Colin Fischer (10 page)

“Hey, buddy,” Mr. Fischer said.

“Hello,” Colin said, dutifully rinsing his dirty dishes and placing them into the dishwasher rack.

Mrs. Fischer checked her watch. “We’re gonna be late.”

“Best I could do,” he answered.

“I know your team is under the gun.” She winced, realizing what she just said. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”

“Are you kidding?” Mr. Fischer heaped food onto
a plate. “I spent half the day telling everybody Colin wasn’t involved.”

“Can I go out back now?” Colin asked. He very much wanted to put in some trampoline time before the assembly. There was thinking to be done.

Mrs. Fischer checked her watch again. She was a project manager at NASA, and Colin knew that time mattered to her differently than it did to most people. “Fifteen minutes. Then we’ve gotta go.”

The door slammed shut as Colin disappeared into the backyard.

“He
wasn’t
involved, was he?” Mr. Fischer asked.

“God, no.”

Through the open kitchen window, Colin popped into view. He seemed to hover in midair a moment, then dropped back out of sight.

“Do I have to go?” Danny asked. His shoulders slumped.

“Five minutes ago, this was the most exciting thing you’d ever heard,” Mrs. Fischer reminded him.

Colin popped up again, this time with his feet splayed out in front of him—an unstable configuration. He tumbled slightly as he disappeared.

“Guns are exciting,” Danny explained. “Talking about them isn’t.”

In the backyard, Colin bounced rhythmically on his trampoline.
Up-down…Up-down…
His parents and
Danny went in and out of sight, their voices muted but audible. To Colin, it was as if the kitchen window were a television screen, and he could watch his family on it. He closed his eyes. For a moment there was only the darkness and the soft, regular squeak of the trampoline springs.

Up-down, up-down
…

Images from the day flashed through Colin’s mind like a slideshow, in time with every launch from the surface of the trampoline: a basketball, sailing through the air…Mr. Gates, writing equations on the blackboard…The gentle curve of Melissa’s body, as she wrote in his Notebook…Mouths chewing food…

And the handgun, lying abandoned on the cafeteria floor.

From the kitchen, Mr. Fischer absently watched his son leap higher and higher. “Maybe we could dust off those old NASA plans for a moon colony and ship Colin and Danny there until graduation,” he mused.

“Send Colin first,” Danny muttered, finally finished with his dinner.

“I made five free throws!”—Colin suddenly exclaimed at his father, shouting to be heard as he leaped upward—“and three perimeter shots”—as he went down again—“today in PE!” He let himself settle into a standing position. “Mr. Turrentine says I have a killer jump shot!” Colin stopped to catch his breath.

For a moment, Mr. Fischer just looked at Colin, as though he didn’t understand what he’d just heard. Then he burst into laughter and stepped outside:

“You played
basketball
?”

The parking lot
of West Valley High was filled with cars, ranging from expensive SUVs to thirty-year-old Japanese imports held together with wire. As Colin climbed out of the back of his father’s Audi (which, per his request, had been parked in the first available spot), he produced his Notebook and a fresh green-ink pen and began to write:

Colin was right on all three counts.

He disliked auditoriums immensely because of the crowds, the smell, and the noise. Over time, he’d learned to deal with them by closing his eyes, breathing through his mouth, and allowing the discordant voices to meld into white noise. This was more difficult to pull off during an awards ceremony because Colin was invariably asked to stand and be recognized for his citizenship, effort, or academic achievement. However,
if he moved as quickly as possible to the stage and back to his seat, it wasn’t too bad.

Dr. Doran had been addressing parents, teachers, and a smattering of students for almost ten minutes, offering the obligatory empathy, assurances, and calls for unity—most of which Colin had tuned out. His mind was exploring more important matters. Specifically, he wondered who owned the gun, who had been careless enough to drop it on the floor, and if they were indeed one and the same person.

“As long as everybody stays cool,” Dr. Doran concluded, “we’ll all be just fine.”

Colin heard the low buzz of voices, indicating side conversations beginning among the crowd. His own parents just looked at each other, although Colin found it difficult to decipher the meaning of their furrowed brows.

“So that’s it?” A woman’s voice carried above the noise of the crowd.

Colin sat up straighter, so he could see where the question had come from. He needn’t have bothered; the woman rose from her seat, unbidden. “A few touchy-feely seminars, a week of cops on campus, and you hope this all goes away?” she asked.

Dr. Doran considered the woman carefully, and Colin saw his principal’s eyes lock in on the boy seated beside her: Rudy Moore.

Rudy was dressed in a pressed, button-down oxford
and a conservative silk tie. His hair was damp, indicating that he’d taken a shower between the end of school and the beginning of the assembly. Colin found this strange but couldn’t put his finger on why.

“I assure you,” Dr. Doran replied evenly, “we take this very seriously. However, I would remind you that West Valley High had the best safety record in the district until this incident.”

Rudy beckoned his mother to lean down and whispered in her ear. Mrs. Moore looked back at Dr. Doran. “You mean last year, when someone else was principal.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the auditorium. Dr. Doran appeared to be formulating a careful response when Colin’s father stood up to take the floor.

“Look,” Mr. Fischer said, “I don’t know about last year or any other principals. That’s not the issue here, and it’s not useful to suggest that it is.”

He aimed that last comment squarely at Mrs. Moore. She glared back coldly.

“But talking about how things were up until this incident is like saying the
Titanic
had the best safety record in the Atlantic until she hit the iceberg.”
⁷

Laughter rippled through the crowd. Even Dr.
Doran smiled. Colin saw his mother smiling too—but her smile was different from Dr. Doran’s or anyone else’s. She was not
AMUSED
, but
PROUD
.

“Even one isolated incident is too many,” he continued. “It’s a miracle that bullet ended up in the ceiling and not in a child’s body.”

Murmurs of agreement met Colin’s ears as other parents began to take their cue from Rudy’s mother and Mr. Fischer.

“We all know where this kind of thing comes from,” one angry father blurted out. “It’s the values these kids are learning from the TV and video games, ’cause nobody is teaching them at home!”

Someone’s mother chimed in her agreement. “Yeah, I don’t spend two hours a day driving between a job I hate and a house I can’t afford for this! We moved here to get away from the kind of people who do this.”

Behind Colin, a man hurled back, “And what ‘kind of people’ might those be?”

Colin huddled tightly against himself like a turtle. He could feel the tension in the room escalate around him. His heartbeat picked up speed.

Mrs. Fischer looked at her son, careful not to touch him given his current emotional state. “Colin,” she said quietly but crisply as people around her began to bark out opinions in a cacophony of fear, anger, and resentment, “do you need to get out of here?”

Colin shook his head.
No.
He was determined to see
this through, even though it was obvious even to him where it was leading:
shouting
.

It was obvious to Dr. Doran too. “Let’s be clear about something,” she said. Her voice boomed from the speakers, drowning out the crowd with a whine of feedback. “This didn’t happen to one or a few of us. It happened to all of us. As a community. We need to respond as a community.” She had the crowd’s attention again, and she seized it. “Anyone who can’t handle that is welcome to leave. Seriously—go home.”

Colin recognized this as a bold, risky stratagem. In his experience, parents didn’t like to be told they weren’t in charge—especially when they weren’t. However, it seemed to work.

“No takers?” Dr. Doran asked. “Good. Let’s talk about how we’re going to fix this and make sure it never, ever happens again.”

Mrs. Fischer elbowed her husband in the ribs. “She can stay,” she said.

Dr. Doran continued. “First, I’ve asked the police to run random sweeps through campus for the indefinite future. We’re very confident—”

“And when do you plan to catch the little thug who brought the gun?” Mrs. Moore interrupted.

Rudy stared at Dr. Doran. His eyes made Colin think of a doll’s, not just because of his association with the Case of the Talking Doll, but because there was something wrong about them. Something not quite alive.
Regardless, Colin hated dolls—the more “realistic” the mold, the less he liked them.
⁸

Dr. Doran fell quiet again. She wrinkled her nose. It reminded Colin of the woman Samantha from the old TV show
Bewitched
, which he had watched dutifully on cable until he gave up television altogether after learning of the “Tommy Westphall Hypothesis.” The hypothesis held that the vast majority of American television takes place in the mind of an autistic boy featured in the series finale of
St. Elsewhere.
Marie had exposed Colin to the idea in an attempt to illustrate how things that seem to have no connection can have subtle links that bring everything together in amusing, wonderful ways. This was not at all how Colin interpreted the revelation. For Colin, imaginary stories about imaginary stories were one step too far removed from reality.
⁹
Still, he’d always liked Samantha.

“I can’t give you a name yet. But we do have one,” she said.

Mr. Fischer rose again. “I don’t need a name, ma’am,” he said, “Just do me and my son a favor: Whoever it was, please nail him, her, or it to the wall.”

Colin could see his father was very
SERIOUS
, although he was intrigued by the reference to an “it.” Over the years, Colin had come to realize his parents tended toward sensational, figurative language to make a point. This was probably one of those times.

Dr. Doran nodded solemnly, then stepped out from the podium. Her thumb and forefinger formed a “0.” It meant:

“Zero. Tolerance.”

Applause erupted from the audience, endorsing the principal’s get-tough attitude. Colin just wished they could have endorsed her more quietly.

The next day
, West Valley High School buzzed with response to Dr. Doran’s big meeting. Everywhere Colin went, people talked about her closing pronouncements to the exclusion of nearly everything else.

In the hallway, Abby told Melissa with
CONCERN
, “Did you hear? They’re gonna try him as an adult….”

“…
Zero tolerance
…” Eddie repeated to Stan,
GRAVE
.

“…because the cops found three boxes of ammo in his locker,” an
ASTONISHED
Cooper revealed to a gaggle in study hall, just after the bell. Colin didn’t know if this was true or not, but doubted Cooper would have this information. Colin said nothing.

Instead, he sat in study hall and wrote in his Notebook:

Melissa approached and took a seat next to Colin. “Hello, Melissa,” he said. “How are you today?”

“Okay, I guess,” she replied. “I mean, wow. What a day, right?”

Colin stared at her blankly, concerned that he had missed her meaning.

“Yesterday. The gun?”

“Oh, the gun,” Colin said. “Very interesting.”

She tossed her hair. It smelled like strawberries. Colin liked strawberries. “It was interesting all right.” Melissa smiled at him. It was not a smile Colin recognized, but he felt no compulsion to look away and refer to his cheat sheet. “That was really brave of you, how you were the only one who didn’t run. Weren’t you scared at all?”