Schools do not necessarily regard their letterhead stationery as the keys to the kingdom, and I doubt it's all locked up. However he acquired it, Kevin had paid enough attention in Dana Rocco's English class to digest that f o r m dictates tone. As you do not use popular slang in an article for the school paper, neither do you indulge nihilistic little games involving three-letter words w h e n printing on letterhead stationery. Hence, the official missive sent to Greer Ulanov, for example—in sufficient advance to allow for Nyack's lackluster postal service—exhibits the same keen ear for authenticity that Kevin displayed in playing R o n Howard to you and the shy, flustered victim to Alan Strickland:
Dear Greer
T h e faculty of Gladstone High School is proud of all their students, each of w h o m contributes his or her o w n remarkable talents to the community.Yet certain students invariably come to our attention as having distinguished themselves in the arts or having done even more than their share in shaping a dynamic educational environment. We are pleased to reward this unusual excellence at the end of the school year.
In consultation with teachers and staff, I have compiled a list of nine exemplary students w h o seem most worthy of our n e w Bright and Shining Promise Award. I am delighted to i n f o r m you that you are one of these nine, singled out for your outstanding contributions in politics and civic awareness.
In furtherance of this process, we are asking all BSPA winners to assemble in the gym on Thursday, April 8 at 3:30 P.M. It is our hope that you can begin to put together an assembly program for early June in which the BSPA prizes will be awarded. Some demonstration of your
exceptional gifts would be appropriate. Those of you in the arts can readily demonstrate your skills; others with more academic talents may have to exercise creativity as to h o w best to exemplify your accomplishments.
W h i l e we have made our decisions based solely on merit, we have tried to arrive at a mix of gender, race, ethnicity, rehgion, and sexual preference so that the BSPA will suitably reflect our community's diversity.
Lasdy, I would implore you all to please keep your
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selection for this award to yourselves. If I hear of any boasting, the administration may be forced to reconsider your candidacy. We truly wish it were possible to give every student a prize for being the very special person that he or she is, and it is very important that you not cause unnecessary jealousy before the award winners are made public.
My heartfelt congratulations.
Sincerely,
Donald Bevons
Principal
Identical notices were sent to eight other students, with the blanks filled in accordingly. D e n n y Corbitt was c o m m e n d e d for acting, Jeff Reeves for classical guitar, Laura Woolford for
"personal grooming," Brian " M o u s e " Ferguson for computing skills, Ziggy R a n d o l p h not only for ballet but for "encouraging tolerance of difference," Miguel Espinoza for academic achievement and "vocabulary skills," Soweto Washington for sports, Joshua Lukronsky for "cinematic studies" and-—I fault Kevin here for not being able to control himself—"memorizing w h o l e Q u e n t i n Tarantino scripts," t h o u g h most people are disinclined to regard flattery with suspicion. Dana R o c c o was sent a somewhat different letter that requested she chair this Thursday meeting but also advising that she herself had been selected for the Most Beloved Teacher Award and likewise requesting, since all the other teachers are also beloved, that she keep her M B T A on the q.t.
If the trap was well set, it was not i m m u n e to glitches. Dana R o c c o might have mentioned the meeting to Bevons, w h o would have protested ignorance, and the whole business might have come unraveled. Can we really call Kevin lucky? She didn't.
On the evening of Aprd 7, Kevin set his alarm for half an h o u r earlier than usual and laid out clothing for the m o r n i n g roomy enough to allow for ease of mobility, choosing that dashing white shirt with billowing fencing-style sleeves in which he might photograph well. Personally, I would have tossed through such a night in anguish, but then I personally would never have contrived this grotesque project in the first place, so I can only assume that if Kevin lost any sleep it was from excitement.
R i d i n g the school bus the following m o r n i n g he would have been encumbered—those bike locks weighed 6.2 pounds apiece—but Kevin had arranged for this independent-study archery course at the beginning of the semester, interest in the unpopular pastime being too shght for a proper class. O t h e r students had been trained to regard his lugging archery equipment to school as ordinary. No one was sufficiently attuned to the niceties of this dorky sport to be disturbed that Kevin wasn't lugging his standard b o w or his longbow but his crossbow, which the administration later bent over backward to deny would ever have been allowed on school grounds. T h o u g h the n u m b e r of arrows in his possession was considerable—he was obliged to cart them in his duffel—no one remarked on the bag; the wide berth that his classmates allowed Kevin in eighth grade had by his sophomore year only broadened.
After stashing his archery materiel, as usual, in the equipment r o o m of the gym, he attended all of his classes. In English, he asked Dana R o c c o what maleficence means, and she beamed.
His independent-study archery practice was scheduled for the last period of the day, and—his enthusiasm firmly established—PE
teachers no longer checked up on him as he fired arrows into a sawdust target. Hence, Kevin had ample time to clear the gym of any apparatuses such as punching bags, horses, or heavy tumbling mats. Conveniendy, the bleachers were already up, and to make sure they stayed up, he chpped small combination padlocks around the intersection of two iron supports on b o t h banks, ensuring that they could not fold out. W h e n he was finished there was absolutely nothing in that gym except six blue mats—the thin kind, for sit-ups—arranged in a convivial circle in the middle.
T h e logistics, for those impressed by such things, were impeccably worked out. T h e physical education building is a
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freestanding structure, a good three-minute walk from the main campus. There are five entrances to the central gym itself—from the boys' and girls' locker rooms and the equipment room, as well as from the lobby; a door on the second floor opens onto an alcove, used for the aerobic conditioning machines, that overlooks the gym. Yet not one of these entrances lies on the outside of the building. The gym is unusually high, a full two stories, and there are windows only at the top; you can't see inside from ground level. There were no sporting events scheduled for that afternoon.
T h e bell rang at 3:00, and by 3:15 the distant clamor of departing students was dying down. T h e gym itself was deserted, though Kevin must have still padded with trepidation as he glided into the boys' locker room and unlooped his first Kryptonite bike lock from around his shoulder. He's a methodical person in the most ordinary of circumstances, so we can be sure that he had twist-tied the correct key to each bright yellow, plastic-coated padlock. Looping the heavy chain around each handle of the double doors, he pulled the chain taut. After hiking up the chain's protective black nylon sheath, he hooked the sunny yellow padlock into a middle link, clicked the lock shut, twisted the round key from its socket, and slipped it in his pocket. I dare say he tested the doors, which would now only open with a crack between them before they seized. He repeated this exercise in the girls' locker room, then at the gym entrance from the equipment room, exiting from its back door into the weights room.
I n o w know that these locks were state-of-the-art in bicycle security. T h e U-shaped portion of the tiny, sturdy padlock is only about two inches high, denying prospective thieves the leverage for a crowbar. T h e chain itself is forged interlinking at the factory; each link is half an inch thick. Kryptonite chains are famously resistant to heat, since professional cycle thieves have been known to use torches, and the company is sufficiently confident of its technology that if your bicycle is stolen, it guarantees a full refund
>
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for the purchase value of the bike. Unlike many competitors'
models, the guarantee is even good in N e w York.
Despite his avowed disinterest in your work, Franklin, Kevin was about to launch Kryptonite's most successful advertising campaign to date.
By 3:20, giggling with self-congratulatory glee, the first BSPA winners were starting to arrive through the main entrance from the lobby, which remained unlocked.
"Personal hygiene, my mommal" Soweto declared.
"Hey, we're bright and shining," said Laura, tossing her silken brown hair. " D o n ' t we get any chairs?"
M o u s e crossed to the equipment r o o m to scrounge some fold-ups, but w h e n he came back reporting the r o o m already locked for the day Greer said, "I don't know, it's kind of neat this way. We can sit cross-legged, like around a campfire."
"Puh-lease? said Laura, whose outfit was—scant. "Cross-legged, in this skirt? And it's Versace, for Chrissake. I don't want to stink it up with sit-up sweat."
"Yo, girl," Soweto nodded at her spindly figure, "that close as you gonna come to sit-up sweat."
Kevin was able to listen in on his prizewinners from the alcove, an inset shelf on the upper level; so long as he remained against the back wall, he couldn't be seen from below. T h e three stationary bicycles, treadmill, and rowing machine had already been dragged away from the alcove's protective railing.Transferred from the duffel, his stash of some hundred arrows bristled from two fire buckets.
Enticed by the marvelous echo, D e n n y emoted a few lines from Don't Drink the Water at the top of his lungs, while Ziggy, w h o made a habit of flouncing around school in a leotard and tights to show off his calves, couldn't resist making what Kevin later called "a big queeny entrance," dancing a series of turns in pointe position across the length of the gym and finishing with a grand jete. But Laura, w h o doubtless thought it uncool to ogle fags, only had eyes for Jeff Reeves—though quiet and terminally earnest, a handsome blue-eyed boy with a long blond ponytad with w h o m a dozen girls were k n o w n to be smitten. O n e of Jeff's salivating fans, according to an interview with a friend recorded by N B C , was Laura Woolford, which m o r e than his mastery of the twelve-string guitar may have explained why he, too, was christened Bright and Shining.
Miguel, w h o must have told himself he was unpopular for being smart or Latino—anything but for being a little p u d g y —promptly plunked himself on one of the blue mats, to b u r r o w with knit-browed seriousness into a battered copy of Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. Beside him, Greer, w h o made the mistake c o m m o n to rejects everywhere of assuming that outcasts like each other, was busy trying to engage him in a discussion of NATO's intervention in Kosovo.
Dana R o c c o arrived at 3:35. " C o m e on troops!" she rallied them. "Ziggy, that's all very dramatic, but this isn't ballet practice.
Can we get down to business here? This is a happy occasion, but it's still after-hours for me, and I'd like to get h o m e before Letterman."
At this point, the cafeteria worker arrived, carting a tray of cellophaned sandwiches. " W h e r e you want these, ma'am?"
he asked Rocco. "We got a order from Mr. Bevons to provide refreshments."
"Wasn't that thoughtful of D o n ! " she exclaimed.
Well. It was thoughtful of someone. And I have to say, the sandwiches were a nice touch, that little garnish of an authentic school occasion. But Kevin may have been over-egging the pudding a bit, and the gesture would cost him collateral damage.
"Ma'am, my shift's over now, you m i n d if I shoot a few? I just be over at the far end there, won't be no trouble. D o n ' t got no hoop in my neighborhood. I'd be m u c h obliged."
R o c c o would have hesitated—the noise would be a distraction—but the cafeteria worker was black.
Kevin must have been kicking himself for having left that basketball off in the corner, but by this time—3:40—he'd have
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been more distracted by the no-show. Only nine of his ten party guests had reported for duty, along with one gate-crasher. This operation was not organized for latecomers, and as the meeting got underway he must have been frantically concocting a contingency plan to allow for the dilatory performance of Joshua Lukronsky.
" O h , gr-ooss!" said Laura, passing the platter. "Turkey roll.
Total waste of calories."
"First off, you guys," R o c c o began, "I want to congratulate you all on having been picked for this special award—"
" 0 - k a y ! " T h e lobby doors burst wide. "Let's get in character!"
Kevin would never have been quite so happy to see the consummately irritating Joshua Lukronsky. As the circle enlarged to make a place for Josh, Kevin crept out of the alcove and slipped downstairs with another Kryptonite. Although he was as quiet as he could be, the chain did rattle a little, and he may have been grateful for the banging of the cafeteria worker's basketball at that. Back up in the alcove, he slipped his last padlock and chain around the inside bars of the alcove's double doors.
Voila. Fish in a barrel.
Was he having second thoughts, or simply enjoying himself?
T h e i r meeting had proceeded another five minutes by the time Kevin advanced stealthily toward the rail w i t h his loaded crossbow. T h o u g h he drew into sight f r o m below, the group was too engrossed in planning their o w n accolades to look up.
"I could give a speech," Greer proposed. "Like on h o w the office of special prosecutor should be abolished? Because I think Kenneth Starr is evil incarnate!"
" W h a t about something a little less divisive?" R o c c o proposed.
"You don't want to alienate Republicans—"
"Wanna bet?"
A soft, rushing sound. Just as there is a tiny pause between lightning and thunderclap, there was a single, dense instant of silence between the arrow's shsh-thunk through Laura Woolford's Versace blouse and the point at which the other students began to scream.
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" O h , my God!"
"Where'd it come from!"
"She's bleeding all O V E R ! "
Shsh-thunk. N o t yet struggled to his feet, Miguel took one in the gut. Shsh-thunk.Jeff was nailed between the shoulder blades as he bent over Laura Woolford. I can only conclude that for those many hours Kevin spent in our backyard, the litde black bull's-eye in the middle of all those concentric circles was in his mind's eye a perfect circle ofVersace viscose. Struck perfectly through the heart, she was dead.
"He's up there!" D e n n y pointed.
"Kids,get out! Run!" iLocco ordered, though she needn't have; the uninjured remainder had already stampeded toward the main exit, where they were giving new meaning to the term panic bars.
Yet given the position of the alcove, there wasn't one square foot in that gym that couldn't be penetrated from over its railing, as they were all soon to discover.
" O h , shit, I should have known!" screamed Joshua with an upward glance, rattling the equipment r o o m door that Mouse had already tried. "It's KhatchadourianV'
Shsh-thunk. As he pounded on the main doors calling for help while the arrow stuck in his back quivered, a shaft sank into the nape of Jeff Reeves's neck. As Mouse streaked to the boys'locker room exit and the doors gave just a litde and held fast, he took an arrow in the ass; it wouldn't kill him, but as he hobbled to the one last exit on the girls' side, he was surely beginning to realize that there was plenty of time for one that did.
Dana R o c c o got to the girls' exit at about the same time, weighed down by Laura's body in her arms—a fruitless but valiant effort that would feature prominently in the memorial service. Mouse met Rocco's eyes and shook his head. As his shrieking classmates began to circle from door to door in a churning motion like dough in a mixing bowl, Mouse shouted over the uproar, " T h e doors are locked! All the doors are locked!
Take cover!"
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Behind what?
T h e cafeteria worker—less attuned to the School Shooting format than the students, w h o had been through whole preparatory assemblies and got into character right away-—had been easing along the walls as if feeling for one of those secret passageways in murder mysteries, moving slowly, attracting m i n i m u m attention.
T h e cinder block unavailing, he n o w crouched into a fetal ball, holding the basketball between the archer and his head. Kevin was doubtless annoyed at having allowed any obstacle to remain in the gym however small, and the ineffectual protection just drew fire. Shsh-phoot. The ball was skewered.
"Kevin!" cried his English teacher, triangulating Mouse behind her body into the corner farthest from the alcove. "Please stop! Please, please stop!"
"Maleficence" Kevin hissed distinctly from overhead; Joshua said later that it was weird h o w you could hear this relatively quiet word above the din. For the duration, it was all that Kevin said. Thereafter, Kevin fixed his staunchest ally on the Gladstone faculty steadily in his sight and put an arrow straight between her eyes.
As she fell, Mouse was exposed in the corner, and though he began to crouch in the shelter of her body, he took another shaft that pierced a lung. That would teach him to share the secrets of computer viruses with mere cyber-dilettantes w h o were really much m o r e interested in archery.
But Mouse, in Joshua's view, had the right idea; so far, Lukronsky's scrabbling up all the thin blue sit-up mats and trying to fashion some kind of shield wasn't working nearly as well as it would have in the movies, and already t w o arrows had whizzed within inches of his head. Scooting over to Mouse's corner while Kevin was occupied with reaming Soweto Washington's powerful thighs, Joshua built himself an i m p r o m p t u lean-to in the corner constructed of the blue foam rubber, Dana R o c c o , Laura Woolford, and the groaning, half-conscious body of Mouse Ferguson. It was from this stuffy tent that he observed the denouement, peering from under Laura's armpit as Mouse's breath bubbled. It was hot, suffused with the rank fumes of fearful sweat and another, more disturbing smell that was nauseously cloying.