part0005

The fighters’ trucks outside the schoolyard meant trouble, serious trouble. The teacher looked up from his desk as the loud rumble broke his concentration. He glanced through the dusty, cracked window at six young men, barely in their teens, stepping out of the trucks. Most brandished AK rifles and PKM machine guns. One had a rocket-propelled grenade launcher over his shoulder.

The teacher frowned. He recognized the bandana-wrapped face of the boy carrying the launcher. He was Mostafa, who had been a smart, kind student. Until three years ago. A drone attack had obliterated a house next to the mosque, right behind the school funded and operated by the mosque’s Imams. The Americans had claimed they targeted an Al-Qaeda terrorist cell operating in the city. The teacher was there when frantic family members and emergency crews dragged out the dead bodies of Mostafa’s father, as well as two of his uncles and their wives and children. There were no al-Qaeda terrorists in the house. The Americans had blamed bad local intelligence, but had not compensated the families of the dead or even offered an apology.

A slight commotion came from the back of the classroom. A few of the children sitting next to the windows were looking at the fighters, who were running toward the school. The teacher stood up and pushed his black-rimmed glasses to the bridge of his nose. What’s going on? What are they doing? He said to the class, “Quiet. Everyone, be quiet. Let’s pay attention and work on the exercise.”

The teacher looked at the boy standing by the blackboard. He had stopped writing with the white chalk and had stepped closer to the window. “Why haven’t you answered the question? Do you not know the answer?” He gestured at the board, where he had written the question: What are the primary export industries in our country?

The boy looked down at the concrete floor, then at the class. “I know. I just… I don’t remember.”

“You know more than you think.” The teacher walked closer to the boy and tousled his black hair. “What does your father do?”

“He works for BP, at the refinery,” the boy replied in a weak voice.

“Refinery. And what do they refine there?”

“What do they produce?”

The teacher smiled and tipped his head at the question. “Where does that go?”

The boy hesitated for a moment and smiled. “Europe. We export gas.”

“Good, very good. Write that down. And think of what else…”

He looked at the students and smiled at the boy sitting in the front row next to the wall. Ndioko was the teacher’s firstborn son. He had turned ten a month ago, and as a birthday present, he had asked for a special pen and a notebook. “I want to be a teacher, like Father,” he had announced in the presence of the large family gathering.

Ndioko returned the smile and looked out the window. Harsh shouts sounded very close. The teacher stepped near the window as a short burst of rifle gunfire erupted not far away. He looked at one of the gunmen firing in the air. Another one, who the teacher knew was their leader, was arguing with the school’s principal and the guard. They were all standing outside the entrance to the small school.

“Father, what’s going on?” Ndioko said.

“Nothing, it’s nothing to worry about.”

He didn’t know the reason for the conflict, but it didn’t seem the gang were leaving any time soon. The leader, a tall, skinny man dressed in full black fatigues, pointed at the entrance, and pushed the principal away. When the guard intervened, the man who had fired the rifle aimed it at the guard’s chest.

The teacher shook his head and removed his glasses. He tossed them onto his desk and dashed toward the door. He glanced at the worried looks on his student’s faces and said, “It’s alright. Everything is alright. Stay away from the windows, and don’t go out of the classroom. Okay?”

A few nods, then someone asked, “What’s going on, Teacher?”

“I’m going to find out. Stay inside the classroom.”

He closed the door behind him and ran through the hall. The school building had only eight classrooms, his being the third one on the right side of the building. When he came to the area connecting the halls, he faced four gunmen who were running toward him. “Hey, where are you going? This is a school…”

“Out of the way, old man,” yelled one of them.

“Old man? Who do you call old man ?”

“You. You’re a scared old man.”

The teacher looked at the gunman who was just passing him. “Mostafa, what’s going on?”

The boy slowed his steps for a moment and shook his head.

“Come on, tell me, what’s going on?”

Mostafa waited until the rest of the gunmen had rounded the corner. “The Americans, they’re chasing us.”

“What? I didn’t see any vehicles outside.”

Mostafa shook his head. His small beady eyes were alarmed, and he kept looking at the school’s entrance door. “It’s a helicopter, one of the army ones.”

The teacher frowned. “Why? What did you do?”

“We attacked their embassy and—”

“You fools! Why did you do that?”

Mostafa’s eyes shot an angry look at his former teacher. “Because we’ve had enough. Enough with the Americans telling us what to do; enough with them taking all our riches and resources. Enough with being their slaves.”

The teacher shook his balding head. No time to educate and correct Mostafa’s misunderstandings of the region’s geopolitics. “You can’t hide in the school—”

“We are. The Americans will not think we’re here—”

“They’ll see your vehicles outside. They’re not stupid.”

Mostafa shrugged. “They might, but they’ll never attack the school. The children…”

A shiver went through the teacher’s body. Yes, the children, all one hundred of them. And Ndioko. Especially Ndioko. We’ve got to get them all out of here.

Mostafa began to walk away, but the teacher grabbed his arm. “Mostafa, you’re different. You’re not like them—”

“I am.” He pushed away the teacher’s hand. “I was a sheep, learning submission and comp… compliance. No more. I’m a wolf now. I determine my own fate.”

The teacher shrugged. “Okay. Please determine to help these poor children. Help me get them to safety, before the fighting starts—”

“What fighting?”

The teacher opened his mouth to reply, but a long volley came from behind them. He looked toward the school’s entrance. One of the gunmen fired through the open door and slid inside.

A torrent of bullets shattered the windows around him and splintered the door. The heavy-caliber bullets pierced the walls of the school, sending chunks of brick through the hall. The gunman was covered in a layer of debris, but he wasn’t dead.

He crawled to his knees and picked up his machine gun. He set it on one of the windowsills and began to blast with the weapon.

The teacher cursed out loudly. He ran toward the gunner, but Mostafa stopped the teacher by seizing him by the scruff of his jacket. “Stay back with the children, before everyone is—”

His words were cut off by a loud, powerful explosion. It blew up the entrance door and half of the window and the wall. The gunner was tossed back like a rag doll, along with the machine gun and wall fragments. A few chunks struck the teacher and Mostafa, who were about a dozen or so steps back.

Mostafa shook his head, shoved the teacher to the side, and shouldered his rocket launcher.

The teacher heard screaming and shouting coming from the back. The children. Ndioko!

He turned around and sprinted as fast as he could. Heavy gunfire erupted as he hurried around the corner. It seemed to come from his classroom. What? What are those morons doing?

He barged into his classroom to find it turned into a battlefield. Two of the gunmen were positioned next to the windows and were firing their automatic rifles at unseen targets. Most of the children were shaking and sobbing, hiding underneath the desks. A few of the brave, or reckless, ones were standing next to the gunmen.

Ndioko was one of them.

The teacher shouted, “Ndioko, come here.”

Amid the gunfire, perhaps Ndioko never heard his father’s call. Or maybe he ignored it, choosing the “heroes” versus his meek father. Whatever it was, the teacher never found out.

He bolted toward Ndioko, trying to remove him from the line of fire.

He was a second too late.

The teacher felt the powerful force of the explosion at the same time he saw the bright flash of orange light blind him. His ears began to ring while the blast lifted him off the floor and threw him hard against one of the desks. He fell back onto the floor and landed underneath a second desk, which fell on him.

That ended up saving his life.

It sheltered the teacher’s wounded body from the ceiling that collapsed over his head. Chunks of wood, brick, and concrete came tumbling down from all directions.

“Ndioko, Ndioko, where are you?” the teacher shouted.

The explosion had burst his eardrums, so he couldn’t hear anything but the endless, eerie ringing. He looked around the dust-filled room. “Ndioko, my son, Ndioko, where… where are you?”

The teacher thought he heard replies and blinked to clear his watery eyes. He began to cough violently, and blood spurted from his mouth. He cleaned his eyes with the back of his hands, and shapes like trees walking around appeared in front of him. He recognized a couple of the children running toward him, and the teacher sent them toward the still-open door. A second group of five or six followed. Before sending them to safety, he asked if anyone had seen his son.

Most of them shook their heads. Then one of the boys pointed with his tiny hand to where the windows had stood a moment ago. “There, he… he’s there.”

The teacher helped the boys out of the classroom, then stepped toward the gap the explosion had opened in the wall. The bodies of the attackers were sprawled next to their weapons. Next to them, there was…

The teacher shook his head. He closed his eyes, not wanting to believe what he had just seen. “No, no, no, no. That can’t… that can’t be… my… my Ndioko, my little boy, Ndioko…”