Run by Michaelbrent Collings Read Free Book Online Page B

and slower to warm.  Rumors abounded that the reason LHS had such a small graduating class each year was that Mertyl ate anyone who was found wandering into the office without a pass. 
    John had no pass, but in spite of that Mertyl did something that would have shocked the collective student body. 
    She smiled at him.
    He smiled back at her.  When Annie died, Mertyl was one of the first people at his door, bringing a party platter of meats and breads.  "You won’t want to eat any of this, and you’re a big boy, so I won’t make you," she’d said, "but you remember that people will be calling on you and they’ll want something to eat."
    She had been right on both counts.  Food had tasted like dry ash to him, burning and soiled.  But the party platter didn’t last through the day, as well-wishers and mourners came to pay their respects and visit with one another and then eat a sandwich, as though Annie's death marked the grand opening of some strange new restaurant.
    "How are you, John?" she asked.
    "Same as yesterday, just a day older.  You got anything for me?"  He nodded to the orderly mail slots behind her.  She kept them clean and tidy, just like the rest of the office, and, by extension, the school.
    "Just a smile," she answered. 
    "You know what I like."
    He continued his walk through the office, veering around the filing cabinets and out the back door, leaving Mertyl to her world of typing and clerical work.
    It was less than twenty feet to his classroom, and as usual, the room was already full.  John was a popular teacher - perhaps the only popular teacher at LHS - and his kids usually beat him in there each morning.
    He stepped in just as the bell rang, a bell that was more likely to signal his tardiness than that of the students.  Before Annie died, he tended to arrive an hour to an hour and a half early, turning on the computers and preparing for the day ahead.  He would also be there so that any students who might be having problems with their schoolwork, home life, or anything else could come by and get his advice.
    No longer.  He just didn't have the strength.  But he still loved the kids he taught, and they knew it and loved him back.  The nightmares were what got him out of bed each day, but these children were the only thing that convinced him to leave his house.  They needed him, almost as much as he needed them.
    "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," he said, sitting down at his desk.  The role sheet had already been filled out by one of his pupils, and he didn’t bother double-checking it. 
    Their computers were already up and running, as well, the screens seeming to roll a bit under the phased light of the fluorescents overhead.  They waited for nothing but him.  He looked at them for a moment, then a quick smile flitted across his lips.
    "Let’s lock and load."
    Almost as one, the children slipped their disks into the computers.  Hard drives whirred (a few of the older ones made a raspy noise, like the discs were being scoured by brillo pads), and the new web pages they were designing appeared on their screens.
    John walked between them for a few minutes, nodding, complimenting, pointing out ways that each could be improved.  The children smiled at him as he passed between the aisles of the computer science classroom, and he smiled back.  He would have thanked God for them every moment of every day, if he still believed in God.
    One of the kids was particularly involved in his work, to the point that he didn’t notice John quietly move behind him to observe.  His name was Dallas Howard, and John watched him silently for a few moments.  The young man worked quickly, fingers skipping quickly over the keyboard as he typed.  John smiled as he watched the work progress. 
    Dallas had been a trouble student when he came to John’s class.  Failing most of his classes, in trouble with all the teachers, he brought a lifetime of attitude with him.  The rest of the teachers at