Posts Tagged ‘5th grade’

Burial in the Night

Posted: January 27, 2012 in Alcott School
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I wake up just as the sun is setting the following day. Havier is with me, but the kids aren’t. I shoot up scared that my own selfishness caused another fatality.

“They’re on the roof in the snow with Matilda and Bonnie.”

“Bonnie,” I barely get it out, my mouth is so dry.

“Yes. The teacher who read your log?”

I clear my throat. “You mean blog.”

He shrugs. “I guess.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s fine.”

Several weighted moments float by. “Did you at least bury him?”

He looks at me again,wanting very badly to be the sardonic asshole that he is, but he stops mhimself ans says, “no. The ground is frozen. We put him in with Steinberg.”

I can feel my mouth literally drop to the floor. I’m stunned and disgusted that he’s in there with her. And that Havier had even thought that that was a viable option after he killed him right in front of me.

I push past him. I grab one of the shovels from the front and I storm out of the building. I can see the Undead in the distance, getting more restless as the night approaches, but at that moment in time, I just don’t give a damn. I’m already hacking into the kickball field when Havier comes out and stands on the far end, where the dirt ends and the grass begins.

“Have you gone completely loca,” he shouts. “The thombies are right there!” His inner Spainard is blazing at this point.

“Perhaps, but there is no way that he’s going to stay in the hole!”

“Leez, Leez – he’s gone! What is left -”

“Don’t even give me that bullshit.” I’m crying again. Yelling and crying, ugh. “This is the last thing that I can do for him so just shut the fuck up!”

He stares at me speechless for a moment. I can see the kids peeking out over the edge of the roof – Bonnie and Matilda included. Eventually Bonnie comes down with another shovel and begins to help me without so much as a word passing between us.

It goes faster with the help. She even helps me lift his body and move it outside. I covered the bloody stump where his head used to be with a rag. His head is in a garbage bag. Havier drove a screw driver through it just to make sure that nothing reanimated. I struggle to get his body down into the grave. Bonnie tries to help, but I am quick to wave her off.

Much like when I buried my students, I’m sobbing and struggling to find footing as I maneuver his body into the grave. I can feel the last real, tangible bit of my old life dying. There’s my mom and Ryan, but I haven’t seen them and though I might find my mom, my hope for Ryan never truly did exist. My hope is dying. I’m done.

I finally get his body in and it’s only after that I have him situated that I decide that I want his wallet. I want something of his to carry with me. After fumbling with him some more, I get it out. I leave him with his credit cards thinking that when this is finally all over and they start cleaning up, at least they’ll be able to identify him as John Reardon. I take off my once pink cardigan and I lay it over him. I’m not entirely sure why I do this, but at that moment I felt such comfort in doing it that I didn’t stop myself. I place his head beside him and together Bonnie and I begin to shovel the dirt back in.

One of the Undead had gotten past the fence again. I smack her straight in the face as Bonnie and I begin to walk back inside. She falls but doesn’t (re)die. I break away from Bonnie and now Havier. Matilda and the kids are all but leaning off the roof to see the commotion. Without a thought, I’m straddling the zombie I knocked down. I bare down and lodge the tip of my shovel into her mouth. I can hear and feel her bones and ligaments breaking and snapping as I push forward, severing her head in two. I stand up and spit on her.

Havier is watching me with that shocked expression again. More zombies are coming and at that moment, I’m just so pissed off that I want to take them all on, but Havier grabs me from behind and hoists me up. I drop the shovel. Matilda is getting the kids inside and Bonnie picks up my shovel and tries to help Havier get me inside. I’m strugging against him, waving both of my middle fingers furiously in the air and yelling…

“Fuck you, you fucking rotting parasitic flesh eating DOUCHE BAGS,” I whale at them. I reach down and rip off my flats and I throw them at the Undead. I hit one smack in the face while the other just falls to the cement. Regardless, it just me feel better even if no walker was hurt.

I don’t care who hears me. I don’t care that the kids can see all of this.

I’m just done.

You may take your apocalypse and shove it, Trebeck.

Lover’s Reunion

Posted: January 25, 2012 in Alcott School
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I confess to him in the dusky light of my classroom. He’s helping me cut the deep mats from my hair and clean the dirt and blood from my body. The man came with soap like some savior. His face is thick with a beard that I am not sure I could ever get used to, but his eyes though older still radiate that warm glow that turned my stomach into butterflies the first time I saw him.

I tell him about the lock down and the bombing and how we’ve been waiting here for him and for parents. I cry, sob actually when I get to the point where I’m telling him about how I got drunk and I let my kids gets killed. He draws me to him then, in his subtle way that lets me know that somewhere before all of this and after all of this we always were.

He’s holding me and I drift in and out of sleep as I listen to his breath and heart working systematically. I feel myself being lulled into such a softness, such a comfort, that I feel myself falling into a haze that I never quite want to come out of. He arrived with the teachers from the town over. They met on the main drag into town and decided to work together to get here. There had been five teachers at the beginning of their journey, but by the time they got here there were only two.

In the darkness I turn to him and ask him what he thinks we should do next.

“It’s terrible out there,” he says, as his free hand strokes my hair, well, what’s left of it. “The cities are completely overrun. They told everyone to get to New York or Philadelphia, but it all just fell apart. I don’t know what it’s like beyond here, but I can only imagine it being as horrible as the last few broadcasts were on TV.”

“We can’t stay here. It’s disgusting and we’ve turned it into a mass graveyard out there. We can’t…”

“I know.” He kisses my forehead. “You were saying something about a bus?” I nod. “Well, some of the roads are impassable, but there are other ways around it. We need to get to your mom and then we need to figure something else. To stay in the burbs or go to the city would be stupid. Too many Undead and too many oddball survivors.”

“The farm then,” I suggest, thinking of the farm that his parents had owned when they had still been alive.

“It’s our best bet.”

We grow quiet again and for a moment, I draw closer to him, almost as if I’m questioning again whether or not this is real. I turn softly and suddenly John feels different underneath my arms. He feels cold and has that scent about him, that decaying scent that the Undead are saturated in.

I hear myself screaming and thrashing and sitting up, yelling. I hear Havier in the background. He’s talking to a blond woman that I don’t know. We never got this far…

“We have to sedate her,” the woman says.

Havier shakes his head, running his hand through his hair. “We don’t have those things here. We don’t have.”

“She can’t go on like this, the kids are scared enough. We have to find something.”

Havier is digging through the boxes from the nurses office, trying to find something more potent then advil. He gets excited when he finds something. The blond is holding me down and I can taste that I think is Nyquil being poured down my throat.

It’s even cloudier now and I think of John again. I think of John walking towards me. I’m off the roof now and running through the school. I am all but before him when I realize John had been bitten, had been turning and when we reached each other for the last time, I saw the very last bit of his life draining from him. We embraced and he winced. The blond was with him, that was where I had seen her before. She had been helping him.

“We found him on the main road,” she explained. “He was bitten, but he had to get here, to you and we helped him because we read your blog and knew this was the John you were waiting for.”

I’m screaming again, but not as loud and John is fading, his eyes aging and fading rapidly. I stay with him and I watch him, he runs his hand down my face and that was it.

That was all that was left of him. He was gone and before anyone knew it, Havier came bolting out of the building and decapitated him before he had a chance to reanimate.

And at that moment all I remember is the blood and the screaming.

Zombie Septic Shock

Posted: January 24, 2012 in Alcott School
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The story of what happened to our school nurse is probably one of the most vile things that has happened to us since this shit storm began only a few weeks ago. The day started out as normal as any day from now on can. It was absolutely freezing after the storm hit on Saturday. We spent much of the morning huddled together in the media center just trying to stay warm. By the afternoon, Havier and I decided that we needed to do something to at least keep out minds off of how cold it really was. We decide to open up the nurse’s room. Her supplies are invaluable and it really was time that we just did it already.

Our nurse, Mrs. Steinberg was a rather large lady with a never-ending appetite. I don’t think I had ever seen her without some sort of food in her hand. Hunger was not something that she ever really knew.

It took Havier a couple of swings with the axe before the door finally gave way. Once open, the most awful, foul, disgusting (stomach churning!) smell began to permeate the building.

Even Havier was gagging!

Once the shock of it subsided, we turned on our flashlights and began to shine them around the room. There were three dead students piled in the corner, literally picked clean of whatever soft-tissue they had once had. In the far corner was Mrs. Steinberg. At first we couldn’t tell anything about how she looked. I mean, she was Undead. That was obvious, but the full horror of what had been going on in this room wasn’t visible until she turned slightly as she noticed our flashlights.

The side of her that was immediately facing us was her usual rotund self, but the other side that she was working on was almost completely gone. There was just a thin glaze of rotten muscle tissue slightly holding in her organs. Havier and I watched in shocked horror as she pulled pieces of herself off of her arm and fed it to herself. It was almost as if with each piece of flesh she pulled from herself she was saying, “just a bite! Just a little bite.”

Her eyes were huge like giant saucers and were that bright, vivid yellow that you can only truly experience when you’ve seen fresh yellow snow first hand. She had absolutely no interest in us.

Her consumption of her own rotting flesh and probably of the three students put her into some sort of shock.

Zombie septic shock! (okay…not funny)

And now she only hungered for her own, vile flesh. Zom-Steinberg was taken out in .2 seconds once Havier came to his senses. Without so much as a word, we began to search through and grab whatever we could within the den of zombibalism. When we had finished, we didn’t even bother trying to bury Zom-Steinberg in the kids. We know we’re leaving the school soon, so we just sealed off the room and very matter-of-factly made our way back to the media center.

Somehow I found myself on the roof after that – desperate for some fresh air and a break from the zombie apocalypse. I was getting ready to go back inside when I say him.

John.

John and a small group of people.

Somehow they had made it.

Vincent’s Speech

Posted: January 13, 2012 in Alcott School
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It was still fairly early when I rounded the kids up. Armand contented himself with Matilda. At least she was useful for something now. I prepped Vincent before I got everyone together. I told him that he was going to have to talk to the other kids and explain to them what he saw and what is going on out there. To my surprise, he was more than willing – almost eager.

He got up in front of his classmates, cleared his throat and began. “Who’s played Left 4 Dead 2?” Nearly every boy and several of the girls raised their hands. Shelby burst out crying. Havier was quick to remove her to the computer lab. My eyes were riveted to Vincent. “Well, that’s what is going on out there,” he added.

“You mean there are zombies,” asked Gabe as he perked up a bit.

“Yes, there are zombies and they smell like shit and want to eat us to make us into that shit and make the world even shit-”

“Vincent, I gave you two shits, don’t go for a third,” I chimed in, finding it hard not to. The teacher part of me is fighting hard to cling to me.

“Fine,” he says with a roll of the eye. “So, these zombies are out there. It’s some kind of virus and it makes people die and come back and want to eat us. We need to wait for help to get here and we can’t stay in the media center anymore. We need to clean up the school, make it safe and wait until our parents find us or the army or whoever the hell it is will get here and get us out. It’s really gross out there and scary, but if we don’t help Miss Burton and Mr. Havier it will never get done and the zombies will just come back and eat all of us.”

I was impressed by him and how he found such strength within himself. I got up and patted him on the back. Within moments we had a handful of kids that wanted to go outside with Matilda and start to dig the hole. Against my protests, we also had a group that wanted to help on the inside cleaning out the classrooms. Havier kept reminding me that this is a new world that we live in and there was no point in trying to shelter them from the life and death reality that we were now living in.

Suburban New Jersey is gone and within it has sprouted a world that meant if you didn’t think fast enough, you’d be somebody’s dinner.

The Closet Monster

Posted: January 12, 2012 in Alcott School
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I’m standing just outside the media center with Havier. It’s just after dawn. The school is still an eerie shell of its former self. There are trails blood, gore and God only knows what else everywhere I look. I don’t know what Havier is thinking. How could we possibly clean all of this up and make this space liveable until some form of help gets here. I guess work with what we got, right? Right.

Havier has the pistol and I have a crow bar that he managed to get from his office without incident. We move through the building slowly, glimpsing into the K-3rd grade wing. I throw up in the kindergarten room. Havier rolls his eyes and says, “Great, now there’s more to clean up.” He helps me back up to my feet.

“How are you so okay with all of this,” I ask as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Not all of us had the luxury of a nice, suburban childhood,” he says, matter-of-factly. He pushes past me to assess the damage to the room and the vile mound of decomposing flesh in the corner.

Evetually I move outside the door, keeping an eye on Havier and the other on the deserted hallway. We have fifteen more classrooms to go plus the main office, the nurse’s room and the teacher’s lounge. It was going to be a long morning. We plan to tell the kids today about what’s been going on and start to get to work on the building. I’m not sure what makes me more nervous, having to tell them or clearing this building.

My classroom is on the other side. I really want to go there. I want to get my purse. I want to check my cell phone and see if I have service. We have the God damn internet, why wouldn’t I have cell service? I start to feel drawn to my room and my old life, almost as if it’s beckoning me to it so much so that in a split second I make the decision to leave Havier and make a run for it.

I come skidding to a halt right inside my room. There’s glass everywhere and the desks are scattered with books and papers all over the place. I go straight for my closet, fling open the doors and the next thing I know is that I’m pinned to the floor with something thrashing at me. I grab for its arms and I can feel how warm and alive they arm. I exhale and restrain whoever it is that probably thought I was one of the Undead. I finally stop him, subdue him and realize that it’s Armand.

Armand is a third grader from Mr. Taylor’s class. He has autism and at times has been out-right violent.

“Armand. Armand! It’s Miss Burton, sweetheart…you’re okay, you’re okay,” I say with a voice as languid as honey. I hug him and rock him in my lap. I can feel him calming down, his body relaxing. “You’re okay,” I whisper into his ear. I can hear him start grinding his teeth as he begins to rock with me. In that moment, I think even I become the calmest I have been in days.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Liz!” Havier is standing in the doorway. “Never mind leaving me alone, but thanks for making me think tht you got dragged away by one of those fucking things.”

I move so that he can see Armand in my lap. He shuts up.

“I have a lot of stuff in here. We can use those bins over there and fill them with the kids’ coats, it’s been getting cold at night. We should also grab my tissues, sanitizer and the snacks I have. The kids will like those. I’m sorry.”

Havier waves off my apology and begins to grab stuff to put in the empty bins. I stand up with Armand and place him on the floor. He stays glued to me and I don’t blame him. He was probably in my closet since the shit hit the fan. I reach into my closet and take out my purse. I rip out my phone.

No service.

But, there’s a voicemail from my mom and text messages from my brother and John. I punch my pin number in and put the phone up to my ear.

“Are you okay? How’s the school? The hordes are all over the street. I’m staying put. Ryan is on his way here. We’ll be okay,” my mom went on, with half-confidence, “get here when you can. I love you, Cricket!”

I wanted to cry right then and there, but I stopped myself. Ryan, my brother, had texted me to let me know that he was on a train to mom. I wonder if he made it or if he died, trapped somewhere in a train car with a horde of the Undead picking the flesh from his bones.

I read the message from John. He said, “Well don’t you feel like an asshole over how we spent New Years, eh? I know I do! You should have taken my offer seriously ;). I’m on my way to your school. Once we’re together, we’ll figure out what to do next. Maybe your mom’s?” That was nearly five days ago. He worked a town over from here, I hope that nothing happened to him. I hope that he’s on his way. Detoured maybe, but safe and unbitten on his way to me.

I feel sick and worried and even a bit pissed off. I am now completely tethered to this school – like it or not. I have to stay here for the kids and now for John. Once he gets here, we’ll have to make a choice about everything and I have to get to my mom eventually too. How can I move all of us across town?

I began to sulk. I gave Armand my purse and I helped Havier carry the full bins back to the media center.

On the way back, the halls echoed with a dull groaning, signaling that somewhere in the building, the Undead had come back.

The Eye of the Storm

Posted: January 9, 2012 in Alcott School
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I can only help but laugh now about what happened today. It was just last week that I was at home with Mouse and the guy I had just started seeing…an officer in the Navy. We spent New Years together drinking and eating too much and watching the first two seasons of The Walking Dead. We made fun of it. We mocked how stupid they all could be, especially Rick – chasing after that little girl for so long, holding onto hope that she was out there somewhere in need of his help. How could he not realize that the group was more important and that she had probably been bitten shortly after she got separated.

We laughed even more as we watched the ball drop in Times Square, legitimately toasting to the end of the world and how we needed to make 2012 count because it would be our last year alive. We joked about getting married so neither one of us would die single and after my third glass of Taittinger, I told him that I would marry him and that since I was accepting him, he would have to dance with me to the only song an officer could dance to. He laughed, wholeheartedly knowing exactly what was coming and when Up Where We Belong came blaring through my iphone, he swept me up and we danced as serious as we could before we fell on the floor laughing.

What a couple of assholes is all I can say about that night.

I wonder where John is now and if he is okay. I saw him a the day before this shit storm came spiraling through town, but he was never much of a texter. I wonder if Mouse is okay, if her auto-feeder has enough food in it to get her through until either I can get there or my mom does. My mom is just down the street from my house. and my brother is in Pennsylvania. I keep hoping that he wasn’t hit as bad as we were, but who knows at this point.

The reality is quickly sinking in. I’m sitting here in the dark. Havier is on watch. All of the kids are passed out. Shelby was the last one to finally drift off, only after I rocked her. I don’t know how she is going to survive this without her mom, it’s crazy the amount of care I’ve had to give her to keep her calm and functioning. Matilda is snoring off in the corner, seemingly unbothered by everything because really it’s not like she does much, she just keeps the kids from killing one another while Havier and I hash out our next move and you know, deal with undead administrators.

We decided that in the morning, we’re going to have to give the kids a real explanation of what’s been going on. Vincent has been rather quiet and off to himself since the incident with Zom-Gatsby, but I know it will be a matter of time before he starts talking about it, before he needs to talk about it. For now, we’re going to have to make Alcott Elementary our home. We need to stick it out as long as possible to give parents enough time to find their kids if they’re moving this way. To give us enough time to adjust to this new world too.

Our big project tomorrow is going to be fortifying the building. Earlier, I asked Havier just what that meant. He explained that we need to board up the places that are completely open to the outside and to the hordes. We also need to make a stronger barricade maybe with the cars left in the teacher’s parking lot. I asked him what we were going to do about the bodies that have been left behind.

“Bury them,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m not saying to have the kids do it, but they’re going to have to help with digging a big enough hole. We’ll have to move them. You and I.”

I stared at him blankly. I wasn’t sure about how I felt letting my kids dig a mass grave, but I was even more unsure about how I felt having to lug however many bodies were left through the school, outside and into a hole knowing full-well that I knew everyone of them that we’d be moving. As if Havier read my thoughts, he said, “Don’t worry. That part will be easy to forget.”

From the filing cabinet, he withdrew a brown bag and clunked it down on the table. “We will forgot all of our problems as we do this.” He ripped off the bag.

Hooch.

Thank you Mrs. Swan for being the not so secret alcoholic that you were.

My Classroom for a Toilet II

Posted: January 8, 2012 in Alcott School
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It is only now that I have stopped shaking and feel half-ready to write about what happened. All of it was so shocking and peace-shattering that I am unsure if I ever want to leave this room again. I feel stupid now for all the times that I left the media center without any form of protection. I feel even more stupid for having done that with a student, but I guess that goes to show you how unequipped I am to deal with all of this. I just didn’t think is what it all comes down to.

It started out simple enough, I told the kids that I was going out to get some fresh water and some more food. They were all pretty much ignoring me at this point. Carolyn had begun to share her Bratz doll with the other girls and Gabe had found a Wimpy Kid book that the boys were snickering with over in the corner. Vincent was by my side though, ready to get out of there and do something. I told him we had to be quick and quiet.

“What is this emergency,” he asked, his hazel eyes wide. I ushered him into the computer lab where we could be alone. I felt like I had to tell him something, after all, I was allowing him out there with me and what if he saw one of them?

“Before we were locked in here,” I began softly, using that teaching voice I perfected during that one year I taught first grade, “Mr. Gatsby (our principal) had told the teachers that there was some sort of virus that was spreading quickly. Then we went into lock down and we were trapped in here.” I exhaled, waiting for him to say something, anything – even if it was to question me, but he didn’t, he just stood there waiting for me to continue and so I did. “People started to act funny, not like themselves really and they became violent. Help is coming though, so we just have to do our best to stay safe until they do.” I ruffled his hair and he forced a smile, a big fake one that he often gave me when he knew he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing.

“So, are any of them out there?” I shook my head. He stood and stared at me for a moment before saying, “Well the, let’s just go quickly. I can help you carry more water and something other than those horrible peaches you keep bringing back.”

I laughed. Those canned peaches are pretty awful.

I set Matilda up by the door. I told her that we were going to be gone only ten minutes and that if we were gone any longer than that to come and check for us, but only so far as the multi-purpose room. The last thing I needed was that dingbat wandering around the school looking for us as Vincent and I were zombified and the rest of the kids were left alone to fend for themselves.

We pushed the small barricade aside and we bolted to the multi-purpose room. Vincent took most of what our school now looked like in. He didn’t say a word about it, but I could tell that he was beginning to realize the full-scale of what was going on around us. I only hoped that he could handle it.

We jogged into the multi-purpose room and made it to the kitchen without incident. I went into the storage to grab what I could of what was becoming a quickly diminishing supply. I grabbed applesauce this time, thinking that the kids would enjoy the change up. Vincent was just outside the door eagerly filling his backpack and a few other bags that we had brought with us with the fresh supplies. I had gone back in to grab one more jug of bottled water. I turned to hand it to Vincent when this wreaking, cold, gross thing grabbed my arm from around the corner of the storage closet. I began screaming. Suddenly Vincent was too, he was terrified as he looked at me and then at this creature that was once more like us than a walking, rotting bag of meat. It smelled worse than anything I could ever imagine and it took a good several minutes struggling with it to realize that this once was Mr. Gatsby. The same middle-aged man that shook my hand seven years ago and told me to head straight over to central administration so that they could begin the paperwork and that I could be set to begin my first teaching job that September.

With that realization absolute horror raced through my veins. I heard Vincent crying and screaming all at once. He hadn’t a clue what to do and I didn’t expect him to, what ten -year-old would? How could any ten-year-old even handle seeing their zombie principal attacking and seeking to bite off the face of their teacher?

My life was flashing before my eyes, I thought of when I was a little girl and my mom bought me a yellow bicycle for my birthday. I thought of how my dad taught me to ride it behind the abandoned house across the street and once he let go, I flew over the handle bars and scraped my entire face. I thought about how mad my mom was when she saw the state I was when I came home. Mad. MAD. That was the feeling that I needed right now. I needed to be fucking pissed off mad and ready to kill this fucking thing with my bare hands, even if he was once my boss who I admired completely.

With my senses back, I held him off as far as I could. It was at this moment that I realized that Vincent had pissed himself during this entire ordeal because I was now rolling around with Zom-Gatsby in a warm liquid that hadn’t been there before. I looked around and with nothing in sight, I did what I learned in a self-defense class that my sorority made me take years ago.

I kicked him where it should have hurt the most. Kicking him felt nothing like kneeing a Non-Zom. I could feel it crush with such a slight pressure. I could feel his brittle, fragile glass-like bones cracking as I pushed him off of me as he groaned louder. I stood back up, pulling a wet, trembling Vincent off of the floor as he grabbed our supplies. I looked around for something hard to kill Zom-Gatsby with, but before I could even do that, the most unexpected thing happened – a bullet landed straight between Zom-Gatsby’s eyes and the vile creature stopped trashing and groaning. It just lay there – a mound of vile flesh.

Vincent and I looked up in unison. We saw Mr. Havier, our building custodian standing there, pistol in hand. I ran over to him and I flung my arms around him, completely forgetting any kind of professionalism I once had towards him. I was surprised that he hugged me too.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Liz.” He pushed me off of him slightly. “He didn’t bite you, right?” I shook my head. “Thank God, I’ve been chasing after him for days now. He was the only one of them left.”

“So you mean….” I looked past him, towards the door where my co-workers and former students should have been.

“Most of them died in the bombing. Some got out afterwards and some, well,” he gestured towards Mr. Gatsby. “I was lucky, I was in the boiler room when we went into lock down. Is this the only on you got,” he asked, pointing to Vincent.

“No, I have most of my class and…Matilda. We were in the media center when it happened. I’ve kept them in there for the past several days. I felt it was the safest. Vincent only came with me because I needed an extra set of hands to carry things and I wanted to check on the bathrooms, it’s getting pretty gross in there.”

Havier nodded and walked over to Vincent to help him gather up the supplies. “The boys and girls rooms by the front would be your best bet. There hasn’t been any running water, but it’s better than shitting in a corner. I’ll help you bring these back and then we’ll take him to get cleaned up. We’re all dirty, but no one needs to know you couldn’t hold it?” He winked at Vincent and he half smiled, feeling relieved.

We took the supplies back. I brought them in and gave them to Matilda, then Havier and I took Vincent to get cleaned up after I made him promise not to look in any of the classrooms. Havier even gave him a few wet-naps he had found and a pair of pants from the lost and found.

We came back to the media center and we ate a feast of apple sauce and water. Havier and I took turns keeping watch over the computer room door with the pistol. Why he ever had it in school to begin with, I have yet to ask. He’s a crazy-ass Spaniard, I’m sure it would have been legal where he is from. I am so happy to have him here with us though. I was beginning to think that Matilda was going to be my only adult company for the rest of my life. Whose commentary on this entire adventure was simply, “Oh dear, maybe you need to be more careful.”

Head. Desk.

My Classroom for a Toilet

Posted: January 7, 2012 in Alcott School
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I’ve kept the kids quiet and subdued for the past several days. They ask me what’s happened, but I know telling them the complete truth would just cause mass chaos. I tell them that there was an emergency and that help is coming, that we just have to sit and wait for them to come to us. Some of my kids, like Shelby, cry most of the time. She wants her mother and I can only substitute for that for so long. Then there are kids like Vincent who wants to get out of here, find his loved ones and see what’s happened beyond the carefully crafted safe-haven that I’ve made for them here. I can control the kids who cry more easily than I can the kids like Vincent. I’m scared and Matilda is of little help.

Her main contribution to life here is her daily bitching about the bathroom situation. It’s simple: We don’t have one. I’ve told the kids that if they had to go that they would have to find a spot in Mrs. Swan’s office and that when they were through to clean themselves up with the stock pile of tissues she had in her closet. It is not the most sanitary solution and I knew that it would not last, but it kept the kids close enough to the group, gave them privacy and kept us from having to go out into the school to the bathrooms and see all of the bloodshed that occurred in our quiet, little neighborhood school. There will come a time and it will be soon that I will have to take them out there, but it is hard for me to face that. To have to take that ideal of safety and protection that the school has served them with is overwhelming for me and it is a big step out into this new world that I am slightly terrified to have to be living in while I have to protect my students.

I’m working on the bathroom thing, I know it’s an issue and that I have to be the adult and get us all safely to a better location. For now, the pressing issue is going to get more bottled water and canned food from the kitchen. I’m taking Vincent with me this time so we can stock up. Matilda has “volunteered” to stay back with the others. I’m pissed, but someone needs to and in reality she will just slow us down if she came with us. I want to push towards the front of the school and check things out. The bathrooms are there and though I am sure running water is a thing of the past, I do think that it would be etter for the kids to at least have a bathroom that I could maybe manually flush if we found enough water.

Here’s to hoping it’s out there!

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