Anita heard the gun fire just as she was starting the math unit with her 30 six graders. It paused then restarted.
“Brett, Dirk,” she said to the two biggest boys. It took every bit of her strength to keep her voice calm. “Move my desk and block the door to the corridor.”
They did.
“Jeff and Rickie, pull the cabinet with the mobile phones and block the door to the next room. Everyone, get your phones. Call your parents. Say we’re under attack. Hang up. Move quietly. Move fast,”
The kids were wide-eyed but there was no hesitation.
Anita dialed 911. “There’s a shooting at the J. Masson Elementary School. Sounds like some kind of a machine gun.”
The gun shots stopped and started again. The noise came from the first floor where the first and second graders had their classrooms. The second floor was for the third and fourth grade, and the third floor was for the fifth and sixth. Anita’s classroom was the furthest away from the school entrance.
“Turn your desks over and lay down behind them. Don’t make a sound.” The kids did as Anita told them.
The intermittent shooting seemed to last for hours,
but when Anita glanced at the clock over the door, she say only eight minutes
had passed. Her kids that she could see were
motionless except for covering their ears and wiping tears from their faces. Jenny made the only noise, a loud snuffle.
The sound of sirens was followed by squealing brakes, slamming doors and running feet. The sweet spring air blowing through the open windows mixed with the smell of gunfire.
The last round of gunfire came from the second floor. Then there was quiet.
A knock at the classroom door was followed by a male voice, “Police, it’s over, please open.”
For a minute Anita wondered if it was the shooter, but she heard the classroom next door opening and kids running down the stairs.
“It’s over kids,” Anita said as Bret and Dirk moved the desk away from the door. Her students sat up, stood up. All were crying. All were hugging.
*****
Ten days after the shooting, when the nineteen kids, three teachers, two police and the shooter had been buried, when all the flowers left at the school had wilted and life did not resume as normal for the town, Anita was invited to appear on a CNN panel on school shootings
She had been turned into a heroine for her actions.
She didn’t feel like a heroine, but a teacher who loved her students, a woman who couldn’t sleep nights.
One of the other panelists was a senator who had vetoed three gun safety bills. He looked like an actor from central casting with his slick white hair.
“You offered your hearts and prayers that day,” Anita said to him. “Absolutely useless. You helped kill those kids, my friends, those police by your veto of gun legislation. I looked up how much money you get from gun lobby.”
The Senator said nothing: nor did he look uncomfortable.
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