Live Round

The classroom settled. All eyes on Mrs. Sauer. “Let’s reset, children, and get focused. I know everyone is jazzed, which is fantastic, but we need to get the wiggles out before we start our math unit. One more Live Round exercise.”

Lily gulped.

“It’s QUICK DRAW TIME!” She elicited another happy classroom eruption as she pressed a button on the wall. A laser-red countdown clock appeared on the whiteboard. “You know what to do.”

“Yee haw,” a kid shouted like they were in an old western movie.

Lily wiped her palms on her pinafore. She glanced at her classmates, eagerness glinting in their eyes, and she wondered what was wrong with her. Why wasn’t she excited to fire her gun? To fill the active shooter with her bullets? To take her destiny into her own hands? Young, White men came into schools, and they wanted to hurt kids, kids like her. She now knew how to stop them. Or so she thought. “Practice makes better,” her daddy used to say, and that was just what this was, right?

A paper silhouette of a person soared down from the ceiling, hovering right above the countdown clock.

“Remember, we’re not firing, just training our mouse on the target. Prepare your bodies,” Mrs. Sauer said, prompting every child to stretch upright, elongating their backs, then placing their hands palm down on their desks. “Five … four … three … two … one … QUICK DRAW!”

The timer started. Five seconds.

Each child unholstered their gun and pointed it at the silhouette.

Except for Lily.

She fumbled, wrestling her gun out late.

Mrs. Sauer stalked the aisles, adjusting children whose arms weren’t locked or those whose grips wobbled or those whose guns weren’t raised high enough. “Robert, Emma, Divya, Georgie, Sae-Hyun, and Lily, you were one-and-a-half seconds behind. Be sure to get those mice out faster next time. One second is the difference between life and death.”

Lily flinched but nodded. “Focus,” she whispered to herself, squeezing her eyes shut. She saw her daddy’s eyes again. Not now, she thought. Please, not now.

“Guns back into their holsters for round two,” Mrs. Sauer commanded.

The silence filled with electronic whispers noting the return of each child’s gun into their holsters.

Mrs. Sauer pointed a finger in the air, then reset the clock. “Also, don’t forget, I won’t be here to remind you of any of these things during the test. I will be in the panic-cabinet.” She pointed to the hulking, bullet-proof container at the back of the classroom. “You have to know how to face this without a grownup around.”

Lily steeled herself.

“Ready! Safety off this time. Hold those little mice high and proud.” Mrs. Sauer pressed her palms together like prayer hands. “QUICK DRAW!”

The countdown boomed.

Tears welled in Lily’s eyes, the red numbers bleeding together. Her palms turned slick with sweat.

Click.

Three.

Click.

Two.

Click.

The booming countdown of the red numbers blended with the snap of the safeties on thirty-five small side-arms as each child prepared to shoot the silhouette, but Lily’s finger still fussed with hers as if she hadn’t done this a thousand times this year in preparation.

Deep breath. Deep breath.

One.

Click.