
Red Sea
(Orca), a contemporary, true-to-life adventure of piracy on the Red Sea, has been named an American Library Association Best Book and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and has been nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award and the ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers. In
Red Sea
, Diane Tullson draws from her own experiences sailing in Europe for eighteen months with her husband and two young sons.
Resource Links
says: “This is a book that needs to be in every library for readers grade seven and up.”

Diane Tullson was born in Calgary, Alberta. She has a BA in English literature from the University of Calgary and has studied journalism and editing. Before becoming an author, Diane worked in newspaper, radio and travel. Tullson began writing non-fiction essays for
Canadian Living
and
Westworld Magazine
. Her young adult books have been short-listed for White Pine, Red Maple and Stellar awards.

Diane Tullson is a member of the Canadian Children's Book Centre, Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable, Children's Writers and Illustrators of British Columbia, and the Writers Union of Canada. She speaks to schools across Canada and has presented at the University of Alberta symposium “Rethinking Literacy Education: Preparing New Teachers.” Diane Tullson lives with her family in Delta, British Columbia.

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