Unwind (11 page)

The fire alarm goes off during the teacher's prep period, and she silently curses the powers that be for their awful timing. Perhaps, she thinks, if she can just stay in her empty classroom until the false alarm—and it's always a false alarm—is dealt with. But then, what kind of example would she be setting if students passing by looked in to see her sitting there.

As she leaves the room, the hallways are already filling with students. Teachers try their best to keep them organized, but this is a high school; the organized lines of elementary school fire drills are long gone, having been replaced by the brazen hormonal zigzags of kids whose bodies are too big for their own good.

Then she sees something strange. Something troubling.

There are two policemen by the front office—they actually seem intimidated by the mob of kids flowing past them and out the front doors of the school. But why policemen? Why not firemen? And how could they have gotten here so quickly? They couldn't have—they must have been called before the alarm went off. But why?

The last time there were policemen in the school, someone called in a clapper threat. The school was evacuated, and no one knew why until after the fact. Turns out, there was no clapper—the school was never in danger of being blown up. It was just some kid pulling a practical joke. Still, clapper threats are always taken seriously, because you never know when the threat might be real.

“Please, no pushing!” she says to a student who bumps her elbow. “I'm sure we'll all make it outside.” Good thing she didn't take her coffee.

“Sorry, Ms. Steinberg.”

As she passes one of the science labs, she notices the door ajar. Just to be thorough, she peeks in to make sure there are no stragglers, or kids trying to avoid the mass exodus. The stone-top tables are bare and the chairs are all in place. No one had been in the lab this period. She reaches to pull the door closed, more out of habit than anything else, when she hears a sound that is wholly out of place in the room.

A baby's cry.

At first she thinks it might be coming from the student mother nursery, but the nursery is way down the hall. This cry definitely came from the lab. She hears the cry again, only this time it sounds oddly muffled, and angrier. She knows that sound. Someone's trying to cover the baby's mouth to keep it from crying. These teen mothers always do that when they have their babies where they don't belong. They never seem to realize it only makes the baby cry louder.

“Party's over,” she calls out. “C'mon, you and your baby have to leave with everyone else.”

But they don't come out. There's that muffled cry again, followed by some intense whispering that she can't quite make out. Annoyed, she steps into the lab and storms down the center aisle looking left and right until she finds them crouched
behind one of the lab tables. It's not just a girl and a baby; there's a boy there too. There's a look of desperation about them. The boy looks as if he might bolt, but the girl grabs him firmly with her free hand. It keeps him in place. The baby wails.

The teacher might not know every name in school, but she's fairly certain she knows every face—and she certainly knows all the student mothers. This isn't one of them, and the boy is completely unfamiliar too.

The girl looks at her, eyes pleading. Too frightened to speak, she just shakes her head. It's the boy who speaks.

“If you turn us in, we'll die.”

At the thought, the girl holds the baby closer to her. Its cries lessen, but don't go away entirely. Clearly these are the ones the police are looking for, for reasons she can only guess at.

“Please . . . ,” says the boy.

Please what?
the teacher thinks.
Please break the law? Please put myself and the school at risk?
But, no, that's not it at all. What he's really saying is:
Please be a human being.
With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she
sees
—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

Then a voice from behind her: “Hannah?”

She turns to see another teacher looking in from the door. He's a bit disheveled, having fought the raging rapids of kids still funneling out of the school. He obviously hears the baby's cries—how could he not?

“Is everything all right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Hannah, with more calm in her voice than she actually feels. “I'm taking care of it.”

The other teacher nods and leaves, probably glad not to share the burden of whatever this crying baby situation is.
Hannah now knows what the situation is, however—or at least she suspects. Kids only have this kind of desperation in their eyes when they're going to be unwound.

She holds out her hand to the frightened kids. “Come with me.” The kids are hesitant, so she says, “If they're looking for you, they'll find you once the building is empty. You can't expect to hide here. If you want to get out, you have to leave with everyone else. C'mon, I'll help you.”

Finally, they rise from behind the lab table, and she breathes a sigh of relief. She can tell they still don't trust her—but then, why should they? Unwinds exist in the constant shadow of betrayal. Well, they don't need to trust her now, they just need to go with her. In this case, necessity is the mother of compliance, and that's just fine.

“Don't tell me your names,” she says to them. “Don't tell me anything, so if they question me afterward, I won't be lying when I say I don't know.”

There are still crowds of kids pushing past in the hall, heading toward the nearest exit. She steps out of the room, making sure the two kids and their baby are right behind her. She will help them. Whoever they are, she will do her best to get them to safety. What kind of example would she be setting if she didn't?

Police down the hall! Police at the exits! Risa knows this is Lev's doing. He didn't just run away, he turned them in. This teacher says she's helping them, but what if she's not? What if she's just leading them to the police?

Don't think about that now! Keep your eyes on the baby.

Policemen know panic when they see it. But if her eyes are
turned to the baby, her panic might be read as concern for the baby's tears.

“If I ever see Lev again,” says Connor, “I'll tear him to pieces.”

“Shh,” says the teacher, leading them along with the crowd to the exit.

Risa can't blame Connor for his anger. She blames herself for not seeing through Lev's sham. How could she have been so naive to think he was truly on their side?

“We should have let the little creep be unwound,” grumbles Connor.

“Shut up,” says Risa. “Let's just get out of this.”

As they near the door, another policeman comes into view standing just outside.

“Give me the baby,” the teacher orders, and Risa does as she's told. She doesn't yet realize why the woman asked for the baby, but it doesn't matter. It's wonderful to have
someone
leading the way who seems to know what they're doing. Perhaps this woman isn't the enemy after all. Perhaps she truly will get them through this.

“Let me go ahead,” the teacher says. “The two of you separate, and just walk out with the rest of the kids.”

Without the baby to look at, Risa knows she can't hide the panic in her eyes, but suddenly she realizes that it might not matter—and now she understands why the woman took the baby. Yes, Lev turned them in. But if they're lucky, these local police may only have a description of them to go by: a scruffy-haired boy and a dark-haired girl with a baby. Take away the baby, and that could be half the kids in this school.

The teacher—Hannah—passes the policeman a few yards ahead of them, and he gives her only a momentary glance. But then he looks toward Risa, and his eyes lock on her. Risa knows she's just given herself away. Should she turn and race back into
the school? Where's Connor now? Is he behind her, in front of her? She has no idea. She's completely alone.

And then salvation arrives in a most unlikely form.

“Hi, Didi!”

It's Alexis, the talkative girl from the school bus! She comes up beside her, with Chaz gnawing at her shoulder. “People pull the alarms all the time,” she says. “Well, at least I got out of Math.”

Suddenly the policeman's eyes shift to Alexis.

“Stop right there, miss.”

Alexis looks stunned. “Who, me?”

“Step aside. We'd like to ask you a few questions.”

Risa walks right on past, holding her breath for fear that her gasp of relief might draw the officer's attention again. Risa no longer fits the profile of what they're looking for . . . but Alexis does! Risa doesn't look back; she just continues down the steps to the street.

In a few moments Connor catches up with her. “I saw what happened back there. Your friend may have just saved your life.”

“I'll have to thank her later.”

Up ahead, Hannah reaches into her pocket with her free hand, pulls out her car keys, then turns left toward the faculty parking lot.
It's all going to be okay,
Risa thinks.
She's going to get us out of here.
Risa might just start believing in miracles, and angels. . . . And then she hears a familiar voice behind her.

“Wait! Stop!”

She turns to see Lev—he's spotted them—and although he's far away, he's quickly working his way through the crowd toward them.

“Risa! Connor! Wait!”

It wasn't enough to just turn them in, now he's leading the cops directly to them—and he's not the only one. Alexis still
stands with the policeman at the school's side entrance. From where she stands she can easily see Risa, and she points Risa out to the cop. The cop instantly pulls out his radio to inform the other officers.

“Connor, we're in trouble.”

“I know—I see it too.”

“Wait!” screams Lev, still far away, but getting closer.

Risa looks for Hannah, but she's vanished into the crowd of kids in the parking lot.

Connor looks at Risa, fear overwhelming the fury in his eyes. “Run.”

This time Risa doesn't hesitate. She runs with him, breaking toward the street just as a fire truck bursts onto the scene, siren blaring. The truck stops right in their path. There's nowhere to run. The fire alarm had mercifully been pulled at the perfect time, and it's gotten them this far, but the commotion is fading. Kids are milling instead of moving, and cops in every direction zero in on the two of them.

What they need is a fresh commotion. Something even worse than a fire alarm.

The answer comes even before Risa can formulate the entire idea in her mind. She speaks without even knowing what she's about to say.

“Start clapping!”

“What?”

“Start clapping. Trust me!”

A single nod from Connor makes it clear that he gets it, and he begins bringing his hands together, slowly at first, then more and more quickly. She does the same, both of them applauding as if they were at a concert cheering for their favorite band.

And beside them, a student drops his backpack and stares at them in utter horror.

“Clappers!” he screams.

In an instant the word is out.

ClappersClappersClappers . . .

It echoes in the kids around them. In an instant it reaches critical mass, and the entire crowd is in full-blown panic.

“Clappers!” everyone screams, and the crowd becomes a stampede. Kids bolt, but no one is sure where to go. All they know is that they must get away from the school as quickly as possible.

Risa and Connor continue to clap, their hands red from the force of their duet of applause. With the mob racing in blind terror, the cops can't get to them. Lev has vanished, trampled by the panicked mob, and everything is made worse by the fire siren, which blares like it's sounding out the end of the world.

They stop clapping and join the stampede, becoming a part of the running crowd.

That's when someone comes up beside them. It's Hannah. Her plans of driving them off campus are gone, so she quickly hands Risa the baby.

“There's an antique shop on Fleming Street,” she tells them. “Ask for Sonia. She can help you.”

“We're not clappers,” is all Risa can think to say.

“I know you're not. Good luck.”

There's no time to thank her. In a moment the wild crowd pulls them apart, taking Hannah in a different direction. Risa stumbles and realizes they're in the middle of the street. Traffic has come to a halt as hundreds of kids race in a mad frenzy to escape the terrorists, wherever they are. The baby in Risa's arms bawls, but its cries are nothing compared to the screams of the mob. In a moment they are across the street, and gone with the crowd.

This is the true meaning of alone: Lev Calder beneath the trampling feet of a stampeding crowd.

“Risa! Connor! Help!”

He should never have called out their names, but it's too late to change that now. They ran from him when he called. They didn't wait—they ran. They hate him. They know what he did. Now hundreds of feet race over Lev like he's not there. His hand is stomped on, a boot comes down on his chest, and a kid springboards off of him to get greater speed.

Clappers. They're all screaming about clappers, just because he pulled the stupid alarm.

He has to catch up with Risa and Connor. He has to explain, to tell them that he's sorry—that he was wrong to turn them in and that he pulled the alarm to help them escape. He has to make them understand. They are his only friends now. They were. But not anymore. He's ruined everything.

Finally, the stampede thins out enough for Lev to pick himself up. A knee of his jeans is torn. He tastes blood—he must have bitten his tongue. He tries to assess the situation. Most of the mob is off campus, in the street and beyond, disappearing down side streets. Only stragglers are left.