This Is Not a Drill Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Cakeman, and it kept going from there.
    Simon grips my leg like a spider monkey so I can’t go out in the hall; I reach down and put my hand on his head. “Have no fear, Cakeman’s here. I’ll be right back, buddy. I promise.”
    He looks up at me without blinking, then lets go.
    Mrs. Campbell gives me a go-ahead nod, and I move toward the door.
    And then—Stutts is back, pushing a white-faced Patrick in front of him.
    “Damn security guard’s out there. Do those guys carry weapons?” he asks.
    “I don’t know, Mr. Stutts. Why don’t you just leave Patrick for now?” Mrs. C. tries again. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
    “Yeah, well, you obviously don’t know my wife. She’s not really into ‘working things out’ these days. I’m taking my boy—soon as that guy leaves.” He glares at the kids. “Everybody sit down.” He jerks his head toward two medium-size chairs near the wall. “You two sit there,” he tells Emery and Mrs. Campbell. Emery sits down, keeping her eyes on Stutts. She reaches up to twirl a piece of her hair; it’s what she does when she’s nervous or upset. Mrs. Campbell scoots her chair closer to the kids before she sits in it.
    I walk to the back and sit on top of a table. Stutts stands near the door. He leaves the gun in his pocket, but we all know it’s there.
    “You,” he says to me, “close those blinds back there.” I move to lower the blinds, keeping a lookout for anyone I can try to signal, but there are no signs of life.
    “The rest of you go on with what you were doing,” he barks at us. “I don’t want anybody staring at me. I gotta think a minute.”
    Mrs. Campbell takes a deep breath and smiles at the kids. “I have a word search puzzle I saved for free time. Why don’t we give our French teachers a break for now?”
    Good thinking, Mrs. C. I wasn’t big on performing in front of G.I. Joe.
    She gets the papers from the tray on her desk and starts handing them out. “Let’s see who can be first to find all the words that have to do with fall,” she says, all chipper like there’s not a crazy guy with a gun watching us. “They’re listed on the bottom of the page. Use your sight skills to match them up.”
    Emery leans over to help Carlos. Her straight hair—dark blond with leftover streaks from summer—swings across her face as she looks down to point to a word.
    Emery always looks great, but she’s not obsessed with her looks. I’ve never seen her pull out a mirror in class or mess with her hair. Her eyelashes are long and dark, and she doesn’t wear tons of makeup or talk about her new shoes or her damn Louie Whoever bag like a lot of girls do. It’s like she knows what’s important and what’s not. I know she’s got some physical stuff going on—she told me about her dizzy spells—but seriously, that girl’s steady as a rock.
    The kids are already working like crazy. Alicia has her tongue out, and Kenji’s studying the puzzle like it’s the freakin’ Declaration of Independence. It’s like their little heads are gonna explode if they don’t have something else to focus on.
    I can relate. I’m wishing like hell I had some kind of plan. I can’t . . . I can’t think straight. It’s like that kid Ralph in
Lord of the Flies
. Every time he tries to figure out what to do, a curtain comes down in his head. My English teacher said it’s because he’s too young to know how to organize a whole colony of boys into a civilized society. He’s basically on overload, so his brain kinda short-circuits. I didn’t get what she was saying back then, but I do now. I wish these kids had somebody besides a total screwup like me to help them. I used to think of myself as one of the good guys, but after treating Emery like crap and getting hauled down to the jail, I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe the evil stepmother is right about me.
    “The Christine” definitely doesn’t think much of me. The last time I got in-house