Federal School Safety Act 2029

Content Warning: gun violence, children, bird death

I was in third grade the year they legalized guns in school. It happened during spring vacation and Mom took me to Staples for school supplies. She said I could get the small pistol with the little blue daisies on it if I promised, promised, to load the dishwasher every day after dinner instead of just when I got reminded. I clutched her arm and swore I’d take out the garbage too.

When we passed a brand new Build-A-Gun Workshop in the mall I begged Mom to let me return the daisy pistol and build a custom gun instead and she said no. She said no one else at school would have one even though there was a super long line of kids. I said Emmeline Thompson probably would and Mom asked if I wanted to go return the daisy pistol for a small plain handgun and so I quit asking. She also said no to having my name engraved on the grip, but when we got home Dad wrote “WINNIE” on my new gun in permanent marker with his very good handwriting.

When we passed a brand new Build-A-Gun Workshop in the mall I begged Mom to let me return the daisy pistol and build a custom gun instead and she said no.

On the first day back at school, when we were waiting for the classroom door to be opened, Emmeline was showing off her Build-A-Gun. She said she got to tie-dye it in the workshop and showed us the bullets which were all the colours of the rainbow. My gun was way smaller than hers. And the daisies were just printed on there with a computer. I didn’t even get it out to show anybody.

When we got into our classroom it looked totally different from before vacation. There were Gun Safety posters all over the room, cartoons of a bunch of happy kids doing stuff like showing how to put the safety on, or surrounding a cowering Active Shooter in a ring with their guns drawn. We were all sitting somewhere new and Mrs. Benedict was behind a wall of glass. The glass was so thick that she was kind of blurry behind it. I could see where her face was and everything but not what expression she was making. I looked for my name on the desks and found it taped to the desk right next to Anna Martinez, the second most popular girl after Emmeline. I felt so glad. Maybe she’d need to borrow a pencil and I’d give her one and then we could be best friends!

But then Emmeline came over. She had two French braids tied with red and white ribbons and she took my name off the desk. She taped hers on instead with Scotch tape. “You don’t mind, right?” she said. She pointed to the back of the room, the desk next to Otto who smelled like mildew all the time. She gave me the card with my name on it and the Scotch tape. “Anna and me want to sit together.”

I looked at Mrs. Benedict, but her blurry form was sitting behind her desk and I was pretty sure she was covering her face with her hands. I was scared to say anything to Emmeline. I put my hand in my pocket and touched my gun, and even though it was small and the daisies weren’t hand painted it made me feel a little better. I went and sat next to smelly Otto and taped my WINNIE card to my desk.

Mrs. Benedict had a microphone connected to speakers on our side of the glass, but it was still hard to hear her. When we all kneeled to do the Pledge of Allegiance she whispered the words and kept stopping so the only people saying “to the flag of the United States of Jesus Christ” were us kids. After the Pledge we all sat back in our chairs. Mrs. Benedict, still kind of whispering all the time, explained the new chalkboard. I missed her big voice from before. It used to feel like hot chocolate, but now it was like when you open the cottage cheese container and there’s that gross yellow water in there with it.

She said the new chalkboard was called a Smart Board and she had one on her side of the glass, and we had one on our side. She showed us how everything she wrote on hers showed up on ours. Then she made three columns: Ones, Tens, and Hundreds.

She was talking about place value in numbers when a crow landed on the windowsill. The crow tilted its head to get a better look at us, like how our puppy does at home which made me laugh. It started cawing pretty loud, we could even hear it through the closed window.

Jagger, who was sitting in the desk on the other side of mine, fished around in his backpack. He got out his semiautomatic and raised his hand.

Mrs. Benedict’s whispery voice came through the speakers. “Yes, Jagger?”

Jagger said, “I could shoot that dumb crow really easy, want me to?

After a long pause Mrs. Benedict said, “No.” She wrote a 1 in the Ones column and a 10 in the Tens column but Jagger raised his hand again.

“Yes, Jagger?” she said.

“But I even have a scope thingie on the top, look, it lets me aim really great,” said Jagger. He stood up and showed her by aiming at the crow, who was still cawing.

Mrs. Benedict didn’t move or say anything, like she was frozen by a freeze ray or something, and it was Matt who shouted, “ONLY AIM WHEN YOU ARE SHOOTING!” and then we all joined in, because we had to take about eighty billion Gun Safety classes over vacation, “NEVER AIM WHEN IT’S A THRILL! ONLY AIM WHEN YOU ARE FEELING IT’S TIME, IT’S TIME, IT’S TIME TO KILL!”

Jagger pointed his gun at the floor and hung his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot.” He sat down and put his gun in his backpack.

The crow flew away.

Mrs. Benedict wrote 100 in the Hundreds column and said in a wobbling whisper, “Who can tell me how many places the number one hundred has?”

After math at recess the playground looked different too. Instead of the benches where the playground monitors sat and watched us, there were big boxes made out of more of that thick glass. One of them was empty and I went and cupped my hands around my face so I could see in. There was just a chair inside and the only door went back inside the school instead of to the playground. It was weird.

I went and played Red Light Green Light. The fourth-grader who was calling Red Light or Green Light was really good at it and was catching everyone who tried to move during the red light part. Then someone started screaming and we all ran to see who it was. There was a really little kid, in kindergarten I think, and he was lying on the asphalt and his face was all bloody. I asked a big kid what happened and he said the boy was playing tag and he fell and split his lip and knocked out a whole tooth, ouch, and that’s where all the blood was coming from.

Two sixth grade girls were crouched next to the little kid, and everyone was saying don’t move him and I looked around for the playground monitors. But they were all sitting in their glass boxes. I thought maybe they couldn’t tell what happened so I went over to one and knocked on the glass. The person inside stood up really fast. I hollered, “Come quick! A kid got hurt!”

I thought maybe they couldn’t tell what happened so I went over to one and knocked on the glass. The person inside stood up really fast. I hollered, “Come quick! A kid got hurt!”

The shape of the playground monitor flattened herself against the opposite wall. I think she was shaking her head.

“But someone got hurt!” I said. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t coming. I banged on the wall again and she opened the door that led back into the school and she disappeared.

I looked into the other playground monitor boxes, but they were empty now too. The little kid was crying so hard he could barely catch his breath, and the two sixth graders helped him go towards the Office. His whole shirt was covered in blood. I hoped that the secretary wouldn’t be like the playground monitors. I hoped that she would let him into the Office to see the nurse.

The bell rang for the end of recess and we went back into class. I checked for the door in Mrs. Benedict’s glass wall and there were two, one that went back into the school and one that came into the classroom. I felt a little bit better.

After recess was always science and I was hoping we’d get to do an experiment. One time we got to mix salt and pepper in a cup and Mrs. Benedict asked if anyone could separate the salt and the pepper. We tried really hard but no one could do it, it was all too tiny and we got salt in the pepper pile and pepper in the salt pile. Then she showed us how to do it with a spoon and static electricity and it was like real magic from a wizard or something. She gave me a big smile when I did it, she said, “Winnie, you are a Natural At Science.”

But instead of an experiment Mrs. Benedict turned the Smart Board back on. She made three columns, Ones, Tens, and Hundreds. I turned to Otto who was looking at his paper which had the same columns on it. I said, “Didn’t we have this already?”

Otto said, “Maybe… it’s more math for after recess now?”

Mrs. Benedict started talking in her horrible new voice about place value in numbers. I looked around to see if any other kids were noticing. Jagger on my other side was drawing a picture of the crow from before, it was really good.

Anna Martinez raised her hand and Mrs. Benedict called on her. “Um, Mrs. Benedict, isn’t it time for science?” she said.

Mrs. Benedict didn’t say anything. She just wrote 100 in the Hundreds column and said, “Who can tell me how many places the number one hundred has?”

No one knew what to do. She kept saying the stuff that she said before recess, like we’d gone back in time or something. I wanted to go up and knock on the glass and see if I could get her to stop, but I was scared Emmeline would make fun of me. Jagger was filling up the sky of his crow picture with more crows, far away and flying, while Mrs. Benedict filled the Smart Board up with numbers. She kept asking questions but didn’t seem to notice that nobody was raising their hand.

Before vacation I was always getting in trouble for reading in class. I would put my book under my desk and read it and most of the time I got to read one or two pages before Mrs. Benedict noticed. I was reading a book about a girl who solved mysteries and she was solving a mystery about a stolen stethoscope. To make myself feel better I took the book out and started reading it under my desk. But then I realized that if Mrs. Benedict looked this fuzzy to us, we were that fuzzy to her. So I tried an experiment of putting the book on top of my desk and reading it there.

She didn’t even look in my direction, she just kept writing numbers. Emmeline and Anna were playing Cootie Catcher and Anna told Emmeline she was going to have fourteen children and live in a swamp and be married to someone but she whispered that part and I couldn’t hear it. Jagger took another piece of paper out of his three ring binder and put it next to the first paper. He drew a forest for his crow.

Mrs. Benedict was saying that our ages would go in the Ones column. And our parents’ ages would go in the Tens column.

At the desk in front of mine Foxley, who Mrs. Benedict always makes Classroom Monitor when she has to go to the hallway to talk to another teacher or something, was showing Matt her machine gun. It didn’t have any decorations on it, it was just shiny black. Matt kept saying, “Awesome. That is awesome.” I tried to keep reading but it wasn’t as much fun when I could do it right there in the open. Besides I could tell that the little brother had taken the stethoscope, he kept telling everyone he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up.

Mrs. Benedict made another column on the Smart Board and titled it Terror. She whispered, “Who can tell me how many places Terror has?”

She said that and I felt like there wasn’t any spit in my mouth all of a sudden.

Mrs. Benedict said, “When we take a hundred children and stack them up, up, up, ten times, we get one terror of children. Ten hundreds equals one terror. And in every child’s backpack is death. One terror of death.” She drew a gun in the Terror column.

I didn’t know what to do, none of us did, and I felt like someone should go to the Office and but I kept thinking of that kindergartner and how the playground monitors didn’t help at all. Emmeline went to the front and knocked on the wall but Mrs. Benedict didn’t even look at her.

Jagger kept drawing but now he was just going over the first crow so many times the paper was starting to rip.

Mrs. Benedict erased the Smart Board. She drew a line and then made ten marks on it. Now that I was pretty sure Emmeline wouldn’t make fun of me I walked to the front of the class. I remembered that I could see better into the box in the playground when I cupped my hands over my face so I did that. Emmeline saw me and she did it too and I felt really smart. I could see that all of Mrs. Benedict’s makeup was dripping down her face. She was crying the hardest I ever saw anybody cry, but so quiet we couldn’t hear her. Only her awful whisper voice saying, “On this number line you see only whole hundreds marked. In between each mark are 99 dead people. Imagine all of the dead people!”

Some of the kids started yelling stuff but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Then Jagger shouted louder than anybody, “Listen, I’m gonna make her stop, I’m gonna shoot the glass. Then she has to stop. You better move, you guys!”

Some of the kids started yelling stuff but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Then Jagger shouted louder than anybody, “Listen, I’m gonna make her stop, I’m gonna shoot the glass. Then she has to stop. You better move, you guys!”

I turned and he was standing and aiming his semiautomatic at me and Emmeline.

Foxley yelled, “No, you stupidhead! It’s bullet-proof glass. If you shot it the bullet would come back and hit us. Remember? From Gun Safety!” She pointed to the poster with the bullet-proof glass on it.

Jagger’s face twisted and he lowered his gun for the second time that day. “Why even have a gun,” he said, but I don’t know who he was talking to.

Some of the kids were saying they wanted to go home and some of the kids were chanting the Only Aim When You Are Shooting chant but we could still hear Mrs. Benedict on the speakers. Her voice was dreamy now. “Imagine the sounds in third grade classrooms all across the United States of Jesus Christ. The pop-pop-pop of a little girl who wanted a piece of gum from her friend who said no. A little boy who was mad about his spelling test grade. Pop. Pop pop.”

Foxley stood up on top of her chair which we were not allowed to do. “Hey,” she yelled, and some kids went quiet. “Hey!” she said again, and almost everyone went quiet except for Mrs. Benedict who was just scribbling on the Smart Board now, burying everything under black scribbles and saying, “One death plus one death plus one death,” over and over.

The crow from before came flapping back to the window and stared in at us, tilting its head and blinking its bright black eyes.

Foxley said, “Maybe she can’t hear us or something. Winnie, you try the door in the glass.”

My Mom said never go in a door without knocking, so I knocked first. But Mrs. Benedict didn’t notice. So I whispered sorry and turned the doorknob. It was locked. I didn’t say anything but I was glad. Mrs. Benedict with her face all covered in make-up and her whispering voice was scary.

I turned to Foxley and I said, “I can’t get in.”

Everyone was watching and was quiet and the crow started cawing really loud again so it was just Mrs. Benedict and the crow that we could hear.

Foxley got down off her chair and came to the front of the room. I saw that she was carrying her machine gun now. She tried the door too but she couldn’t get in either. The crow was cawing and cawing and now we could all hear on the speakers that Mrs. Benedict was crying. The Smart Board was just scribbles now and she was standing there not doing anything.

The crow was so loud. It hopped a little on its little crow feet.

Foxley said, “Okay. Um, we should call the Office.” We all looked around for the Office phone, but it was on the other side of the glass with Mrs. Benedict.

Emmeline raised her hand, like Mrs. Benedict had made Foxley the Classroom Monitor again even though she didn’t.

Foxley said, “What, Emmeline?” She had to be loud to be louder than the crow.

“Me and Anna can go to the Office,” said Emmeline. “And bring back a grown-up.”

Foxley said, “Okay. Bring back lots of  —”

I heard a sound behind me and I looked at Jagger, he had his gun out again and there was no one between him and the window, he was aiming at the crow. Foxley was shouting to stop and the crow got startled and started to fly away, but Jagger aimed through his scope thingie and shot and the window shattered and the crow fell, the crow fell back onto the windowsill, and everybody was screaming, and Anna and Emmeline and a few of the other kids ran out the classroom door and I wanted to go with them but the crow was lying on the windowsill and I went there instead. And at first I thought it might be okay because there was hardly any blood on the crow’s purpley-black feathers, but the crow was flapping its glossy wings and trying to breathe, I could tell, and my whole body felt like the time I fell a patch of stinging nettles and it was like being on fire. “Be alive,” I whispered, “Be alive, be alive,” but the breathing got slower and slower and then the crow stopped trying to fly away. The crow stopped even trying to breathe.

I felt so angry that I couldn’t even make words. I turned to Jagger and I roared at him, I roared so big that I felt my throat hurt in a way it never hurt before. And I wanted very, very, very bad to take out my daisy pistol and make it hard for Jagger to breathe so he knew what it felt like. But his shoulders were shaking so hard. His gun was on the floor. He was crying like there was no hope in the world at all. He was saying I’m sorry over and over.

The glass door opened. Mrs. Benedict took one step into the classroom.

We all looked at her. My hand touched the daisy pistol in my pocket.

The End

Note from the Editors: You can learn about ways to prevent gun violence from multiple online resources. This is one of them: sandyhookpromise.org