Unwind

There are two policemen by the front office—they actually seem intimidated by the mob of kids flowing past them and out the front doors of the school. But why policemen? Why not firemen? And how could they have gotten here so quickly? They couldn't have—they must have been called before the alarm went off. But why?

The last time there were policemen in the school, someone called in a clapper threat. The school was evacuated, and no one knew why until after the fact. Turns out, there was no clapper—the school was never in danger of being blown up. It was just some kid pulling a practical joke. Still, clapper threats are always taken seriously, because you never know when the threat might be real.

"Please, no pushing!" she says to a student who bumps her elbow. "I'm sure we'll all make it outside." Good thing she didn't take her coffee.

"Sorry, Ms. Steinberg."

As she passes one of the science labs, she notices the door ajar. Just to be thorough, she peeks in to make sure there are no stragglers, or kids trying to avoid the mass exodus. The stone-top tables are bare and the chairs are all in place. No one had been in the lab this period. She reaches to pull the door closed, more out of habit than anything else, when she hears a sound that is wholly out of place in the room.

A baby's cry.

At first she thinks it might be coming from the student mother nursery, but the nursery is way down the hall. This cry definitely came from the lab. She hears the cry again, only this time it sounds oddly muffled, and angrier. She knows that sound. Someone's trying to cover the baby's mouth to keep it from crying. These teen mothers always do that when they have their babies where they don't belong.

They never seem to realize it only makes the baby cry louder.

"Party's over," she calls out. "C'mon, you and your baby have to leave with everyone else."

But they don't come out. There's that muffled cry again, followed by some intense whispering that she can't quite make out. Annoyed, she steps into the lab and storms down the center aisle looking left and right until she finds them crouched behind one of the lab tables. It's not just a girl and a baby; there's a boy there too. There's a look of desperation about them. The boy looks as if he might bolt, but the girl grabs him firmly with her free hand. It keeps him in place. The baby wails.

The teacher might not know every name in school, but she's fairly certain she knows every face—and she certainly knows all the student mothers. This isn't one of them, and the boy is completely unfamiliar too.

The girl looks at her, eyes pleading. Too frightened to speak, she just shakes her head. It's the boy who speaks.

"If you turn us in, we'll die."

At the thought, the girl holds the baby closer to her. Its cries lessen, but don't go away entirely. Clearly these are the ones the police are looking for, for reasons she can only guess at.

"Please . . . ," says the boy.

Please what? the teacher thinks. Please break the law? Please put myself and the school at risk? But, no, that's not it at all. What he's really saying is:

Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

Then a voice from behind her: "Hannah?"

She turns to see another teacher looking in from the door. He's a bit disheveled, having fought the raging rapids of kids still funneling out of the school. He obviously hears the baby's cries—how could he not?

"Is everything all right?" he asks.

"Yeah," says Hannah, with more calm in her voice than she actually feels. "I'm taking care of it."

The other teacher nods and leaves, probably glad not to share the burden of whatever this crying baby situation is.

Hannah now knows what the situation is, however—or at least she suspects.

Kids only have this kind of desperation in their eyes when they're going to be unwound.

She holds out her hand to the frightened kids. "Come with me." The kids are hesitant, so she says, "If they're looking for you, they'll find you once the building is empty. You can't expect to hide here. If you want to get out, you have to leave with everyone else. C'mon, I'll help you."

Finally, they rise from behind the lab table, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

She can tell they still don't trust her— but then, why should they? Unwinds exist in the constant shadow of betrayal. Well, they don't need to trust her now, they just need to go with her. In this case, necessity is the mother of compliance, and that's just fine.

"Don't tell me your names," she says to them. "Don't tell me anything, so if they question me afterward, I won't be lying when I say I don't know."