By the end of that next school day, the online edition of the Trib posted a follow-up:
RESERVIST STUDENT TEACHER SMUGGLED INTO SUBURBAN SCHOOL
Warrant Officer Ed McLeod, who caused a lockdown on Friday by turning up in uniform at a suburban school, had to be smuggled into Westside Elementary to begin his student teaching today. After a weekend firestorm of media coverage, response to his movie-star looks and starched camouflage fatigues crashed numerous social media sites. Marriage proposals were posted from as far away as North Korea.
A pop-up fan club of local au pairs blocked the school entrance with toddlers in strollers. Mothers driving children as old as sixth grade to school created gridlock across the normally quiet suburb.
Mr. McLeod arrived on the floor of a classic Pontiac Firebird, driven by an unidentified student’s father who delivered the blue-eyed National Guardsman to a disused furnace room. He was briefly sighted in civilian clothes with a large dog on a short leash, between car and furnace room door.
ABSOLUTELY NO MEDIA signs were posted throughout the school grounds. The principal, Mrs. Velma Dempsey, 52, was unavailable for comment.
Local police plan to patrol the school grounds for the foreseeable future.
Kinko’s printed up those ABSOLUTELY NO MEDIA signs for Mrs. Dempsey. But how was she to get Mr. McLeod into school without being mobbed, interviewed, or proposed to? She dumped the problem on Mrs. Stanley, who called Mom Sunday night. Dad thought of the Firebird. It was a car too noticeable to be noticed, and Mr. McLeod would fit on the floor up front. Grandma Magill remembered that Grandpa had kept the keys to every building he’d ever built.
So we were all in on it. I was the unidentified student in the back of the car, next to the dog.
We’d picked up Mr. McLeod in the lot outside his gym, where he’d parked his old beat-up Kia, not the Hummer I’d hoped for. Then Dad tooled us across town. Mr. McLeod was under the dashboard. From down there he introduced me to the dog, who wanted to shake my hand. He was a Belgian Malinois named Argus.
He crowded me on the backseat and looked like he could eat your head if it was dinner time. Cops waved Dad into the parking lot at school. Then Mr. McLeod and Argus and I made a run for the furnace room door. I had the key and led them to the classroom. Lynette had come early with her mom.
“Look, no socks,” she said, pointing out Mr. McLeod’s ankles. He was in a dark blue blazer this morning, button-down blue shirt, maroon tie, wingtip shoes. It would be a long time before any of us saw him in uniform again. But that gets ahead of the story.
“That’s a new pantsuit on Mrs. Stanley,” Lynette remarked. “And she bought all the blusher at Walgreen’s. She cleared their shelves. She thought she looked too washed out on TV.”
Mrs. Stanley was showing Mr. McLeod the roll book or something. Argus was stretched out in the paperwork on the floor, monitoring the room. It was the calm before the storm.
Lynette leaned over. “What’s the dog about?”
“Search me,” I said. “It’s just his dog, I guess. It got in the car with him.”
Lynette’s eyes rolled. “It’s not just his dog. Look at the collar on it. It’s some kind of official dog, a professional. Maybe it can sniff out narcotics or dead bodies. Maybe it’s trained to attack immature students who never notice anything.”
“Who?” I said. “Russell Beale?”
Lynette sighed, and the room exploded with everybody else: seeing Mr. McLeod, spotting the dog, milling around. They’d fought their way through the au pairs, and they were all keyed up and unready to learn.
All the guys wanted to fist-bump Mr. McLeod. Josh Hunnicutt’s fist was above his head. A couple of girls cried at the sight of him—not the usual criers. Needless to say, nobody was absent. We were hoping there’d be more helicopters. Raymond Petrovich wrote himself a pass to walk the attendance form down to the office. We never did get computerized attendance records at that school.
Raymond dodged past Mrs. Dempsey, who loomed into the room with her phone out. An unauthorized dog had been reported. Also, unauthorized people were outside our windows.
One was a big blond woman with a baby, holding up a sign that read:
HI, ED!
AU WHAT A PAIR WE’D MAKE!
“A dog, Mr. McLeod?” Mrs. Dempsey said in her voice of doom.
“Yes, ma’am, his name’s Argus.”
Argus arose. He was one beautiful dog, with that long muzzle and pointed ears and a brown coat with a star of white fur on his chest.
Everybody said, “Awww.”
Coming to attention, Argus put up a big paw and expected Mrs. Dempsey to shake it.
“Cool,” we all breathed. Mrs. Dempsey froze. But she had to shake the paw. Argus was waiting. Just as she did, a camera flashed from somewhere.
Mrs. Stanley smiled slightly from her desk.
“Argus is a military working dog. He’s the breed guarding the White House,” Mr. McLeod told us, teaching already. “And the same breed the Navy SEALs used to get Osama bin Laden.”
“Whoa,” we said. Josh Hunnicutt was standing on his desk so he could see. Russell Beale was wide-awake.
“Argus was a scout up on the front lines,” Mr. McLeod said. “He wore a tactical vest with cameras and durable microphones to relay information back to the base.”
“Whoa,” we said again, and “wow.”
“There was a time when army dogs were put to sleep after they’d served their hitches,” Mr. McLeod told us.
“NOOO!” we roared.
“But now through a Department of Defense adoption program, they’re re-assigned to civilian law enforcement. Argus was a soldier. Now he’s going to be a cop somewhere. My Guard unit is handling him while he’s in transit.”
Argus knew Mr. McLeod was telling us his story. He showed us his profile. He was like a recruiting poster for dogs.
Cameras flashed again, from somewhere. We were used to them by now. It’s the price of fame.
Mrs. Dempsey’s mouth worked without words. What could she say about a dog who’d been safeguarding our freedoms? Besides, Argus was practically a four-footed lesson plan. We were learning stuff this morning, and that didn’t happen every day.
“Tactically brilliant,” Lynette murmured. “They’ve got Dempsey on the run.”
Mrs. Dempsey wobbled, and a camera clicked, somewhere. The phone in her hand rang. Her personal ring tone was “School days, school days, good old golden rule days.” She took the call.
“NO,” she barked, “absolutely no one is allowed in except the people replacing the glass in the front door. And where are the police who are supposed to be patrolling our perimeters? We have people with cameras in the trees. Never mind. I’m coming at once!” One more bleak look at Mrs. Stanley and Mrs. Dempsey was out the door.
“She called herself,” Lynette remarked.
• • •
Mrs. Dempsey’s picture made Tuesday’s paper. She was shaking Argus’s paw. Here’s what the headline said:
GI JOE’S K9 ATTACK DOG WELCOMES PRINCIPAL VELMA DEMPSEY, 52, TO HER OWN SCHOOL
That picture practically went to the moon and back. It ended up on the website of the American Kennel Club and the Belgian Malinois Breeders’ Quarterly and the online magazine of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. According to Lynette, it was Mrs. Stanley’s screen saver.