'Running With Wolves', by Jeanne Althouse
As soon as Harriet entered the building, she headed to the seventh floor. When she reached a spot halfway up the fourth-floor stairs, the explosion—a flash of red light followed by a blast of burning-hot air—threw her body against the wall. Landing on her feet but twisted backwards, to steady herself she grabbed the cold metal railing with one hand, feeling the aftereffect of its shaking flow up and rattle the bones in her arm. Minutes later, unknown to her as she stood on the stairs, her eyes burning with plaster dust and smoke, her shaky legs threatening to fail her, her mind still with shock, police cars and fire engines would spill onto Laguna Avenue, the street in front of her school. Sudden hearing loss prevented her from processing the sound of the sirens.
Shuddering on the smoke-filled stairway, alone and unbalanced in the strange silence of her temporary deafness, moving her fingers, her toes, touching her face to feel for blood, finding her cheek still numb from the dentist’s anesthetic injection, all Harriet could think about were her twenty-one third graders. Mrs. Mihaljevic, the Principal, had stepped in to take her class as a last-minute substitute while Harriet, who lost a crown biting into a hardened leftover scone with her hasty coffee before class, had left in pain for an emergency trip to the dentist.
Her first thought was of Xander Rice. He would already be frightened by the unexpected change of routine to a substitute even though it was Mrs. Mihaljevic whom he knew well. He would panic at any sudden noise, try to hold himself together, not letting his legs and arms fly about as they wanted to when there was even a car backfire outside, or the thud of a book dropped unexpectedly on the floor. She had collaborated with his parents on his medication, but never spoke of his disability in the classroom. “We are all on a spectrum,” she had said to his parents, their earnest pleading eyes staying with her long after the parent-teacher meeting. She had done her own private battles with attention deficit and hyperactivity and never wanted to label a child.
In her mind, she saw other children’s faces, as they had been sitting around their morning circle: Kanji who was growing his hair longer in an attempt to keep up with his older brother and now had long shiny black strands dripping over his forehead, down his cheeks, hiding his beautiful oval eyes; Ashford who carried Lego bricks in his pockets to play with at lunch (sometimes she found a lost red brick under his desk or a white flat tile on the floor); Alia who could not read silently, but had to whisper the words, whose tiny bell-like little-girl voice Harriet could hear speaking softly as Alia read Paulson’s “Dogteam” to herself during library time:
“Wolves. They come alongside in the moonlight, moonwolves, snowwolves, nightwolves, they run with us, pace the dogs, pace our hearts and our lives and then turn, turn away into the blue dark.”
Harriet puzzled over how her brain ended up following this strange thread, running with wolves, lawless and wild. Her head began to ache and she crept down the remaining few stairs and collapsed on the landing, leaning her sore back against the wall. She puzzled over what had happened. Was it a bomb? The explosion could have been something else; the electrical panel in the old building continually needed work and should have been replaced years ago.
She felt vibrations in the wall at her back, followed by a pop, pop, pop sound. Was that the old building groaning, settling? Or was it the sound of fireworks? Or guns? Was there a shooter in the school?
She regretted that her school district had decided against active shooter drills, explaining that it did not prevent the problem and would frighten the students. She saw the words in her head from a government notification arguing its value. “Trauma-informed active shooter training ensures that staff is prepared to respond in the event of an active shooter situation on the school campus, without experiencing trauma from the training itself. An active shooter is defined as an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and other populated area. In most cases, active shooters use firearms and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims. Active shooter situations are unpredictable and evolve quickly.”
Why today of all days, returning from the dentist and in a hurry to get back to her classroom, did she take the stairs and not the teacher’s elevator? Why was it so important to build steps and stairs counts on the fitness tracker on her watch? Harriet already knew this about herself; once she committed to something, even something like improving her steps record, she had to follow through. This made her a dependable teacher who strived for perfection with her students, but this very perfectionist trait was hard on her. She couldn’t be flexible with herself. She looked down at the watch on her wrist; When she pressed the digital crown to see the time, it remained black. She realized, looking closely, that the sapphire crystal glass face of her watch was cracked down the center.
This particular discovery pushed her past control and she began to cry.
Two firefighters, checking the stairs, found her on the landing sobbing into her hands.
On the way down, balanced on each side by the arms of these emergency workers, one woman, one man, her hearing began to return. She heard muffled voices, as they encouraged her to “go slow, one step at a time.” Her ears were ringing, aching with a continuous sound, like someone blowing an airhorn next to her face.
“There is no shooter,” the woman said, guessing her mumbled question. Harriet’s numbed cheek made it difficult to speak.
“Looks like an amateur bomb, left on the fifth-floor landing,” said the man. “Hardly any damage beyond the stairwell. No casualties.”
Harriet’s relieved mind still reeled with questions. How did this person get into the building? Visitors had to sign in at Mrs. Mihaljevic’s office and there was a security guard who patrolled regularly. Or, was it someone already allowed inside? Was it a student, leaving his or her backpack on the stairs? She had visions of a fifth grader reading instructions on the internet, how to use ammonium nitrate, how detonate with something easily purchased locally like fireworks. At this thought her stomach clenched; she fought through the acid taste of the stale scone mixed with dental mouth wash, at risk of throwing up.
The loud horn noise abruptly stopped. It wasn’t her ears, it was the school signal for changing classes, sounded continuously to clear the building.
“Looks like the school has been searched and cleared,” said the woman firefighter. “The children have been evacuated to the park across the street.”
Harriet’s firefighters turned her over to a paramedic who walked with her across the street, trying to convince her to be checked over in his ambulance, parked nearby. She refused to be treated until she found her children, she said, pulling away as he tugged at her arm.
As she walked past the familiar entrance arch with its dedication to Cornelius Bagman, who gave his land for public use as a park fifty years ago, Harriet felt the wet grass through her stocking and realized she was missing one shoe. She kicked off her other shoe as she passed the play structure, completely empty of children, silent as a tomb. Beyond the structure on the big soccer field, she saw the lines of fresh young faces like rows of planted sunflowers, organized by class: first graders, second graders, fourth graders, fifth graders, and the kindergarten class, waiting as they were told behind a teacher at the front, sometimes an aid at the rear. Teachers were using cell phones to call parents. A few parents had arrived in the parking lot behind the field and were being organized by the police. She searched for Mrs. Mihaljevic and her third graders, thinking again of Xander who had a tough time waiting in lines.
Walking past the others, she found her third graders sitting on the grass in front of the soccer goal. Kanji, who was first in the row, sat very still. He was chewing a piece of his long hair, draped across his cheek. Ashford, next, was looking down at his lap. He had two Lego bricks, and was fitting them together, then taking them apart, repeating this movement over and over without looking up. Alia sat behind Ashford with her hands folded. Her moue mouth, puckered open and closed, as if she were kissing, like she did when reading to herself. But there was no book in her lap; Alia’s eyes looked blankly ahead.
Harriet scanned the other faces, looking for Xander. She spotted him, wearing his backpack, running wildly back and forth behind the soccer goal, opening his arms wide, screaming “boom, boom, boom.”
Harriet walked toward him, knelt on the grass, and opened her arms to Xander, hoping to calm him by a firm squeezing hug, part of the deep pressure stimulation that Xander’s parents had taught her would produce a sense of relaxation.
“Look at me, I’m a suicide bomber,” he said, falling into her arms. “Watch out, I have a bomb in my backpack.”
Harriet’s rage rose into her throat, anger at life now, at the increasing threats of violence targeting school children. The need to understand how to manage these threats was not included in her college training, and was a shocking, unexpected result of choosing to be a teacher. She hated the fact that eight-year-old Xander’s reward for his acute observation skills, was to learn the expression “suicide bomber.” She resisted putting her hand over his mouth to stop his words. Her stomach clenched as she fought again the acidity of regurgitated food, holding her breath, trying not to be sick.
Xander was processing his fears through play.
Later she will remind the children that there are appropriate games and games that are not appropriate, and she will do her best to explain the difference.
But in this moment, hugging his small, tight, rigid body to hers, she said, “Breathe, Xander. Let’s breathe together.”
Stories by Jeanne Althouse have been published in numerous literary journals, two chapbooks, and three times nominated for a Pushcart. Her story collection, BIG Secrets Everywhere was published by Big Table Publishing in October 2023. She lives in Palo Alto, California with her favorite husband and snow tigers Sacha and Zara. Check out her web site at www.jeannealthouse.com.
Photography by Griffin Wooldridge