Time Out by Liane Shaw

Author:Liane Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Second Story Press
Published: 2014-03-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Blood and vomit

The bus finally stops moving, and I feel myself joining in the dance, doing my own flying leap out of my seat and onto the floor. I can hear crying and shouting all around me. My glasses are gone, and I feel around on the floor for them.

“Ms. S! Ms. S! What happened? What happened?” The voices are in my ear, and I should stop crawling around on the floor and figure out if the kids are all right, but I need my glasses. I can’t do this without my glasses.

“Ms. S! Ms. S! Ms. S! Ms. S!” Each “S” is louder than the last, but my hands still scramble madly across the floor until my fingers finally stumble on a familiar shape. I grab my dirt-smeared and probably totally scratched-up glasses, cram them on my face, and take a deep breath before I force myself to look around. I don’t really want to. I don’t want to know that they’re hurt. I don’t do blood and pain. I’m a teacher, not a nurse. The two worst things that can happen in my classroom are vomit or blood. When I see vomit, I always feel the need to puke my own guts out in sympathy. When I see blood, my head goes light and fuzzy, and I feel like I’m going to faint.

“Sean?” I call his name first, needing to know that there’s another adult here to help with the blood and vomit.

“I’m okay. I think.”

“Ms. S, Ms. S, Ms. S, Ms. S!”

“It’s okay everyone! We’re all right. Sean and I are going to check you all out carefully. Just sit tight.” I push myself to my feet, checking to see if I have all my body parts before seeing if the students have theirs. The first one I find is Donny, pushed down on the floor beside his seat, wedged tightly, head on his knees.

“Donny, honey? Are you okay?” Stupid question but the only one I can think of. Are you okay with the fact that I took you on a stupid field trip to buy an even stupider rodent and almost got you killed in a bus accident?

“I don’t know,” he answers weakly, raising his head to look at me with tear-filled eyes. I feel the bile rise up in my throat as my brain starts to fill with bubbles of horror. His face and chest are covered with dark, viscous slime, and I can’t see where it’s leaking from. He’s crying harder now, eyes and ears both pouring out fluids that mix with the slime, making a volcanic mess that I know I should be trying to clean away. I dig through my pockets and find a small napkin, which I use to dab ineffectually at his face.

“What hurts?” I know in some forgotten part of my previously intelligent mind that he might not even know, that shock might be numbing his nerve endings.

“Nothing. I don’t want you to be mad, okay?” He looks up at me with his teary-eyed, snotty, slime-coated face.

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