This time, she’d gone clockwise: up B Quad and past the apple orchard to the creek, then down the roadside fence and across the courts. As she reached the offices, she heard the clatter of folding tables down the breezeway. Today had been an extra load on Tío, but he’d even managed to get the new nets on the basketball hoops. She made a mental note to find some thank-you gift for him, and went through the office door shortly before the end-of-lunch bell.
A dozen or so students crowded around the high counter. Linda raised her eyebrow at Mrs. Hopkins, who first shook her head to indicate she didn’t need assistance, then continued with less welcome news. “We’re missing two speakers.”
“Missing? You mean the afternoon speakers haven’t shown up yet?”
“The physical therapist is here—for Sports Medicine—but the other two are not.” The secretary looked disapproving but untroubled, and gave a paper to one student, stretched out her hand for the next one’s problem, all the while listening to the pleas of the one in front of her—Chaco Cabrera. Mrs. Hopkins put up one finger to pause the young man’s flow of words, and addressed herself to Linda. “Dr. Whittaker phoned to say her flight got in late but she’ll only be delayed five or ten minutes, so I sent Carmen down to help with her students. The other’s Mr. Atcheson. I phoned him ten minutes ago but it went to voice-mail, so he may be on the road. I left a message.”
Oh Lord, Linda thought. Olivia had said the man was merely being investigated: did they arrest him instead? “What room is it? I’ll either take his group or redistribute the kids.”
“B18.”
“I have my phone.” Linda patted her pocket to be sure. “Text me if you hear from him. Anything else that can’t wait?”
“Two messages on your desk, they didn’t sound urgent. All right, Chaco: no, I’m sorry, I can’t change your session just because a girl is giving you a hard time. Don’t sit next to her and you’ll be fine—but run along before you need a late slip. Now, Sarah, what have you got into?”
Linda continued through to her office, praying that one of the messages wasn’t to say that the world was due to collapse onto Guadalupe Middle School.
12:38
Nick
Halfway up A Quad, Nick Clarkson saw Brendan Atcheson walking toward him. Nick kept his head down, but to his astonishment, the big kid stopped and said his name.
Nick could only gape at him. He knows who I am?
Brendan took his silence for an answer. “You’re doing an online campaign, right? About Bee Cuomo?”
“Uh, yeah. Sort of. I mean, I started it, kind of, but then everyone else—”
“Are you hiding your tracks? Using a proxy server?”
“Um, I’m not sure. I mean, I’ve heard of it, but…”
“You should use one.”
“Okay, if you think it’s a good idea. Could you maybe show me how?”
Brendan hesitated. “Yeah, but there’s loads of other people who could, too. If you ask around. Mina Santos might help you find someone. You know, in case I’m not here, or something.”
Nick hastened to reassure the eighth-grader that he wasn’t trying to latch onto him. “Oh, sure, I understand. I’ll see if I can figure it out. Like in the library, before school tomorrow? Maybe, if you’re here early and don’t have anything to do, you could stop in and show me. Or not, I’ll figure it out.”
“You probably would. But yeah, sure. If I’m here in the morning, I’ll come by the library.”
Nick could tell that the chances of that were less than nothing. “Yeah, okay. Great!”
“See you ’round.” Brendan ducked his head and walked off.
Nick watched Brendan continue down the quad toward the office. He’d actually been thinking of getting out of #speakforbee, considering how nasty the stuff was getting. But maybe he’d hang on a little longer.
Even being turned down by someone like Brendan Atcheson felt strangely good.
12:38
Mina
Mina came around the far end of B Wing and found Sofia talking with a bunch of other girls. It surprised her. So she kept straight on going toward the restroom at the end of the gym, where she closed herself into a stall.
She heard Sofia come in, heard her “Hey,” but Mina just spoke across the dividers. “You go ahead so you’re not late, I need to text my mom.”
“Man, your mother.” Sofia stayed where she was. Mina knew she would be checking her hair in the mirror, waiting—but Mina just stayed behind her door. After a minute, Sofia asked if she was nearly done.
“Don’t wait for me.”
There was silence, then Sofia made a little sound of annoyance and left. As the door wheezed shut, an ugly little thought snuck into Mina’s mind: Am I jealous?
Didn’t she want Sofia to have other friends?
Mina nearly ran after her, but there was the phone in her hand and the mother in her life. So she paused to hit SEND on “All fine here mom thanks for lunch luv M” before shoving the phone away and hurrying out of the bathroom—in time to see Sofia’s back vanish into room B18 across the quad.
But standing in the shade of the breezeway, she could see something else as well: Chaco Cabrera, down at the far end of B Quad. Sofia would have had the sun in her eyes, so she hadn’t noticed Chaco. Hadn’t seen him stop dead; hadn’t seen in his face a mix of emotions that even Mina, way down at the end of the gym, could follow: I should hate you but, oh…
Romeo must have looked at Juliet, the daughter of his family’s enemies, with exactly that expression. (Of course, Shakespeare just had to kill them both off, but still.) After a moment, the short kid with the scary family and the reputation for sullenness started forward again. Mina began to walk, too. As she went by him, halfway down the quad, she paid Sofia back for that moment of petty rejection by speaking into the air.
“She really likes you, you know.”
And walked on toward the cafeteria, grinning in mischief.
12:39
Chaco
Chaco rounded the end of B Wing just in time to see Sofia Rivas, tall and gorgeous, cross the quad and go through the doorway of B18.
She’d been looking straight at him, her last five steps, and ignored him like he was one of the breezeway posts. Puta was going to get what her sister got, if she didn’t watch out. Nose in the air bitch. Haughty was the word for her, even if it sounded like hottie. Though she was that, too.
Oh, Chaco thought as he forced his feet to carry him forward, why couldn’t he be Mr. Cool like Brendan Atcheson, all the girls hanging on to him? Like this one coming at him—Mina Santos, short-and-gorgeous friend of tall-and-gorgeous Sofia. Two girls who looked at him like he was something the dog brought home. Well, they wouldn’t look down on him once he’d made his name to cousin Taco.
Soon—very soon.
He wasn’t surprised when she walked past like she didn’t see him. But he was surprised—astonished—when she spoke at him in passing.
“She really likes you, you know.”
He stopped dead and stared after her, but Mina never turned around, just walked through the cafeteria’s double doors and let them drift shut.
A minute later, when Chaco starting moving again toward room B18, the world was a different place.
12:40
Linda
Linda was hurrying in the direction of B Quad when she heard her name. She turned, walking backward to illustrate her unwillingness to stop fully: the Atcheson boy, shambling under that giant backpack. She’d been aware of him several times that morning, and once or twice she’d thought he was looking in her direction, but he seemed no surlier than usual, suggesting that he hadn’t heard any news about his father. She continued moving, but slowly.
“Hi, Brendan, that was a great game last week. Sorry, I’m in a bit of a— Oh, wait.” She stopped. “I don’t suppose you know where your dad is?” Cellphones were banned on campus—the use of them, anyway—but the smart-ass son of a tech millionaire might ignore the rules.
&n
bsp; She was braced for his usual vague shrug, but to her surprise, he looked startled. “No, I thought— He said he’d be here.”
“Probably stuck in traffic. Look, Brendan, have you—” But before she could decide how to ask Have you heard any news about your father? a sound echoed down B Quad: a sudden burst of laughter—the kind that spelled trouble. “Brendan, I really need to take over your…to take over one of the classrooms for a few minutes, our speaker’s been delayed. Can you wait for me in my office?”
“I have to give you something.” The hefty pack swung forward; raucous adolescent voices built in the distance.
“I’ll try not to be more than a few minutes, and then you’ll have my full attention.”
“But I—”
The office door opened behind him, emitting two girls with admit slips. Linda lowered her voice. “I can see this is important to you, Brendan, but if I don’t get into that classroom it’ll be in pieces. Do you want to wait in my office, or in your assigned room? Where are you, this next period?”
“The cafeteria. Sports Medicine. Yeah, I guess so. It can wait.”
The boy slumped, that adolescent declaration that the world had kicked his dreams, yet again. Although maybe that wasn’t fair. She should…
No, she couldn’t: a classroom riot would not improve anything. And whatever Brendan Atcheson’s troubles were, they wouldn’t be quickly dealt with.
In any case, it was the boy’s father who’d given her the current problem.
She reached out to give the boy’s arm a squeeze, and told him to ask Mrs. Hopkins for a late slip. As she hurried toward the sound of impending chaos, she noticed a white van flying down the access road at the far end of the breezeway.
12:41
Mina
When the bell rang, Brendan wasn’t there. Mina leaned casually against the stage, fiddling with the Sports Medicine guy’s collection of bands and rubber balls, waiting for Brendan to come rushing in.
The clock ticked; twelve other kids; no Brendan.
Mina was so glad she hadn’t let him know that she would be at his session. Obviously, Brendan Atcheson couldn’t care less.
12:41
The long white van had approached Guadalupe Middle School from the west, waiting in the turn lane while a line of eight cars dawdled behind a farm truck. The ninth car, a Honda that came in from the side road, accelerated to join the queue, but the van swung across the road in front of it. The Honda’s driver slammed on her brakes and leaned on the horn in protest.
Mrs. Hopkins glanced out the office window at the sound. She saw the van, pulling too fast into the access road, and shook her head, hoping that whatever piece of equipment the van held wasn’t now smashed all over its floor.
12:41
Brendan
Brendan watched Ms. McDonald hurry down the breezeway, her weird haircut flying in every direction. When she disappeared into B Quad, he turned away, dimly aware of a white van speeding by. Takes me all morning to get up my nerve, and she puts me off! He was supposed to go sit in her office, like some kid in a time-out? During the only Career Day session he was even remotely interested in? (And no, not only because the list showed Mina Santos would be there.)
Fuck that. The principal could wait in her office for him.
Maybe he should’ve given his speech to Coach instead, when he had the chance, and started things there. But Coach was even older than the rest of them, probably too old to get it. Plus that, he already figured Brendan was a loser. No, better to do like he’d rehearsed so many times: stand in front of Principal McDonald—stand, not sit—and give her the speech, watching her eyes grow large before he reached into his pack…
Yet another case of the world agreeing that he was a loser who couldn’t get anything right. That Brendan Atcheson—didn’t deserve the name Connelly—was sure to back out of a thing if it looked a little bit hard. Even his mother gave up on him: didn’t that prove that making something of his life was just a fantasy?
But he couldn’t back out (not now). The disc was made, and he’d given his word. Maybe he could, like, push things along a little? Take a small step first, and the rest would follow?
So he did walk down to the office, but instead of just getting an admit slip from Mrs. Hopkins, he handed her the disc that had been burning a hole in his backpack all morning. “This is for Ms. McDonald. She said she’d be here in a few minutes.”
Old Hopkins gave it a look that made Brendan wonder if she knew what a computer disc was, but she did take it, and say she’d put it on the principal’s desk.
He accepted the late slip and turned away, to be prompted by a disapproving voice. “‘Thank you, Mrs. Hopkins.’”
“Yeah,” he called over his shoulder. “Thanks.”
12:42
Linda
Linda waited until she was actually standing in the doorway of the noisy classroom before she hit the phone icon on her cell and lifted it to her ear. A ripple of dismay ran through the students as they noticed her. A trio of eighth-grade boys with embarrassed grins drifted toward the desks. Chaco Cabrera dropped into the farthest-away seat.
Linda just stood there, looking at them as she waited for the call to go through. “Hello, Sergeant Mendez. A white van just went down the access road in a rush. Would you please either go direct them to whatever classroom is expecting them, or come to B18 and watch this class while I go see? Okay, thanks.”
She thumbed off the call, silenced the phone as she always did in a classroom, and dropped it into the pocket of her blazer, standing for a moment longer to cow the students into complete silence. Only then did she reach back to shut the door behind her.
12:42
Olivia
Olivia’s phone buzzed twice before she got her shirt pocket undone. “Hi, Linda.” As she was listening, the phone made the noise of one incoming text, then immediately another. “Sure, I’ll go see what they need.”
The texts were from Torres and Mrs. Hopkins.
Cuomo took a bright red convertible down to Big Sur, he’s in a bar.
Well, that was a relief, anyway. The text from the school secretary bore a request similar to Linda’s: someone driving too fast had gone toward the staff lot and if Olivia saw them, she should remind him that there were children on school grounds.
Olivia was smiling as she put the phone away, and continued down A Quad toward the offices.
12:42
The white van braked hard as it went past the first set of double doors at the back of the cafeteria, dangerously close to the sheer wall. An onlooker might have expected it to swing wide into the staff parking lot. Instead it slowed and kept to its path, coming ever closer to the painted concrete blocks. By the second pair of cafeteria doors, it had dropped to a crawl, its side mirror nearly scraping the paint. It continued forward another ten feet to where the kitchen door stood, and there it stopped.
When its engine went quiet, the vehicle was blocking two of the cafeteria’s five exit routes.
The driver’s door came open. A figure wearing jeans, a leather jacket over a gray sweatshirt, and a black baseball cap walked around the front to check the gap between fender and wall, then circled back along the van’s path to the first pair of doors. A shiny metal device dangled from the driver’s hand. He threaded it through the doors’ two handles, pushing its ends together. Back at the van, he leaned inside the open door and pulled out a heavy ballistic-nylon gym bag.
The man held his right hand deep in the jacket’s pocket, as he strode up the empty road, past the high kitchen window, the three sets of gymnasium doors, and the row of vents from the boys’ locker room. At the end of the wing, he peered around the corner, then continued, disappearing from sight.
It had begun.
12:44
Olivia
Olivia came out of the breezeway and there was the white van, parked so close to the cafeteria it was a wonder the mirror wasn’t scraped away. She walked forward, expecting a puzzled driver armed with a clip
board to climb down from the open door and ask if she knew where to find room…
She had actually gone past the first set of cafeteria doors before her cop’s peripheral vision tugged her head around for a glance—and she stood gaping for a moment at the double doors, their matching handles tied together by one of those expensive bike locks that took massive bolt-cutters to get off…
Then the alarms started to go off in her head. Her right hand snatched out her sidearm while her left ripped at her shirt pocket for the cellphone. She thumbed it on without taking her eyes from the van, giving a quick glance at the still-open text from Mrs. Hopkins to locate the little phone icon. She tapped it and put the thing to her ear, knees bent and gun out and aimed. Pulse racing, vision narrowed to that open door, Olivia had to wait for three endless rings before Mrs. Hopkins came on the line.
“Hello, Sergeant Mendez, what—”
Olivia overrode her. “There’s a van smack up against the back of the cafeteria, blocking one set of doors, and a bike lock through the handles of the others. Do you know anything about that?”
“A bicycle lock? I don’t think—”
“Okay, I’m going to go see what’s up, but you need to call 911. Tell them I’m going radio silent but I need backup right now, tell them to use lights but no sirens, repeat no sirens. And I want you standing next to the school alarm switch. If you hear anything at all, hit the lockdown. Got that?”