Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

building? What if we’re the next Sandy Hook? How prepared should we be?”

Tamara considers this. This type of heated discussion, these debates, is meant for her to reach some sort of understanding on the subject. It’s never about being right or wrong, not to Tamara, but about achieving a level of knowledge, of truth, that she can only obtain after these intense, in-your-face, voices-raised, heated deliberations. It terrifies me at times how much the truth matters to her. How far she is willing to go to find it. Understand it. Believe it.

“I just wish the lockdowns weren’t necessary,” she eventually says. “I…I just wish all of this wasn’t happening now. That we even need to do this to our children horrifies me.”

“I heard Sandy Hook was a hoax.”

The voice comes from somewhere else in the circle. At first, I don’t know if I actually heard it or if I am just imagining it. A mouse squeaking under our feet. It pipes up just as Tamara lapses into her own thoughts, lost to the terrors of school preparedness programs.

Someone else has spoken.

Tamara turns her head, confused by who said it. We are all a little taken aback, to be honest. Even Condrey seems thrown.

Miss Gordon inches forward in her seat, clearing her throat. “The government wants to take our guns away. They have an agenda, so the only way they can get their bill to pass through Congress is to make up—”

“What are you talking about,” Tamara cuts her off. It’s not a question.

Miss Gordon is one of our special ed teachers. She wears a pink sweatshirt with an iron-on decal of a kitten printed across her chest. The image has faded from a few too many spins in the washing machine. That cat has deteriorated around the edges, but its paw still reaches up to wave hello at the rest of faculty. Miss Gordon has never struck me as being an outspoken individual—or, more to the point, I don’t think I’ve ever really heard her state her case about much of anything, staunchly political opinions or otherwise. I always greet her in the hallway—Mornin’!—filing in with the rest of the teachers before school starts each and every day.

What nobody is willing to say, not even Tamara, is that the biggest difference—the key difference—between Miss Gordon and herself is that Miss Gordon has lived here her whole life. She is old-school Danvers. In fact, she first taught here when there still was a school in town. That one closed down, decades back. It wouldn’t reopen until the rebirth of Danvers commenced and the heretical pedagogy crept in. Before everything became touchy-feely here. So when Tamara asks point-blank—well, not asks, demands to know what in the hell Miss Gordon is talking about, it’s not much of a stretch to see where this is heading. Careening.

Miss Gordon sits up and speaks directly to Tamara, her double chin lifted. “I was listening to the radio and I heard it wasn’t proven that the shooting actually—”

“You can’t be serious.” Tamara again. I can hear the disbelief in her voice. The incredulousness of it all. “Are you serious?”

“I’m agreeing with you,” Miss Gordon offers. A misguided olive branch. “I don’t think we should do lockdowns, either.”

“But do you really, genuinely believe that Sandy Hook didn’t happen?”

Miss Gordon glances around the circle of chairs, searching for someone to speak up. To join her. Most eyes, save for Tamara’s, are now staring at the floor. “I—I heard it. On the radio.”

“But it’s not true,” Tamara says. “You know that, right? What you’re saying isn’t true.”

Condrey clears her throat. “We’re getting off topic here…”

Tamara’s head turns sharply toward Condrey. “I feel like this is something we should discuss. If there’s a member of the faculty that actually believes Sandy Hook didn’t happen—”

Miss Gordon sure isn’t happy with Tamara’s tone. “I’m just telling you what I heard. You might not agree, but those are the facts as I believe them.”

“Does anybody else agree with her?” Tamara’s spine is ramrod straight. “Anyone else want to chime in? Because if something like this happens here, heaven fucking forbid, I want to know who to depend on for help and who thinks it’s just a hoax—”

“Please.” Condrey holds out her hands, aiming her palm at Tamara, as if she is a conductor signaling to a particularly loud violinist to tone it down. She is losing control of her faculty meeting. The music is slipping right through her fingers. This shitty symphony.

“I just think it’s wise to hear all sides of the story,” Miss Gordon says, crossing her arms, ready to be done with this. Probably praying for the next bullet point on the agenda.

Tamara’s face sours. “Sides? What are you talking about? There are no sides to this story. It happened. It’s real. Twenty students died. Six faculty members died. It’s not a hoax.”

“Well.” Miss Gordon shifts in her seat, sinking just a bit, like a turtle retreating into her pink sweatshirt. “Everybody is entitled to their own opinion.”

“My God,” Tamara practically shouts. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this! Will somebody else say something? Anyone? Am I the only one who thinks this is insane?”

“That’s enough, Tamara.” Condrey is on her feet. “The school board has put active shooter drills into effect and that’s that. You don’t like it, you can take it up with Mr. Slonaker.”

We still have four bullet points left on the agenda—four fucking more—and you damn well better believe Condrey is going to make us sit through them all, addressing each and every one until we’ve reached the bitter end.

Tamara sits across from me with her arms crossed, muted for the rest of the meeting. Sulking. She won’t look at me. See that I’m on her side.

The next thirty-four minutes are quite painful. I fold—and refold—my agenda. Before I’m aware of what I’m doing, I’ve origamied my sheet into a fortune teller. I hadn’t made one of these since I was a kid. I’m amazed I even remembered how,