[FROM THE G GARVIN C COUNTY S SUN-TRIBUNE,.

MAY 3, 2008, R 3, 2008, REPORTER A ANGELA D DASH]Chris Summers, 16-Summers was said by witnesses to have died as a hero."He was trying to get everyone out of the way," says 16-year-old Anna Ellerton. "He was helping people out the door into the hallway. That's the kind of thing Chris would do, you know? Try to organize things."According to Ellerton, Summers was pushed backward by frantic students trying to flee the cafeteria and as a result he fell into Levil's path."Nick laughed at him and asked him who was the big guy now and then he shot him," Ellerton says. "I figured he was dead so I just kept running. I don't know if he died right then or not. All I know is he was trying to help. All he was doing was trying to help."

I almost turned away. I looked through the long narrow window on the cla.s.sroom door and saw a crowd of kids draped across chairs in a rough circle-Jessica Campbell in the middle of them, talking earnestly. Mrs. Stone, the Student Council faculty advisor, was sitting on a desk slightly off to the side. She had her legs crossed and one shoe dangling off her toe. It reminded me of a newspaper picture I'd seen during the aftermath of the shooting-a single high heel lying abandoned on the front walk outside the school, its wearer too frightened or too injured or too dead to go back and pick it up.

Was it really less than a year ago that we were sitting in the school auditorium listening to the Student Council candidate speeches? Was it really not that long ago, Nick and I filing in with our homeroom cla.s.ses then immediately searching out one another from across the room, rolling our eyes as the StuCo candidates, one by one, took the stage, saying in body language what we couldn't say out loud?

"Who'd you vote for at the a.s.sembly today?" I'd asked him later that evening when we met up. He was bare-chested, lying next to me in a tent we'd erected in the field behind his house. We'd been coming to the tent every evening since the weather had turned, just using it as a place to get away and be alone and read to each other and talk about things important to us.

He'd flipped on his flashlight and shone it across the top of the tent. A shadow spider danced in the light, struggling to climb to the summit of the tent. I wondered what it planned to do once it got there. Or was that how a spider's life was spent-forever scrabbling to reach a peak of something, the scrabbling its only goal?

"n.o.body," Nick said, sullenly. "Why would I? I couldn't care less who wins anyway."

"I wrote in Homer Simpson's name," I said. We both laughed. "I hope Jessica Campbell doesn't get president."

"You know she will," he said. He turned the light off and suddenly it was way dark in the tent again. I couldn't see anything-could only tell I wasn't alone from the heat vibrating off of Nick's side next to me. I shifted in my sleeping bag and scratched my calf with the toe of my other foot, certain that now that I couldn't see the shadow spider it was surely crawling all over my body-its next conquest.

"Do you think our senior year will be different?" I asked.

"You mean if we vote in Jessica Campbell will she stop calling you Sister Death and will Chris Summers quit being an a.s.shole?" he asked. "No."

We were both silent then, listening to the frogs outside our tent, holding a chorus around the pond off to our left.

"Not unless we make it different," he added, very quietly.

In the hallway outside the Student Council door, I started to feel a little light-headed and leaned my forehead against the cool brick of the wall. I was just going to take a few deep breaths and leave. I couldn't go through with this. No way. People were dead and if ever there was a definition of "too far gone to fix," I'd say this was it.

Someone must have seen me. The door opened.

"Hey," a voice said. "Thanks for coming."

I looked up. Jessica was hanging out the door. She gestured for me to come in. My body went on autopilot and I followed her.

Everyone was looking at me. To say that not all of the faces were kind would be inaccurate. More like none of them were. Not even Jessica's. Hers had more of a detached businesslike set to it, as if she were escorting a prisoner to the death chamber.

Meghan Norris stared at me through lowered lids, her lips set in a loose pucker, her knees bobbing up and down under the desk impatiently. I met her gaze and she rolled her eyes, then looked upward and out the window.

"Okay," Jessica said, sitting down. I sat next to her, still holding my books tight in front of me. I still wasn't sure I wasn't going to pa.s.s out. I took a deep breath, held it for ten seconds, and let it out slowly, as inaudibly as I could. "Okay," she repeated. She shuffled a few papers, all business. "I talked to Mr. Angerson and we're definitely going to have a s.p.a.ce in the northwest corner of the courtyard, right by the doors to the Commons. We can put anything we want there, as long as it pa.s.ses PTA approval, which shouldn't be too hard."

"Permanent?" asked Micky Randolf.

Jessica nodded. "Yeah, we'll have a dedication ceremony during graduation, but we can leave a permanent fixture."

"Like a statue or something," Josh said.

"Yeah, or a tree," Meghan said, sounding excited-forgetting, at least for a moment, that I was fouling up her personal s.p.a.ce.

"Statues will be expensive," Mrs. Stone pointed out. "Do we have the money for something like that?"

Jessica rifled through some papers again. "The PTA is going to pledge some money to it. And we have our account. And doughnut... sales..." There was an uncomfortable beat of silence. Doughnuts hadn't been sold since the incident. Since Abby Dempsey, Jessica's best friend, had been killed selling them on May second. Jessica cleared her throat. "Abby would've wanted us to use that money for this," she said. I felt eyes on me but didn't look up to see whose they were. I squirmed in my chair, took another deep breath, held it, let it out.

"We can have another fundraiser," Rachel Manne said. "We can sell suckers and send them out like candy-grams."

"Good idea," Jessica said. She scribbled something on a piece of paper. "And we can have an ice cream social."

"Ice cream social is a great idea. I can talk to Mr. Hudspeth about having the drama department put on a variety act for it," Mrs. Stone added.

"Oh yeah! And maybe concert choir will sing or something," someone said. Ideas were coming fast and furious now as chatter erupted about the event. I was blessedly left out, blessedly forgotten by everyone.

"That settles it," Jessica said, closing her notebook and putting her pencil down. "We'll have a variety night and ice cream social. Now we just have to decide what the memorial will actually be. Any ideas?" She crossed her arms. Everyone was silent.

"Time capsule," I said. Jessica looked at me.

"What do you mean?"

"We could have a time capsule. Put a plaque or something marking the spot and have it set to be opened in, like, fifty years or something. So people could see that there was more to this cla.s.s than the... well... that there was more."

Silence stretched across the room while everyone considered this.

"We could put a bench next to it," I added. "And have the names of... of..." Suddenly I couldn't go on.

"The victims," Josh said. His voice sounded edgy. "That's what you were about to say, right? The names of the victims etched on the bench. Or on the plaque."

"Everyone or just the ones that died?" Meghan asked. The air felt very heavy around me. I kept my eyes down. Didn't want to know who they were all looking at. I had a pretty good idea it was me.

"Everyone," Josh said. "I mean, like, Ginny Baker's name should be on it, don't you think?"

"Then it's not strictly a memorial," Mrs. Stone said and everyone started talking at once again.

"But Ginny's face..."

"... doesn't have to be a memorial, what about just a monument..."

"... should have the names of everyone in the whole cla.s.s..."

"That would be cool...."

"Because everyone got affected by it in one way or another..."

"... memorial could be about loss of life, but could also be about loss of other things, too, like..."

"... not just our cla.s.s, though. Freshmen died, too...."

"... can't afford to have the whole school's names put on it..."

"Let's just put on everyone who died," Jessica said.

"Not everyone," Josh said in a voice loud enough to stop the chatter. "Not everyone," he repeated. "Not Nick Levil. No way."

"Technically, he was a victim, too," Mrs. Stone barely whispered. "Technically, if you're going to have the names of the victims, his name should be there."

Josh shook his head. His face had gotten red. "I don't think that's right."

"I don't either," I said before I even knew my mouth had opened. "It wouldn't be fair to everyone else." I almost gasped when I realized what I had just done. Nick had been everything to me. I still didn't believe he was a monster, even after what he'd done to the school. I still didn't feel innocent about my part in it, either. But here I'd just thrown him under the bus... and for what? To please the Student Council? To get along with these people who, just months ago, had laughed when Chris Summers made a fool of Nick, laughed when Christy Bruter called me Sister Death? To make a show for Jessica Campbell, when I still couldn't tell if she hated me or if she'd somehow changed? Or did I really believe it? Was a part of me that I hadn't yet identified suddenly popping up, voicing my fear aloud: that Nick and I weren't the victims... we were the ultimate bullies?

I felt a shift inside myself so abrupt it was almost physical. I could practically see myself splitting into two people on the inside: the Valerie before the shooting and the Valerie now. And it just didn't match up.

Suddenly it felt impossible to sit there anymore, taking these kids' side over Nick's. "I've gotta go," I said. "Um, my mom is waiting for me." I grabbed my books and bolted for the door, thanking G.o.d that I'd called Mom earlier and told her to come at the normal time and wait for me, just in case I chickened out on the meeting. Thanking G.o.d that, for once, Mom's mistrust of me would pay off, that she'd be there, gnawing a fingernail and watching the school windows for sign of trouble.

I didn't even dare to think until I was safe in Mom's car in front of the school. Didn't dare to stop moving until I was sunk down into the front seat with the door locked between me and the meeting.

"Go," I said. "Just go home."

"What's wrong?" Mom asked. "What's going on? What happened in there, Valerie?"

"Meeting's over," I said, closing my eyes. "Just go."

"But why's that girl running out the door? Oh, G.o.d, Valerie, why is she running?"

I opened my eyes and peeked out the pa.s.senger window. Jessica was jogging toward the car.

"Just go!" I shouted. "Mom, please!"

Mom stepped on the gas then, maybe a little too hard because the tires actually squealed, and we whipped out of the parking lot. I watched Jessica in the side mirror getting smaller and smaller. She stood on the curb where my window had been just moments before, watching us get smaller, too.

"My G.o.d, Valerie, what happened? Did something happen? Oh, G.o.d, please tell me nothing happened. Valerie, I can't handle it if something else happened."

I ignored her. It wasn't until I felt a tickle on my chin and brushed at it only to discover that it was a tear rolling down that I realized I hadn't been ignoring her after all. I'd just been crying too hard to answer.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the driveway. When Mom paused to allow the garage door to go up, I bolted. I ducked under the garage door and into the house. I was only halfway up the stairs before I heard her barking in the kitchen: "Dr. Hieler, please. Yes, it's urgent, G.o.ddammit!"

19.

[FROM THE G GARVIN C COUNTY S SUN-TRIBUNE,.

MAY 3, 2008, R 3, 2008, REPORTER A ANGELA D DASH]Lin Yong, 16-"When I see what he's done, it breaks my heart," Sheling Yong says when asked to describe her daughter's injuries. "I'm grateful Lin's still alive, but the bullet made permanent damage on her arm. She was all-state violin player. Now that's gone. Her fingers don't work right anymore. She can't play."Yong was. .h.i.t in the forearm, the impact of the bullet shattering her wrist and causing extensive nerve damage in her arm. After four surgeries, Yong still has limited use of her third finger and thumb."It's my right arm, too," Yong says. "So I'm having a hard time writing. I'm trying to learn to write with my left hand. But my friend Abby is dead, so I don't complain too much about my arm. He could definitely have killed me, too."

After the Student Council meeting, Mom bullied Dr. Hieler's secretary into shoving us into his schedule.

"Your mom says you left the StuCo meeting upset, Val," Dr. Hieler said before I'd even sat down on the couch. I thought I detected a hint of annoyance in his voice. I wondered if he would be coming home late in order to accommodate me. I wondered if at home his wife was keeping his plate warm in the oven, and his kids were doing their homework in front of the fire, waiting for Daddy to come home and play cowboys and Indians with them. That's how I always envisioned Dr. Hieler's home life-sort of 1950s-TV perfect, with a patient, loving family and never a personal problem to be had.

I nodded. "Yeah, but it's not like it's a crisis or anything."

"You sure? Your mom says someone was running after you. Anything happen?"

I considered his question. Should I tell him yes, something happened? Should I tell him that what happened was that I publicly abandoned Nick, that they'd all finally gotten it through my head that Nick was bad? Should I tell him that I felt guilty as h.e.l.l about it? That I'd caved to popular kids' pressure and I was so ashamed by it?

"Oh," I tried to sound nonchalant. "I dropped my calculator and didn't realize it. She was trying to give it back to me. I'll get it tomorrow in first period. No big deal. Mom's just paranoid."

I could tell by the way he inclined his head that he wasn't buying a word of what I was saying. "Your calculator?"

I nodded.

"And you were crying about it? The calculator?"

I nodded again, looking down at the floor. I chewed my bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

"Must be some calculator," he mused. "Must be a really good calculator." When I still said nothing, he continued in slow, soft, measured words. "I'll bet you feel really bad about dropping a calculator like that. Like maybe you feel like you should have taken better care of that calculator."

I looked up at him. His face was stony. "Something like that," I said.

He nodded, shifted in his chair. "It doesn't make you a bad person, Valerie, for forgetting a calculator every now and then. And if you end up not being able to find it and needing to get a new calculator... well, there are lots of good calculators out there."

I chewed my lip harder and nodded.

A few days later, Mrs. Tate was hanging out at the office copy machine when I came in to pick up my tardy slip. I tried to slip away unnoticed, but the secretary always talks so loud and when she practically screamed, "You have a doctor's note, Valerie?" Tate turned around and saw me.

She motioned at me to follow her and we walked back into her office, me with a pink tardy slip in my hand.

She closed the door behind us. Her office looked like it had been cleaned out recently. The stacks of books were still on the floor, but had been pushed into one central area. There were no used fast food burger wrappers on her desk, and her wobbly file cabinet had been replaced by a shiny new black one. She had moved all of her pictures on top of that cabinet, giving her desk a bare, uncluttered look, even though it still housed volumes of loose papers, tossed haphazardly one on top of another.

I sat in the chair opposite her desk and she edged one b.u.t.t cheek up onto the corner of her desk. She used a manicured fingernail to tuck a stray piece of frizz back into her bun and smiled at me.

"How are you doing, Valerie?" she asked in this soft voice, like I was so fragile, the wrong volume would collapse me. I wished the secretary outside had used that voice and that Mrs. Tate would just talk to me normally.

"I'm good, I guess," I said. I waved the pink slip in the air. "Doctor's appointment. My leg."

She glanced down. "How is your leg?"

"It's okay, I guess."

"Good," she said. "Have you seen Dr. Hieler lately?"

"Just a few days ago. After the StuCo meeting."

"Good, good," Mrs. Tate said, nodding emphatically. "Dr. Hieler's a great doctor from what I hear, Valerie. Very good at what he does."

I nodded. When I thought about all the times I felt most validated, safest, Dr. Hieler was usually involved in one way or another.

Mrs. Tate stood and walked around her desk. She plopped into her chair, which creaked just a little under her weight.