Lockdown by Diane Tullson

wouldn’t allow it. Baker lowered the flag anyway, and I’m glad he did.
    For weeks after the lockdown, you couldn’t move in front of the school for parents’ vehicles dropping off and picking up kids, as if dropping off and picking up could prevent the worst from happening within the school. Now people are walking to school again. Now the parents who still drop off and pick up don’t have quite the same crazed wariness on their faces.
    When you come so close to losing someone, things will never again be exactly the same. For a while, my parents got weird. They made all my favorite things to eat and let me leave dirty laundry on the floor, and my little sister took out the trash for me. Now we’re back to lentil casserole, but that’s okay. I hug my little sister before I leave for school.
    Now the front of the school looks like it does every day before lunch. A few students lounge on the front steps. Behind the windows, people move about in the classrooms.
    Almost normal. Normal to the extreme. I can’t think about this school anymore without thinking about Josh.
    Mr. Connor turns to me. He says, “They didn’t even have a funeral.”
    He’s thinking about Josh too.
    Mr. Connor continues, “They said they didn’t want to draw any more negative attention to their son.” He pauses. “What must it be like for them, waking up every day without him?”
    I say, “The day it happened, just beforelunch, you got a call on your cell phone. Did you always know the shooter was Josh?”
    He nods. “Josh’s mother found a letter. She called the school.”
    I look at him. “Like a suicide letter?”
    Mr. Connor says, “More like a will. It sounded like he was taking care of things.”
    Like the note he left with the hamster cage. Josh’s mom gave it to me when I went to get the hamster. It’s Josh’s hamster now. I just take care of it. I never bring it to school. I say, “Trust Josh.”
    Mr. Connor claps me on the shoulder. “You’ll be with us for the rest of the day?”
    I smile. “I’m meeting Zoe for lunch. She’ll make me attend classes this afternoon.”
    â€œTrust Zoe,” he says.
    I do. I don’t want to turn back time, not now. I want to keep moving ahead. I’m starting to trust myself.
    From a second-floor classroom, a student pauses at the window and looks down. She waves at Mr. Connor and he waves back. Then her gaze falls on me and she quickly looks away. Almost normal.
    Mr. Connor says to me, “If you’re off my radar, I guess I can go hunt down Baker.”
    â€œOh, good luck with that.”
    Mr. Connor laughs. Then his face gets serious. He says, “Adam, thank you.”
    â€œFor the run, right?”
    He smiles. “Yeah. Thanks for the run.”
    Mr. Connor starts up the steps to the school. I pause to stretch my aching calf muscles. No pain, no gain. I follow Mr. Connor up the steps.

Chapter Eighteen
    Instructions for Hamster (Her name is Amergin)
    Food: She likes seed mix. I buy her the kind with extra sunflower seeds because she likes those. Don’t fill her bowl too full or she’ll kick seeds all over your room. Hamsters do that. It’s normal. You can feed her some apple if you want, but she really likes sunflower seeds. She also likes peanuts. Make sure they are the kind with no salt.
    Water: Change her bottle often. It gets gross if you don’t change it.
    Cage: Use cedar shavings. They smell nice. Try to change the shavings before they get smelly. When I clean the cage, I put Amergin in my shirt pocket. She likes being in my pocket. If you don’t have a shirt pocket, you can put her in a big bowl or something, but make sure she can’t climb out. She’s a very good climber. Clean the tray part of her cage with mostly water and just a little soap you use to wash dishes. Don’t use anything too strong because she