Day 20

I watched as Mrs. Snowburn had to think about which part of Dan’s outburst to address first. There was the fact that he blamed Jessica for being pushed over, and the part that it wasn’t his business to have wanted to hear my secret. There was the part about rationalizing the situation and, ultimately, the part about wanting his dad. I watched as Mrs. Snowburns expressions of disgust and anger at Harold mixed with pity and sadness for Dan and frustration at her inability to fix the situation instantly. Most of all I saw fatigue as Dan’s words pounded into Mrs. Snowburn like a truck traveling at full pounds into a cement wall. In that instant she was overwhelmed with, what amounted to, inadequacy, or at least the perception of inadequacy. “Mrs. Snowburn, I’m going to go take a walk.” I had an idea that might help. “Claire, could you come with me? And, if you’re willing, would you leave Johnny here? You’re going to use that tone you used when we talked to Sean and Ms. George a little while ago.” Hoping she caught onto the hint I worked myself out from under the still struggling Mrs. Snowburn. “Well, be back in a couple of minutes.” Claire followed me out, not really sure what I was doing, but Iw as going to explain on the way.

“So what’s up with you? You got ideas, wanna vent, wanna have some fun?” She stepped close and bit her lip, suggesting further what she had in mind. I continued walking without giving her so much as a glance. “Wanna take a dump?” She said, clearly bit upset at my outright rejection of her advances. “Are you going to at least tell me when I’m following you and not watching Snow rip a new one into Dan? He deserves it and now’s the time to do it-“

“She’s not going to rip Dan a new one,” I interrupted because I needed her help, but I needed to be quick and I couldn’t have any questions or doubts coming from Claire or myself. “And that’s the problem. Johnny probably doesn’t know a lot of the politics that goes on within the school, which means that you probably don’t either.” She opened her mouth to argue the point, but I didn’t care enough to let her. “All you need to know right now is that Mrs. Snowburn needs Sean to stop fucking around and do his job.” It might have sounded harsh, but it was true. “What I need you to do is make him do that.”

She stopped right then and there and placed her hands on her hips. “And how do you expect me to do that?” I looked at her, unwilling to argue the point that she’d already gotten Sean to do one thing for her and that she could do so again. She got the hint, but scoffed. “Now you look here, I had an interest in making sure they went and screwed each other senseless somewhere where Johnny wouldn’t hear them. If anything I want to see just how far Dan can push the prude.”

I had had enough. I stepped so close to her that she had to step back a bit. Her eyes got wide and she lifted her hands as though she thought I was going to hit her. I wasn’t, but if it was going to help me get what I wanted done, well then I wasn’t going to tell her any different. “How many times has Johnny complained about Dan’s behavior?” I asked quietly.

“Um…uh-I dunno. Maybe two-three times a week? Why does that matter?”

“Now, what were those complaints about usually?”

She had to think a little bit to come up with an answer to this one, or she was stalling for time. I let her, it wasn’t like I had to finish this job right away, but I would have liked it if she’d worked with me better. Too much to ask I guess. “Usually they were complaints that he was going to do something physical. Like hit him or…something”

I smiled; it was exactly what I had wanted her to say. “Now think, what if the school didn’t have systems in place to make sure that Dan didn’t actually do that sort of stuff. Your son would have been beaten up two-three times a week instead of simply being threatened. Do you know how those systems work?” Claire shook her head. “Mrs. Snowburn knows everything that goes on in the school and Sean makes sure everything runs smoothly. From that perspective, anything that Dan did Mrs. Snowburn knew about. Anything Mrs. Snowburn knew about she told Sean. Anything Sean thought was important enough he followed up on and put a stop too. Now, due to circumstances that were outside of either of their control they weren’t allowed to put a permanent stop to Dan’s behavior.” Though I’d told Claire the workings of the school, I wasn’t going to reveal the goings on in private meetings that I shouldn’t even know myself. “They have a chance now, but Mrs. Snowburn doesn’t know how to take it. Sean would, but he’s busy with Ms. George. I need you to make sure Sean goes in and helps Mrs. Snowburn because you’ve already shown your proficiency at it.” She still didn’t look convinced that she should really help me with this, which meant it was time for the kicker that would ensure her cooperation. “Think of it this way, if Sean manages to make Dan see that his actions are wrong, the threats Johnny gets will lessen dramatically. Tow to three times a week will decrease to two to three times a month or better.”

She stood tall and looked me straight in the eyes. “I’ll do what you want, sure, it’ll help my boy and it’s something to do. But if you ever use my son as a pawn to get me to do what you want again, well, I hate cigarettes but they sure do leave one hell of a burn mark when pressed into the skin.” Her teeth never moved as she told me that, he eyes never blinked, and I was sweating really hard. “Come on, if you want Sean in there we’ve got to find him first.”

***

She led and I followed as we searched the entire school for any sign of Sean and Ms. George, and Diana and Harold though I don’t think Claire was making as big an effort at finding those two. It eventually got to the point that we had to split up and search down different hallways and we still didn’t find any of them. It wasn’t until we came to the gym that we found anyone. Tim was sitting just inside the doorframe smiling as he watched Jessica and Coach Z skate around the gym’s floor. “Tim, have you seen Sean anywhere? I want to talk to him.”

“Or Ms. George, wherever she is he’s not going to be too far behind,” Claire added with a sarcastic smirk. “We can’t find ‘em anywhere. I even checked your temporary bathroom igloo thing and they aren’t there either.”

Tim chuckled. “Them? They ain’t been ‘round here. Last I saw ‘em they was headed towards Sean’s office to…well, you know.” He left it that and we were hurrying back the way we came. “Tell ‘em not to come by the stage anymo’! We could hear every moan an’ groan they let loose! And boy did they moan and groan.”

Claire and I were laughing so hard that, as we passed the nurse’s office on the way to Sean’s, Johnny came out to see what was so funny. “Nothing, Tim’s just being Tim. How’s Mrs. Snowburn and Dan?” I asked, a little worried, but seeing that Johnny wasn’t freaking out or covered in cuts I wasn’t too much so.

Johnny glanced inside to make sure no one was listening and motioned us close to him as though he were telling us a secret. “Mrs. Snowburn was crying.” I was inside the room before Johnny could say the rest, Claire stayed to get whatever information she could gather.

They say stress, if not dealt with, can make someone sick and while I was sure that shiver was what started, and ultimately caused, the pneumonia that would kill Mrs. Snowburn, it was the stress caused by Dan that put the nail in the coffin. While I hadn’t been worried about her health up until that point, it was at that very moment that I knew she was in bad shape. She lay in one of the beds, uncovered by the sheets, pale white. I could tell she was in pain, her eyes were shut tight and one of he hands rested on her forehead. She was breath, I could tell from here as I watched her chest rise and fall with every breath, but each one seemed shallower than it should have been and there was a quiet rasp with every intake of the cold air.

It was at that moment that I noticed the air was cold. “Claire!” The moment she stepped in I watched as she stifled a gasp. “Claire, send Johnny to get Tim here so that he can get the space heater working again.” I looked around for Dan, who was sitting in the corner coloring on one of the blank sheets of paper. I couldn’t see any other’s that were clean. “Make sure Dan stays here while I go look for Sean,” I said quietly. She opened her mouth to argue, but a look at Mrs. Snowburn closed it and she nodded before sitting on one of the beds adjacent to Mrs. Snowburn. “Do whatever she asks as long as it doesn’t take you out of the room. When Tim gets here tell him what I told you and then get some food and anything that can be warmed.” I pulled off my blankets for the first time I got there and placed them over Mrs. Snowburn’s body. “No one else gets blankets until she is better understand?” Claire nodded as I walked out the room.

I’m surprised I didn’t run to Sean’s room. I was panicking a little, but at that point I guess my anger at Sean’s selfishness was more important. The two of them were in the middle of one of their ‘sessions’ when I banged on the door so hard chunks of ice fell to the frozen carpet. “What do you want?” Sean yelled through the closed door. “Can’t you wait until we’re done?”

“You have thirty seconds until I walk into that room. I’m counting starting now. Thirty.” I began counting down from thirty in my head, not really caring that each number wasn’t early one second long. From inside I heard them laugh a little and go back to what they’d been doing. “Twenty Five.” They continued without giving me a second thought. “Twenty.”

I think it was when I hit about ten that they realized I was serious, I began counting by ones at that point rather than fives. I heard them mumbling to each other about whether or not Sean had locked the door, whether they had time to lock it, and where clothes were. It turned out that they couldn’t’ have locked it even if they wanted to, the mechanism had frozen to itself and any attempt would have broken the entire lock ensuring it would never be locked again. “Three. Two. One.” I opened the door and I watched as Ms. George dived behind Sean’s desk and Sean stood there with nothing but a shirt in front of him. He smiled weakly as he edge behind the desk and next to Ms. George.

“What-“ His voice cracked and he had to stop to clear it. “What do you want Justin? Can’t you see we’re a bit preoccupied at the moment?”

I walked into the room, but left the door open. In one scoop I tossed all of their clothes at them, some hit them in the face, while the rest landed nicely on the desk. “How long have you been ‘a bit preoccupied’ Sean? Come on! Even my college buddies didn’t go at it this much.” Sean and Ms. George looked at each other and smiled. “You know why they didn’t go at it this much? Because if they did they’d be kicked out of school for poor grades.” I walked up to the desk and knelt so that my chin was resting on the cold metal. I kept my voice low and pointed and made sure that they knew I was serious. It was probably the only time in my life that I wished I had a light cigarette in my hand, that way I could have pushed it into something like Claire had. “Now, despite what you may think, you do have a job to do while you’re here. There are three children here and no one in the school is equipped to take care of all of them at once. We’ve been lucky so far. Claire has kept Johnny busy, Coach Z and Mrs. Snowburn have taken care of Jessica, Harold and Diana have had control over Dan, and, though I’m not a child, Mrs. Snowburn has taken extra measures to take care of me while I’ve been recovering. Unfortunately, while you’ve been busy, things have changed. Dan is now without anyone to keep an eye on him because Harold and Diana are missing. This means that Mrs. Snowburn has had to take responsibility of three people when she was already running at her limit while taking care of two. Added to that, Dan is a major problem child and needs one person’s undivided and total concentration. No one but you can do that, but you are here getting you kicks. Well, because of that very reason, Mrs. Snowburn is now lying in bed looking like she’s about to die.” Sean got the message and began grabbing clothes so he can get dressed.

“Well, since he’s gonna be busy for a bit, wanna have a go?” Ms. George winked at me and licked her lips.

I stood up and walked out of the room. “I expect you in the nurse’s room shortly Sean, and Ms. George, Claire showed some interest earlier, who don’t you try her? Tell her you’ll make sure Johnny gets a good grade, I bet that will help her warm right up.” I walked away without another thought towards either of them.