The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen Read Online Free PDF Page B

would go hunting with a few of his buddies. He must have shot a few deer because I remember eating venison once in a while.
    He was very careful with the gun. It was locked away in a special cabinet. He followed all the safety instructions. But Jesse must’ve figured out where he kept the key. And on June 1 st , Jesse got the key and opened the cabinet and took out the rifle before the rest of us woke up. He also knew where Dad kept the bullets. He loaded the rifle – we found out later he’d visited a website to learn how – and placed it in his gym bag. He left while we were still sleeping. We found a note on the kitchen table:
Gone to school early. I’m sorry. Love you. Jesse
.
    The
sorry
part was weird. The
love you
part was even weirder.
    When he got to school, he carried the gym bag with him to his first class. How do I know this? I know because I can read, and the papers interviewed anyone and everyone who’d seen my brother that day. They all said he acted the same as always, which meant he didn’t talk to anyone. He kept to himself.
    Except he carried the gym bag with him, and he didn’t even have gym that day.
    Just before second period, Jesse saw Scott Marlin at his locker. He put the bag on the floor and took out the rifle.
    “Hey, Scott,” he said.
    If Scott had known what was coming, he might have chosen his words more carefully for once in his life. But he didn’t. “Did I say you could speak to me, Ballsack?”
    While all of this was unfolding at the high school, I was right down the block at the elementary school. We’d just finished gym, where we were square-dancing with the girls. I had “do-si-doed” with Jodie. The bell rang for lunch, and we were all about to head outside when the principal’s voice came on the speaker system. She told us we were forbidden to leave the school; we were in lockdown.
    We were sent back to our classrooms. At first, it was kind of fun; we were all trying to guess what might behappening outside. Jason thought it was a drug bust nearby. Emily thought it might be a terrorist attack. Then Anna checked her phone.
    You weren’t allowed to use any electronic devices during lockdown, but Anna did anyway. Suddenly she said, “There’s been a shooting at the high school.” That was all the information she had, found on a local news website. Our teacher yelled at her, then took away her phone.
    And it wasn’t kind of fun anymore. A lot of us had brothers and sisters at the high school. We had no idea what was going on, or how bad it was. Jodie started to cry. I held her hand.
    I know what she was thinking, because I was thinking it, too:
What if my brother is hurt?
I never – not once – imagined that my brother was the shooter.
    About an hour later, our principal came to the classroom door; some police officers stood behind her. “Jodie Marlin and Henry Larsen, can you come with me, please?” Her voice was shaking.
    Jodie started to cry again. I was numb. When we got outside, one officer directed Jodie to her car; another officer directed me to his. “Can we go together?” I asked. The cop shook his head.
    When we got to the station, I was brought into a room where my parents sat. I didn’t need to be a genius to know something awful had happened; but it still didn’t occur tome that my brother was behind it. When they told me, I didn’t believe it. Then I was whisked out of the room so the police could give Mom and Dad the grisly details.
    My parents tried to shield me from the worst of it. But all you have to do is a Google search and a whole pile of articles pop up. I couldn’t stop myself. Whenever they were out of the house, which was a lot in those first couple of weeks, I read everything I could find. That’s how I found out that after Jesse shot Scott in the chest, Scott’s friends tried their best to stop the bleeding. It’s also how I found out that my brother’s body was discovered under the stairwell a minute later. He’d shot himself in