The Release

The metals kids were their own group; fu

Metals kids were different from those who took woodshop. That class attracted football players on the hunt for an easy elective and entire collections of ski

The art studios were brightly painted and cluttered with decades of abandoned projects. There were bookshelves shoved with forgotten pottery and closets stuffed with unfinished canvas portraits. Mobiles dangled from the ceiling and the desks were covered with a rainbow paint splatter. The art students were shy and unassuming with their own inside jokes and general disdain for those without appreciation for the French Impressionists.

Lucy was familiar with this area of the school from Salem, who, not surprisingly, had found a niche in journalism early in her high school career as she cha

But despite its cosmetic deficiencies, there was something powerful about the East Wing. It was the only place in the school entirely dedicated to creation. A birdhouse. A watercolor. A ceramic vase. Key chains. A newspaper.

Immediately after the last round of security, the whole group left the confines of the English classroom and darted up the hall with Clayton leading them down the hallway, left toward the art studio, up to the woods workshop and the metals room. They twitched eagerly as Mrs. Johnston opened up the door and led the group inside, hushing them, and pushing them, until she could close the door without a sound. Then Clayton hit a switch and the room tumbled to life—overhead lights flickering, the room awash in a golden glow, illuminating shiny metal from one end of the room to the other.

The room was large, expansive. Row after row of long workbenches and tented workstations, each equipped with tubes and wires, stools, machinery. A staircase at the very end led to a narrow walkway where large sheets of metal were stored, each placed upright against the wall, reflective and bright. The entire room echoed as the group walked around inside, and when Lucy ran her hand over the nearest table, small shards of aluminum collected on her skin, and she brushed them off on her jeans.

“I’ve never been here,” Grant said, peeking his head into a work station, the large green plastic curtain crinkling loudly as he pulled it back. “Four years in this place and I’ve never had a class back here. I didn’t even know it existed.” Lucy understood—she hadn’t known about the East Wing either until Salem joined journalism.

“I live here,” Clayton replied with pride. He walked over to a section of the room and pulled back on a white bed sheet, exposing a fiberglass body of a racing car. “I’ve been working on this for my electric car competition. Hours and hours,” he said with a touch of sadness. He ran a hand through his long hair and then shook away whatever was going through his head. After a prolonged glance at his handiwork, Clayton threw the sheet back over the car body and turned to the group.

Mrs. Johnston’s foot tapped by the door. “Get what you need and hurry!” she instructed.

Clayton pointed toward Grant. “In that closet, grab the ladder. You,” he pointed at Lucy, “help him carry it to the hallway.”

Then Clayton disappeared into the belly of the workshop, and after a moment he emerged carrying wire-cutters and a cordless blowtorch. He motioned for everyone to follow his lead back out into the hallway and Grant and Lucy lugged the full-sized ladder after him.

“Alright,” Clayton said as the door to Metals clinked closed. “Open up this room. Hurry,” he instructed, nodding toward the journalism lab.

Lucy raised her eyebrows, perplexed, but she followed them inside all the same, shuffling her feet along the tile, the ladder heavier than she had originally assumed it would be.

The lab used to be a drafting classroom. It was large with heavy cement walls, which the journalism students had painted pink and green. She had been in the room dozens of times, waiting aimlessly for Salem to finish a column or meet a deadline, and she had made a home of the dark blue couch in the corner and perused the journalism teacher’s books out of boredom on many occasions. And once, while Salem argued about her advice column with her adviser, when no one was looking, Lucy stole a book of Joan Didion essays. Her intent was to read it and return it, but the book was lost somewhere—it had wandered off and adopted a transitory lifestyle, which Lucy always thought was better for books anyway.

Trancelike, Mrs. Johnston walked inside and straight into the center of the room, not even bothering to flip on the lights. There was no need to engage the overheads because the room was bright enough from a giant skylight in the ceiling. Made of milky plastic, the skylight served an aesthetic rather than functional purpose, and Lucy remembered when it rained the sound of water hitting the material amplified the drops to an alarming degree, making conversation with someone right next to you nearly impossible.

“Of course,” Mrs. Johnston said as Clayton and Grant hoisted the ladder upright and stood it up on top of the long tables under the skylight. One leg on one table, the other leg on another table, and when it wobbled, Lucy sucked in a breath. Clayton climbed up onto the table and grabbed hold of the ladder, sliding it this way and that way, and testing its ability to hold someone’s weight as it towered to the ceiling.

“She didn’t even come to school today,” Mrs. Johnston said, crossing her arms over her chest, and wandering to the journalism teacher’s desk. “Yesterday we talked about starting herb gardens and taking the kids on a play date.” Mrs. Johnston trailed off. She sat down in a big squeaky black chair and leaned back, and she trained her eyes on a row of pictures in frames—smiling faces on the beach, a Pomeranian dog licking a little boy’s face.

Lucy remembered that Mrs. Johnston and the journalism teacher had been good friends, always huddling with their heads together at assemblies, sharing class adviser duties, bringing each other lattes in the morning.

It was strange that people were lost instantaneously and their lives released from the world in a moment. Those people were held in memories and nothing more. Best friends absorbed into bedlam in a single breath and simply—poof—gone in one startling second. Lucy was most alarmed by the fact that so many people had died and not any of them could be properly mourned. She grieved for mankind and for herself, but she knew the individual people were already turning into a collective.

Clayton climbed up the first few rungs and held the blowtorch and wire-cutters in his hands. Grant and Purse Girl each held a side of the ladder while Lucy looked at the clock. She watched as Clayton reached his hand up until he could touch the plastic segments, and when he pushed up on them they gave slightly under the pressure. He put the wire cutters down and grabbed the blowtorch, turning it on so the blue flame sprouted up a few inches and hissed angrily. He began to work on the plastic around the edges of the first panel, melting away the sides—they curled under the heat—their edges turning black. The room began to reek of burning plastic, but if anyone cared, no one said anything.