Rising Fears by Michaelbrent Collings Read Free Book Online Page A

student or the almost equally disconcerting visit by Sheriff Meeks.
    The air in the line was somber: even the ninth through twelfth graders were quieter than usual, with less shoving for place in line than usual.
    The school knew that it had lost one of its own.
    Then a small disturbance erupted nearby. Lenore turned to see Albert Gomberg stumbling away from a group of cheerleaders. She sighed: Albert was in eleventh grade, and was a target for bullies as young as ten. He was the quintessential audio-video kid: the kind of boy who volunteered to be the A-V department assistant over the summer...and brought his own video equipment because what the school had wasn't up to his standards. He was the kind of quiet, smart, shy kid that others loved to pick on. It made Lenore sad, because she knew that if something didn't change - and quickly - Albert would likely be doomed to live the same kind of life that she herself did: a life where the only alternatives were to hide or be attacked.
    She walked over to the students, and as she came closer she saw that Albert was desperately trying to hide a small camcorder in his hands from the senior cheerleaders who were even now trying to viciously pull it from his grasp.
    "Hey!" said Lenore, but was ignored. The cheerleaders kept pulling at him, trying to separate the boy from one of his beloved recording items. One of the girls, Sarah West, was particularly vicious, yanking at his arm as Albert, almost reduced to tears by the episode, struggled vainly to protect himself and his property.
    "Hand it over, freak," said Sarah, and for a moment Lenore actually thought that the cheerleader was going to bite the younger boy. Sarah looked almost rabid, almost angry enough to do it.
    "Leave me alone," cried Albert.
    Lenore finally got close enough to the girls that some of them noticed her and stopped harassing Albert. Lenore was not the most imposing woman in the world - far from it - but even so, she was cloaked in that invisible yet potent aura of "teacherness" that would stop most students from acting out.
    Most students.
    Not Sarah West.
    "What is going on here?" demanded Lenore.
    "This pervert," said Sarah, and yanked again at Albert's encumbered hand, "was filming my ass."
    Lenore could see Albert's ears instantly redden at the accusation; could see just as clearly that he had been engaged in no such activity.
    "I wasn't, I really wasn-" he began.
    "Ass-shooter," retorted Sarah.
    "Sarah, that's enough," said Lenore in a voice that was as close to loud as hers ever came.
    "Enough?" Sarah swiveled to focus her ire on Lenore now. "This creepazoid conspiracy-theory freakshow geek goes around filming my ass all the time and-"
    "Enough!"
    Lenore said the word far louder than she meant to. All activity in the cafeteria ground to a halt as everyone looked around to see what the altercation was, as though the possibility of a fight in the cafeteria were the highest form of excitement the students could conceive of.
    Maybe it is, thought Lenore, and the thought saddened her immensely. So many of the students were either predator or prey, in actuality or in training, and so whenever a fight broke out they had to see it, as though watching fights would provide them with clues about how to act in their respective roles.
    Sarah was also looking closely. But not at Albert anymore; Sarah was now focused intently on Lenore. The cheerleader's face was curled in a derisive, malicious smile, as though she knew all about Lenore and knew that a confrontation with this particular teacher could actually be won by a student.
    "Enough or what?" asked Sarah with a snort.
    Lenore blushed. Sarah might be right: Lenore was the type of teacher that even a student could get away with bullying sometimes.
    Sometimes. But not today. Not when the target of the bullying was someone as obviously harmless and good-natured as Albert. Besides...Lenore had a bit of a talisman - a silver bullet of sorts - in the case of the rude young