Time Bomb Read Online Free PDF

I’m
Viet
namese!”
    “Memory!”
    “I like to play too,” I said. “Sometimes for fun and sometimes to help kids when they’re scared or worried.”
    Return of silence. The teacher fidgeted.
    “Something very scary happened today,” I said. “Right here in school.”
    “Someone got killed,” said a dimpled girl with coffee-colored skin.
    “Anna, we don’t
know
that,” said the teacher.
    “Yes,” insisted the girl. “There was
shooting.
That means
killing
.”
    I said, “You’ve heard shooting before.”
    She nodded with vehemence.
“Uh-
huh
.
On my
street.
The gangbangers drive by and shoot into the houses. That means killing.
My
papa said so. One time we had a bullet hole in our garage. Like this.” She measured a space between thumb and forefinger.
    “My street too,” said a crew-cut boy with an elfin face and bat ears. “A dude got killed. Dead. Boom boom boom. Inna face.”
    The teacher looked ill.
    A few of the boys began to pantomime shooting using their fingers for guns and half-rising out of their seats.
    “Sounds scary,” I said.
    A boy laughed and shot at a girl. She said, “
Stop
it! You’re
stupid
!”
    The boy swore at her in Spanish.
    “Ramon!”
said the teacher. “Now you just settle down. Let’s all of us settle down, class.” Her glance at me said
Where’d you get your degree?
    I said, “It’s fun to play shooting, because it makes us feel strong. In charge—the boss over our lives. But when it really happens, when someone’s really shooting at us, it isn’t too funny, is it?”
    Headshakes. The boys who’d laughed hardest suddenly looked the most frightened.
    I said, “What do you guys understand about what happened today?”
    “Some dude was shootin’ at us,” said the Asian boy.
    “Tranh,” said the teacher. “We don’t know that.”
    “Yeah, he was shootin’ at us, Miz Williams!”
    “Yes, Tranh. He
was
shooting,” she said. “But we don’t know who he was shooting
at.
He could have been shooting into the air.” A look to me for confirmation.
    “He was shooting at
us
,” insisted Tranh.
    I said, “Do any of you know what happened to him?”
    “He got shot?” said the girl named Anna.
    “That’s right. He got shot and
he’s
dead. So he can’t hurt you. Can’t do
anything
to you.”
    Silence as they appraised that.
    The boy named Ramon said, “What about his friends, man?”
    “What friends?”
    “Like if he’s a homeboy and the other homeboys are gonna come back and shoot us again?”
    “No reason to think he’s a homeboy,” I said.
    “But what if he’s a stoner, man?” said Ramon. “Or a
cholo
.”
    “Who is he?” asked another girl, chubby, with black Shirley Temple ringlets and a quiver in her voice.
    Twenty faces, waiting.
    I said, “I don’t know yet. No one does. But he’s gone. Forever. You’re safe from him.”
    “We should kill him
again
!” said Ramon.
    “Yeah!
Kill
him! Shoot him with a twenty-two!”
    “With a Uzi!”
    “Push his face inna pizza so he don’t breathe no more!”
    “Push his face in
ca-ca
!”
    The teacher started to say something. I stilled her with a glance. “How else could you hurt him?”
    “Kill him!”
    “Cut him up and feed him to Pancho—that’s my dog!”
    “Shoot him, boom, inna balls!”
    “Ay, los cojones!”
    Laughter.
    “Boom!”
    “Cut him up and grind him up and feed him to
my
dog!”
    “You don’t got no dog, Martha!”
    “Do so! Got a real mean pit bull and he’ll eat
you
!”
    I said, “Shoot him, stab him, push his face down. Sounds like you guys are really mad.”
    “Yeah, man,” said Ramon. “What you think, man? He try to kill us, we gonna kill him back!”
    “We can’t kill him,” said the chubby girl.
    “Why’s that?” I said.
    “Because he’s big. We’re just kids. We got no guns.”
    “That’s dumb,” said Tranh. “We can’t kill him ’cause he’s already dead!”
    “Kill him
again
!” shouted someone.
    “Find out where he