Time Bomb Read Free Page A

said, “That man is kind and gentle,” as if ready to argue the point.
    I nodded. She said, “At first the kids were scared of him, scared to talk to him—his size. But he really handled them well. Like a good father.”
    That made me smile.
    Her color deepened. “Anyway, let’s get to work. Tell me everything I can do to help the kids.”
    She took a pad and pencil from her desk. I sat on the short section of the L-shaped sofa and she settled perpendicular to me, crossing her legs.
    I said, “Are any of them showing signs of overt panic?”
    “Such as?”
    “Hysteria, breathing troubles, hyperventilation, uncontrollable weeping?”
    “No. At first there were tears, but they appeared to have calmed down. At least the last time I looked they seemed settled—amazingly so. We’ve got them back in their classrooms and the teachers have been instructed to let me know if anything comes up. No calls for the last half hour, so I guess no news is good news.”
    “What about physical symptoms—vomiting, urinating, loss of bowel control?”
    “We had a couple of wet pants in the lower grades. The teachers handled it discreetly.”
    I probed for symptoms of shock. She said, “No, the paramedics already went through that. Said they were okay. Remarkably okay, quote unquote—is that normal? For them to look that good?”
    I said, “What do they understand about what’s happened?”
    She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
    “Has anyone actually sat down and explained to them that there was a sniper?”
    “The teachers are doing that now. But they have to know what happened. They heard the shots, saw the police swarm the campus.” Her face tightened with anger.
    I said, “What is it?”
    She said, “That someone would do that to them. After all they’ve been through. But maybe that’s why they’re handling it okay. They’re used to being hated.”
    “The busing thing?”
    “The busing thing. And all the garbage that resulted from it. It was a match made in hell.”
    “Because of Massengil?”
    More anger.
    “He hasn’t helped. But no doubt he speaks for his constituents. Ocean Heights considers itself the last bastion of Anglo-Saxon respectability. Till recently, the locals’ idea of educational controversy was chocolate-chip or oatmeal cookies at the bake sale. Which is fine, but sometimes reality just has to rear its ugly head.”
    She drummed her fingers and said, “When you came in, did you notice how big the yard was?”
    I hadn’t, but I nodded.
    She said, “It’s a huge campus for such a small neighborhood, because thirty-five years ago, when the school was built, land was cheap, Ocean Heights was supposed to boom, and someone probably landed a juicy construction contract. But the boom never materialized and the school never came close to functioning at capacity. Until the budget crunches back in the seventies, no one paid much attention to that kind of thing. Who’d complain about small classes? But resources started to dry up, the Board began examining head count, efficient allocation of resources, all that good stuff. Most white schools were experiencing a dropping census but Hale was a real
ghost
town. The kids of the original homeowners were grown. Housing had gotten so expensive that few families with young children were able to move in. Those that could afford to live here could also afford to send their kids to private schools. The result was classroom capacity for nine hundred pupils and only eighty-six kids attending. Meanwhile, on the East Side, things were nuts—fifty, sixty per classroom, kids sitting on the floor. The logical thing seemed to be what the Board so quaintly terms ‘modulated redistribution.’ The B word. But totally voluntary, and one-way. Inner-city kids brought in, no locals bused out.”
    “How long’s it been going on?”
    “This is our second year. Hundred kids the first semester, hundred more the second. Even with that, the place was still a ghost town.