A New Device Policy

“Thanks, Laura. I’m here at Kennedy West Hospital where Reed Crawford, a 14-year-old boy, is still in critical condition. Mrs. Crawford is pleading –”

My mom stamped the radio station off as if that would sever my memory of the news. But it was everywhere. And stories kept piling up. I reached to turn the radio back on, but in my mom’s attempt to swap my hand away, my finger jammed into the console.

“Ouch! Mom! What the–”

She gasped and threw her non-driving hand over her mouth, “Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry!” Then she chuckled.

There was a pause until we both started laughing. She definitely had a way of diffusing issues before they even started. I admired her for that.

“Can I at least put on some music before we get to the school?”

“Hmm. Depends.”

I smirked. I knew what music she wanted. I threw on her throwback jams and didn’t even need to look directly at her to know she was pursing her lips and pumping her shoulders to the beat. Not many were like my mom this early in the morning.

We were about to start our first day at school together; she, as the new school nurse, and me as a sophomore in high school. The move here was swift and abrupt. None of our moving boxes were even open yet at the apartment; we were living out of old duffle bags. My parents were divorced a few years ago. At first, my dad sort of made an effort until he stopped wanting to pay, and then eventually, until he stopped wanting to breathe. So it’s just me and my mom now, and when she got this offer for a new job, we figured it was a new beginning for both of us. I didn’t have too many friends back home, so it was easy to say goodbye. Not sure what that says about me. I was both eager to start at a new school and nervous that I wouldn’t fit in at all. Things were so different here.

“Mom, are you worried at all? Especially since–”

“Honey, we talked about this. Remember our plan,” she turned down the beats.

“But what am I going to do if I’m the only person who doesn’t have one?”

“One what?”

“Mom, I’m serious!”

“Sadie, I have faith that we will be just fine,” she held out her hand and waited. I took a deep breath and placed my head in her palm. Even though it didn’t quite fit like it did when I was little, it still felt the same. I then replaced my head with my hand. She took hold of it then brought it up to her Maybelline lipstick and gave me a smooch tattoo. We giggled at how neither one of us seemed to have grown up in the last 15 years.

Fortunately, my mom was always early, so we were one of the first to arrive in the school parking lot. She made us listen to the rest of her jam on full blast before getting out of the car, and then it was suddenly real.

After I got my printed schedule from the office, we checked out the nurse’s station. She had a pretty nice set up, and I was already scouting for a place I could lounge during my lunch period. As soon as the five-minute bell rang, she hugged and kissed me on the head since I was almost as tall as her now, “I love you, sweetheart. Be good, be careful, be kind. Have the best first day!”

“Thanks, ma. Love you too.”

I headed to my first class. Outside the classroom door, there was a laminated piece of paper that read in Times New Roman, PLEASE SILENCE YOUR DEVICES AND KEEP IN BOOK BAG. I didn’t even realize I had scoffed aloud, “Why would you even need it in class?” I looked around to make sure nobody had heard me. Then I crammed all of my anxiety into a little ball and blew it away like my mom taught me. Once I entered the room, I immediately did not belong. They were everywhere. And none of them were in book bags. I was right to laugh at that sign. One girl had hers lying on the desk, rose-gold with rhinestones all over it. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. She must have seen my disgust, because she snatched it from her desk and held it close to her while she gave me the stink-eye. I just gave a faint smile and hoped that I wasn’t already on someone’s list. There was only one empty seat at the front corner of the room, directly in front of the teacher’s desk. Even the teacher had hers out in plain sight.

As I tried to get a closer look at the posters hanging on the wall, my new English teacher touched me on the shoulder, “You must be Sadie!” She was tall with light-brown hair, and you could tell she didn’t care too much about what she looked like. She definitely had way too much energy to be a normal human being. “Welcome to Eastview High School, I’m Mrs. Grady!” she stuck out her hand to greet me, but for some reason I hesitated. She eventually took her hand away and used it to tuck her hair behind her ears. She didn’t even seem bothered by my impoliteness. “Well, it’s nice to meet you anyway! I hear your mom is our new nurse, is that right?

And suddenly I felt that maybe she wasn’t so bad. I finally reacted, “I’m sorry- it’s nice to meet you, too,” I slowly sat down in my seat.

“No worries hun!” She picked up my paper schedule that I didn’t even realize I had dropped on the floor.

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Grady. And yes, my mom is the new nurse, which is pretty cool, I guess,” I slowly stopped talking because now everybody was staring at me.

She smiled at me, and not the fake kind that teachers give because they have to; it seemed sincere. “Just let me know if you have any questions since you’re coming in from another school, ok?”

I nodded and smiled back.

Mrs. Grady then greeted the rest of the class, and you could tell by the choral response that this was the routine. She must have earned their respect at some point during the first semester; you could tell they loved her. But as soon as she started talking about figurative language, she lost me and probably half of the class.

I started to stare out the window which showed the entrance to the school. I saw a few parents dropping off their kids who were running late, and it looked like one kid didn’t even say goodbye to his mom; he just got out of the car and slammed the door. I did start to worry if we had made the right decision in coming here.

Suddenly Mrs. Grady clapped her hands. Her lesson was completely interrupted. “Garrett, that’s enough. Please bring it up here and put it in the bin,” she pointed to the plastic storage bins at the front of the classroom.

Garrett looked dumbfounded, “But . . . but . . . I was just–”

“No, sir. I have given you plenty of chances. You haven’t been able to put it down once since I started class- and that is no hyperbole!” She tried to lighten up the situation by making a terrible English-teacher joke. Some students laughed out of pity. Garrett threw his head back and sighed. I started to think about how distracting it must be for the teachers, too, and how they still haven’t come up with a school policy. I tried to focus on my writing assignment, but I kept looking out the window, and before I knew it, class was over.

Everybody started to pack up before the bell even rang when I noticed a man in sweatpants and a hoodie walking up to the entrance of the school; he wasn’t even wearing a coat. I was squinting my eyes to try and see through the smudges of the window until a student who sat behind me was now in my personal space. “You don’t have one, do you?” He seemed to enjoy the fact that he startled me.

“One what?” I realized exactly what he was talking about, but I was just playing the game.

“Aren’t these banned where you come from?” He had the face of someone who loved pissing people off.

“Oh, right. No, I don’t have one. And yeah, there is a ban for teens under eighteen years old. It’s actually kinda weird that you guys are allowed to have them in school here.”

“Wow, what a joke! Eighteen?!” He flashed me all of the skull stickers on his, inches away from my face, and I jumped back. He laughed and pointed at my reaction. Then he walked away with a few other students who seemed to be amused by his subpar bullying techniques.

Mrs. Grady was standing outside the classroom door at the time, of course. “Okay, guys, we’ll continue our narrative assignment tomorrow! Have a great day!” You had to appreciate the effort Mrs. Grady put into her job. Nobody even responded to her. I felt bad, so I had to say something, “Great lesson, teach!” Oh. My. God. Great lesson? TEACH? Who says that!

“Aww, well thank you so much, Sadie. You’re already my favorite student!” We both laughed, but I needed to get out of there quickly before she had me committing to some lame after-school club.

I made it through math at the farthest end of the building, so two classes down. As I walked through the hallways, I realized that nobody talked to one another. It was like they all had this fear of socializing. It sent chills down my spine. As I got closer to the front entrance, I noticed a growing crowd.

It looked like the security guards and police officers were escorting someone. I tried to push through some of the students to get a better look. It was the man in sweatpants and a hoodie. He looked completely unhinged, “I need to know! I need to know what happened!” He started sobbing, “My poor boy!” I then noticed he had been handcuffed as they were dragging him away. My stomach dropped. I ran down the hallway toward the nurse’s room. How could they not have an intrusion alarm at this school? I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw blood on the floor. Tears welled up in my eyes, I could not breathe. I finally found my voice, “Mom? MOM?”

“Sadie? Is that you? I need you- get in here!” she called from inside the room.

I gasped. My mom was lying on the floor next to a boy. There was so much blood, I didn’t know where it was coming from. “MOM are you ok? What happened?” I slid on my knees to get as close as I could to her and grabbed her hand. I searched for where the blood was coming from, but it wasn’t her. It was the boy. She was trying to stop him from bleeding out and needed my help. We did all that we could before the paramedics arrived.

“The community, once again, is demanding a solution. Sources say that after 14-year-old Reed Crawford passed away this morning, his father made his way to the school in order to find 15-year old Michael Hillinger. Michael is now in critical condition. His teacher, Mrs. Grady, lost her life before paramedics arrived. Colleagues are calling her a hero for trying to protect a student. Alex Gonzalez is now live at Eastview High School with one of Mrs. Grady’s students. Alex?”

“Thank you, Laura. A very sad day here at the high school as students and staff mourn yet another member of the community. I’m here with Eastview student, Rose Tully, and her mother, Mrs. Tully. Rose, I understand that Mrs. Grady was your 1st-period teacher, and that you just saw her this morning. How are you handling this?”

“I. am. so. sad. She was like, the best teacher, ya know? Always so happy and full of energy. I can’t even believe it.” Rose chomped on her gum.

Mrs. Tully chimed in, “I just can’t believe what these teenagers have to go through these days,” she shook her head.

Alex took back the microphone, “Mrs. Tully, what do you believe is the hold-up with the new device policy? Should the parents get more involved?”

She looked appalled. “Look. My daughter shouldn’t be punished with some policy just ‘cause other kids can’t handle their devices. We want her to have it on her at all times in case of an emergency.” She pulled hers out; a white one with the same rhinestones along the side, just like her daughter’s. She spun it around a few times, pointed it at the camera, and then wiped the barrel with her sleeve. “I always have mine, too. You just never know these days,” and she stuck it back into her matching leather holster.

Alex nodded his head, “Well, there you have it, folks. Laura, back to you.”