34

It was Thanksgiving weekend when Dad moved in with us. Not exactly a Norman Rockwell moment. He was just going to stay until things calmed down, whenever that would be. Nobody was in the mood to celebrate, but Mom went down to Schnucks and picked up a turkey dinner, and we all ate it in the attic that we lived in.

Dad wasn’t happy about the whole situation. Not happy with missing work, not happy with me, and not happy with the place Mom and me lived in. The couch was in bad shape, so the first thing he did was buy us a new one, because he was going be sleeping on it.

Since we moved here, he had never visited or asked about our circumstances. He’d lost a lot of our money and there was that thing about another woman, so I figured maybe he was too ashamed to show his face. But he was here now and trying to be “Dad” again.

He and Mom talked about me staying home from school, but Dad was determined that I act like everything was normal. “Only a guilty person hides,” he said.

Mom was concerned for my safety, but after speaking to Principal Evans, he assured them that Mr. Jamison would escort me between classes. That way I could at least finish out the term. Dad would take me to and from school, so I was covered. Other than that, I’d be grounded. No phone, no friends. And no contact with TKO crew.

Mom had been reluctant to go to work that first day I went back to school, but Dad said he had it under control. It was weird waking up Monday morning for school and seeing Dad in the kitchen. He was already on the phone making calls when I walked in. While I was eating breakfast, I saw him going through his briefcase and that’s when I saw he’d brought his gun. I almost choked on my Froot Loops.

“Really?” I said, pointing.

“Tillman thought we should have some protection. Hopefully, I won’t need it while I’m here. But according to you, I could be knocked out by a twelve-year-old at any time. If any of your little boyfriends tries that on me . . .” He took out his gun and checked the chamber. One bullet.

I don’t know what was scarier, the idea that we might be attacked or that my dad was packing. I knew he’d never fired that gun in real life, except at the shooting range. In fact, he always kept only one bullet in it at any time. You can do a lot of stupid things with six bullets, he’d say. One forces you to make a real choice—and to choose wisely.

The gun was just for show, something to impress all the sketchy characters that came into his business at one in the morning looking to bail out their buddies. But he did go to the range and had made it a point to take me before we moved here, so I’d know how to shoot it as well. He suggested we get one for the house, just in case, but Mom wouldn’t have anything to do with that.

Maybe she wouldn’t be so against it these days. Dad had gotten a newspaper before I even got up, and Mrs. Lee’s death was on the front page. TEACHER KILLED BY KIDS read the headline. Are Today’s Youths Incapable of Empathy? read another opinion piece. Details were being withheld pending investigation, but seeing Mrs. Lee’s photo in the paper made me dizzy.

Alice Lee, fifty-four, an art teacher and community organizer, a mother of two, both in their twenties now. Her husband, Joe, had been a medic in the Iraq war; he had been wounded and retired.

They didn’t seem like the reactionaries I imagined them to be. They lived near the library and went there a few times a week. Friends and colleagues said she loved her students.

That last detail got me. I wondered what she was thinking when she saw me with all those kids attacking her and her husband. Did she still love us then?

I wondered if she had any inkling that morning that it’d be her last. Is that something you can feel coming, like right before a storm when the wind kicks up and the air turns heavy? Or was it a complete surprise?

Her husband Joe was in the hospital. He had a broken jaw and swelling on the brain. They said he didn’t remember anything. One minute, he was at their favorite library; the next, he woke up and his wife was dead.

I felt sorry for him. I remembered Kalvin saying, What do you care what happens to them? You don’t know them. They could be child abusers for all you know. But they weren’t.

I thought about our other targets and wondered what had happened to them. Were they afraid to go out anymore? Did they hate the world because of us?

Then, I saw that Mrs. Lee’s funeral had been set for Wednesday. I tore out the notice and put it in my pocket. There was going to be a candlelight vigil tonight as well. Maybe I’d go to that.

Dad saw me reading the piece, but didn’t say anything. What could he say?