Rewriting the Script

An English teacher foils the plans of terrorists at school

[This story came from a story idea by Susan B. If you have any story ideas, email the author at the email address either at the top or the bottom.]

"So you must always remember class, your writing is not only an expression of your thoughts and ideas, it's also an expression of you," the teacher said. "Any questions?"

A tall blond student raised her hand. "I understand the need to express yourself, but I don't understand why we need to know this other stuff; I mean, I don't plan to write a book, you know?" She said.

The teacher smiled, she's heard this question before.

"As far as not writing a book, do you know that for sure? Or you may be in a situation where you need to express to other people what you think through writing. If so, you want to make sure they know you're literate," she said. "You'd be surprised how many good ideas are shot down because the writer could not distinguish a verb from an adjective nor know the difference between past and present tense, or half the words are misspelled. It has to be put in a nice package.

"To give just one example, in my years as a student and a teacher, I've seen this scenario happen year after year. A student walks along minding their own business, when suddenly, BOOM, they fall in love. And suddenly, for some unfathomable reason, you feel the need to express how you feel for this person by writing a poem. I've known kids who hated poetry before, or can barely read their way through a book of poetry, turn into a junior Shakespeare overnight. What happens next is usually the worst pieces of prose known to man, not to mention very corny. Of course, your beloved tells you it's lovely, but they're supposed to say that."

The teacher paused as she heard giggles of recognition from the class.

"Now just think if you wrote something that was closer to a work of art instead of something cheesy, wouldn't your guy or gal be more flattered with you? And of course if they don't appreciate it, you can always dump them and find someone who does."

The class laughed again as the bell rang.

"Tomorrow, we will talk about purpose, or why we write something in the first place. Read chapter three. See you later."

Everyone filed out of the classroom, except for a shy, petite brunette girl who waited for everyone to leave. The teacher noticed, and waited as well.

"Yes Miranda?" The teacher asked.

"I've heard some, uh, things said about you, and I, uh, wanted to know if, you know, they were true," Miranda said.

The teacher nodded; she's heard this question before too.

"Go ahead," she said.

"Ms. Kim, they say you're a fem, a feminist. What's that?"

"I'll tell you what, Miranda, let's drop the titles for a moment. Let me ask you this, do you think a woman is as good a person as a man?"

Miranda paused for a moment. "Well uh, yeah!"

"Do you think a woman can do anything she puts her mind to?"

"Yeah."

"Now do you think a woman is supposed to be helpless?"

"No way!"

"Well that's what I believe. Later on, we'll be talking about the subject of context, and how people can come to all sorts of conclusions if they don't understand it. What happened here was someone took what I said out of how it was originally meant, and came to a different conclusion other than the real one. Now what I told you regarding my beliefs may make me a feminist, or it may not. The problem with throwing titles around like "feminist' is you have people use them without knowing what they really mean. Any more questions?"

"Do you like girls?"

"Pardon?"

"Do you, uh, like girls? I heard somebody say because you're a feminist, that means you-"

"Okay, I gotcha. Well Miranda, I try to like everybody," Ms. Kim said, laughing. "But I'm straight, so I like boys. I like them really well."

"Oh," Miranda replied, feeling a little embarrassed. "Well thanks for answering my questions, Ms. Kim, I hope I didn't offend you."

"Not at all. In fact, you did the right thing by coming forward and asking me. So now, you know the truth instead of rumors. Let me go ahead and write you a pass so your next teacher won't count you as tardy."

And so ended another session of Linda Kim's high school Creative Writing class. Ever since she accepted the position at South Central High School, the class had been both pretty popular and rather controversial at the same time. It was popular with a lot of students because Linda related to them well and encouraged them, and controversial with some parents and faculty for the same reason. Linda had been very vocal in advocating to her students, women in particular, to follow their dreams, establish their goals, and your success should not be dependent on another person, i.e., your boyfriend or future husband. A few students and parents one day misinterpreted what she said, and accused her of brainwashing the students, teaching ideas contrary to traditional values, promoting communism, and the like. At first, she tried to correct those who believed that, but she later gave up. Anyone who took her class would learn the truth about her anyway, and those who didn't weren't worth the trouble. Her fellow teachers knew what she meant, and they liked her methods of teaching.

To take a quick peek at Linda, one had to usually take a second look, lest they'd confuse her for one of the school's students. Linda stood a slender 5'2" with blue eyes and shoulder-length dark brown hair. To distinguish herself from the students (and to prevent any more embarrassing situations of teachers mistaking her for a student, and seniors asking her on a date or to the prom), she dressed more professionally. Her standard garb consisted of a dress or skirt, pantyhose, and ballet slippers, of which she had many colors. After she discovered them in college and started wearing them, she found they were the closest things to being barefoot, and getting away with it.

Linda was born the second child of three to Susan and Brian Owens. Brian was a stockbroker while Susan was a homemaker. When Linda was twelve, Brian had a fatal heart attack at work. After the grieving was over, Susan found she had to do something she hadn't done in years, go out, and rejoin the work force; something she hadn't done in eighteen years. Instead of going into business (she had a marketing degree), she started selling commercial real estate instead. It was while she was working, she met Marc Kim, a Korean-American hapkido instructor. He needed another dojo for his growing list of academies, and during Susan's sale pitch, he found her interesting, and visa versa. They had dinner, and the rest as they say was history. They married six months later, and the children changed their name from Owens to Kim.

Later on, Linda found out a few things about the relationship between her mom and dad. While it was a happy marriage, Brian felt he had to be the sole source of income for the family, just like his dad. While from her credentials, her mom was capable of earning as much as Brian or more, from his insistence, she declined to take care of the son and two daughters along with the household chores. She later confessed to Linda that while she wouldn't trade the years she spent raising the kids for anything in the world, she wished she took the chance to work outside the home when the children were in school, and Brian had a bigger hand in raising the children. In contrast, Marc encouraged her to excel in her career, just as she had with his. The encouragement worked well enough for Susan to have two more children. From this, Linda developed the philosophy if a person can do a task or an opportunity, then go ahead and do it; don't wait for someone else to do it for you.

Life with her new step-dad and mom had enabled Linda to learn some new things like Korean cooking, speaking passable Korean (one never knows when it'll come in handy), and most of all, the Korean martial art of hapkido. She fell in love with the art, and taking advantage of the free lessons from Marc, it wasn't long before she eventually advanced to a second-degree black belt. It also became her sole source of physical fitness. It also gotten to the point where she didn't know whether to teach writing or hapkido. Why not do both, her parents suggested. For a while, her high school job left her too busy to teach hapkido at the dojo, but over the last few years, she had tried lobbying for teaching it as an after-school activity. So far, she's been turned down, but she was patient.

Linda's classroom was positioned near the front of the school where it faced the incoming spring sunlight. Her lunchtime was next period, but before that, she had her planning or "prep" period, where the teacher didn't have a class to teach for that time, but instead had a chance to look over lesson plans, grade homework, or just recuperate from the hard day. Linda didn't have any schoolwork to grade or any additional tweaks to her lesson plans, so she had nothing to do but to sit at her desk and enjoy the view. She was wearing a sleeveless light green dress, tan pantyhose, and matching light green ballet slippers. She stretched her legs under her desk when she felt something a little bit funny in her right shoe. She took it off, and examined it. The bottom stitching around the big toe had unraveled, leaving a small hole in the shoe.

This is going to be awkward, Linda thought. She couldn't think of any ways to think of getting it fixed, so her options were limited. She could go ahead and wear it, ignoring the hole at least until she got in her car. Going ahead and taking the other shoe off, she could teach her remaining classes in her stocking feet. No big deal, but it might give some more fire for her critics. Now they could call her a hippie on top of everything else, teaching without shoes. Linda shook her head; it wasn't like she was asking the girls to burn their bras, she just wanted to point out to them that their future was an open book, like the men. Nothing's wrong with being a housewife or stay at home mom, but there's nothing wrong with being a rocket scientist, or doctor, or even president if they so desired. Sighing, she dropped her shoes behind her, and concentrated on looking out the window and enjoying the beauty of spring.

In the parking lot, something caught Linda's attention. They were two men carrying large black duffle bags. In fact, everything they wore was black, down to their black baseball caps, black sunglasses, black gloves, and black socks and black athletic shoes. They also wore black trench coats, which was strange, considering it was a warm spring day, and the outerwear was more suited for cooler or wet weather. Maybe they were some of the Goth students that attended the school, but they looked a little old to be high school students. Then she noticed something else.

The first man, who looked a little older, and a couple of inches taller she didn't recognize, but upon taking a closer look at the second one, despite the sport sunglasses that covered his face, she knew who it was, and felt a small chill. It was Jerry Carter, one of her former students.

Jerry Carter was a junior when Linda started teaching at the school. He was approaching six feet, had short brown hair, and a thin build. He was also rather handsome, so he never lacked for dates when he wanted one. Aside from a few friends, he kept mostly to himself. To the teachers, Jerry was almost the perfect student. He always did his work, turned his homework on time; he even raised his hand or responded when called on to answer the teacher's questions in class. Because he did what was expected, he was on the honor roll four years in a row. This made things difficult for Linda to explain her case when she told others about the darkness within.

The standard curriculum for Linda's classes included the writing of a few short stories and poems. The stories were graded on the standards of plot, theme, flow, and several other factors. She was always a little rough on grading stories; she compared it to taking out the garbage, saying if you don't take out the garbage, it starts to stink. In order for a story to be good, the "garbage" must be taken out, lest it stinks.

Aside from sappy love stories, action tales that danced out of reality, and material that read like the author was mentally someplace else when it was written, Jerry's first story was an eye opener. Entitled "Happy Birthday, Diane," the story was about a boy and a girl who dated each other in high school, until one day, the girl broke up with the boy because of the standard reasons high school couples broke up, Linda couldn't recall which reason it was. The boy was heartbroken. Later that week, the girl was going to celebrate her seventeenth birthday with a party, complete with a birthday cake and candles. Unknown to her and the guests, the boy poisoned the cake, and everyone except the girl who hasn't tasted hers yet, gagged, and died. The girl was further horrified when the boy came out of hiding with a butcher knife. After he stabbed her seventeen times, the boy stood over the corpse, and said, "Happy Birthday, Diane," ending the story.

For the most part, the story was well written as far as mechanics go; but she judged it heavily regarding plot, characterization, and purpose. Aside from being an extreme teen angst story, the two factors of the tale that stood out was the story was written from the boy's point of view, and the graphic description of the stabbing scene contained hints of self-satisfaction. Linda remembered sitting down with Jerry and telling him he was capable of writing better stuff than this. She thought the problem was solved, an attempt of writing a teen horror story. Instead, things got worse.

After writing a few poems that were so depressing, they would make Goth literature seem cheerful by comparison, Jerry wrote a story about a group of five alumni students who visited their alma mater with plans of blowing it up. Armed with a multitude of weapons, the five students shot, stabbed, blew up, or killed in some creative manner half the students and faculty in the school. They then put a bomb in the furnace room with a timer. The group exited the school, shooting a few stragglers on the way out. They climbed up the hill they came from and watched and waited as the time ticked away on the bomb, and police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks were destroyed by land mines put in the road. The bomb went off and detonated, and the school was consumed in a ball of fire. The groups looked on with satisfaction as they saw the bodies of students and teachers floating in the nearby lake. Their work done, the five people turned around and left, later to get in a van and drive to Mexico.

At this point, Linda knew there was something wrong here outside of the subject matter. Taking a copy of Jerry's work, she went to the school counselor, and shown it to her. After her face grew pale, she told Linda she'll talk to Jerry and his parents. Linda felt a little relieved, but she found out nothing happened. Jerry's parents appeared to be normal, and their relationship wasn't anything out the ordinary. Jerry himself seemed to have an interest in the dark side of things, but it was considered a phase that he was going through. After the junior year ended, Jerry didn't take the senior level of the class (perhaps it was because the junior class was the only class where he received a C), so Linda didn't hear of him again until after graduation. Linda received a package in a flat envelope mailed to her in care of the school, no return address. Curious, she opened the package to see a typed manuscript of Jerry's last story, expanded with more details, and systematic killings of the students and teachers. The characters were described in such detail that any faculty member of the school would know who they were. Linda's description was one of the first characters to die. Grabbing a student directory, she looked up Jerry's number and called his house. There was no answer. It turned out his family moved thirty minutes out of town.

She didn't tell anyone else about the story, except for the school counselor, who said Jerry probably knew his family was moving at the end of the school year, so he saw that as a prime opportunity to send his "present." The only reason either person could think of to send it in the first place was the mediocre score Linda gave him. Upon further reflection, they figured it was probably just a scare attempt, and once he entered college or the work force, he'll drop this phase of dancing with darkness.

As Linda continued to watch them stroll, it appeared that Jerry grew more into this dark phase rather than out of it. He didn't wear all black clothes when he attended school. The teacher then shook her head slightly and snapped herself out of it. She seemed to be overly concerned for nothing. That book was probably a feeble prank, nothing meant by it, and he probably moved on with his life, maybe even gotten married and had started a family. Still, there was something a little strange about this scene, something she couldn't put her finger on. She picked up her shoe to examine the hole a little further, to see if she could fix it herself, when the realization hit her so hard, she almost dropped her shoe. In Jerry's revised story, the group (now expanded to ten) strolled to the school, but not before splitting up in pairs to enter the five different entrances of the building. The school was shaped like a star with five hallways; the lunchroom and gymnasium located at the hub.

Before she even thought about it, Linda found herself grabbing the phone. The front desk staff and the principal might think she's a little off the deep end (join the crowd, she thought), but it's better to do something crazy and find out you're wrong than the alternative. She placed the receiver to her ear, prepared to dial the number . . .

Then the electricity went out and her line went dead.

Any thoughts of her actions being crazy disappeared with the lights in the room. The bright sunlight shone through the classroom, giving off plenty of light, which was good for what Linda needed to do next. She opened up one of the drawers in her file cabinet, and dug through her selection of older files until she found a familiar manuscript. She quickly leafed through the beginning pages that confirmed her suspicions. Upon entering the school, one of the people in the group cuts the power and phone lines, cutting off most forms of communication to the outside world. She slowly closed the book, but not before seeing the dedication on the second page:

To my dear teacher and friend, Linda Kim,

who made this all possible.

She grabbed her cell phone and dialed the number of the school counselor, whose office was at the front of the building with the secretaries, principals, and other office staff. The phone rang several times, but there was no answer.

How could that be? Linda thought, she's almost surgically attached to her cell phone. Then Linda heard another sound that made her jump ' gunshots.

The sound of a shotgun firing echoed down the halls of the school, followed by the softer sound of small arms fire, possibly a pistol. In light of the disaster of that high school in Colorado several years ago, armed police officers were placed at high schools all across the state. However, the ratio was only one officer per school; more than good enough for most crises, but not for a squad of ten men. Linda heard another sound, this time, it was the sound of an automatic rifle, and then things were still.

The writing teacher realized she had to do something. As much as she wanted to run to the office, it would be counter productive to rush into a hail of bullets.

Fortunately, all the students on her wing were at lunch, leaving her and a teacher or two in their room. Clutching the rolled-up story in one hand, Linda reached for the doorknob, until she remembered what happened next in the story. The gunmen would head for her room first. Jerry didn't just use his story as a gift to spook the teacher; he was using it as a script, a plan book, or guide to go by. It would probably be safe to assume he was the ringleader. Backing away from the door, Linda knew she had to think of something quick. She glanced over at her discarded shoes by the desk. The idea she had in her mind wasn't much, but at least it was something.

The tall man kicked open the door. He walked into the room with a swagger and a cocky look on his face. He scanned the room with his shotgun, looking for the opportunity to fire it again. Finally, he saw a pair of light green ballet slippers peaking out from the other side of a file cabinet. He wasn't going to bother showing himself; the shotgun pellets could easily penetrate the thin metal of a file cabinet.

She won't know what hit her, he thought as he aimed at the file cabinet and fired. He let loose a low chuckle as he walked over to the cabinet and confirmed his kill. All he saw was a mutilated file cabinet and green ballet shoes. He cursed to himself, opened his shotgun, and prepared to load when he suddenly was pushed from behind into the wall. He stopped his fall with his hands, but he dropped his weapon.

Linda remembered that spare ragged file cabinet left by the last teacher. It was in such poor condition, she left it behind when she went to another school. Linda upon seeing it, immediately went out and bought another one, making a note to let the school janitor know it was time to "retire" the cabinet and take it away. As things became busy, Linda never got around to notifying the janitor, so the battered file cabinet stood right beside the newer one, out of sight, out of mind, until this moment.

As Linda threw her body against the gunman with a flying body block, she was pleased that it produced the desired result, losing his weapon. She was confident she could take care of the rest. Linda had to earn her second-degree black belt taking on both men and women, most of them much taller than her 5'2" frame. One fellow black belt at her class of the same stature joked if you have a black belt and you're short, you have to be good. That phrase Linda liked, and the one that was running through her mind at that moment was one made by a popular judo instructor in Indiana who went by the initials "LS," and was the same height she was. She said during a demonstration at last year's Martial Arts Festival that many of the martial arts were "invented by short people."

The gunman quickly turned around to face Linda, who met him with a straight punch in the solar plexus. However, when Linda's fist made it's mark, instead of hearing the rush of air and feeling clothed flesh, heard a muted "clank," and felt thin leather with a metal backing. This man was wearing body armor! A quick going over with her eyes revealed to Linda that except for the head, joints, and hands and feet, the man was fitted with some type of homemade armor, covered by the trench coat. From his getup, he was built like a tank. But as the man chuckled and threw a right punch at Linda, she found out he moved like one too. Apparently, they didn't consider speed to be a factor when they made it. Linda spun to her left avoiding the punch, and grabbed the fist to control the arm. She wrapped her left arm around his arm and jerked hard. The armbar quickly took the assailant to the ground, but Linda went one step further. While she still had his arm locked up, she jerked it hard again, dislocating his elbow.

The man screamed at the top of his lungs from the sudden pain. Linda thought later on, the school nurse could look at him and treat his injury, but right now she needed him quiet. Not able to come up with any better ideas, Linda quickly seized his head and banged it against the wall. He collapsed to the floor, unconscious. The teacher disarmed him, throwing his weapons into the nearby waste can, and found a pair of handcuffs. She latched his one good arm to a nearby desk and headed for the door. She could've tried getting information out of him, but then again, she didn't need to. She had the script lying on her desk. She trotted back and grabbed the manuscript, and glanced over at her discarded ballet slippers. They were untouched. Linda made a mental note to have them bronzed after this mess was over. She rolled up the manuscript and tucked it in her belt, and then closed the door.

Once outside, Linda realized there was already a crucial choice she needed to make. She was just a minute's trot away from the office, but she could either be too late, or end up captured or killed herself. But there's also the possibility the other henchmen if there were any, may have entered the other four entrances of the school. It was there that Linda decided to play a hunch. In Jerry's story, after the group killed half of the students and faculty, they saved the principal and front office staff for last to finish off before leaving to let the bomb take care of the remaining survivors. If Jerry is playing this sick game of his literally by the letter, then the office staff possibly may still be alive until the crew met him at the office. I hope he didn't change the script, Linda thought. Taking a deep breath, Linda turned and trotted down the hallway towards the next exit.

Mentally doing the math in her head as she slowed from a trot to a slow cautious walk as she entered the next hallway, Linda realized that ten, or rather at the moment, encountering nine opponents one after the other would be quite a task and to say the least, probably exhausting. Her best strategy would be to disarm them and take them down quick. Recruiting some of the teachers, the ones in good physical shape would be a great idea if the gang hadn't neutralized them first. She didn't feel nervous or frightened as she entered the next hallway; she figured there'd be time for that later. She was feeling as her step-dad would describe, "feeling the moment," feeling calm with a purpose. She noticed she didn't hear any gunshots down the vacant hall, but she did hear from one of the rooms, the home economics room in particular, a man bellowing at the top at his lungs about something. She quickened her step and crouched by the open door.

In the room, a man, dressed similar to the last man Linda subdued and roughly the same height, was sitting on the counter with his rifle keeping at bay a small group of frightened students and an equally frightened Home Economics teacher. The gunman would wave his weapon back and forth, threatening to aim it at one of the students. The teacher, a woman in her early fifties, and a mother of three, moved in front of her class as an impromptu human shield. She also quietly maneuvered the class toward the area of the room where the kitchen utensils were placed. A few of the students got the hint, and started looking for something that could be used as a weapon.

"Maybe I should have you bake me some cookies," the man barked at the teacher, waving his rifle around. "Wouldn't that be a grand gesture before you die, to bake your killer some cookies? Oh, that would be an interesting clue for the police to pick up now, wouldn't it?"

"Do whatever you want to with me, young man, but please don't hurt the kids," the teacher pleaded to the man. She also made a gesture of pointing to her students at the end of her phrase. In reality, what she did was point to the drawer where the kitchen knifes were at. Using a tall boy as a cover, a shorter Indian girl quietly pulled the drawer open.

"Young man," the gunman mocked, "I always hated being called that. You need to call me a man, that's what I am, a real man. Not one of these wimps who bake chocolate chip cookies and make clothes. You boys need to make yourselves a skirt. Not that it matters anyway, I'm going to weed you punks out of the population."

One of the many benefits of being 5'2" is it's easier to sneak around obstacles without being seen, and without having to bend your frame at an uncomfortable angle to keep hidden. Linda quickly entered the room without anyone seeing her. Unlike some of the students who had already armed themselves with potentially lethal kitchen utensils, Linda was armed with a metal spatula that some student forgot to put away in a previous class. It was a large spatula, and it should be enough for what she needed to do.

"Well, it's been real, and it's been fun, so I guess it's been real fun, for me anyway," the gunman laughed, "but now it's time to put this to an end. Goodbye, losers and sissies."

He made a big show out of cocking his gun, when his right hand suddenly felt a stinging sensation that almost made him drop his rifle. He snapped his head to find out what caused it, and received a smack on the cheek as Linda delivered a roundhouse right with the spatula. She delivered another swat to the fingers still gripping the gun. Despite the painful sting, he held on to his rifle.

Enraged, but too close to effectively use it, the gunman lifted his rifle to use as a club on Linda, while he reached around to his back pocket to reach for another weapon. Linda, seeming to ignore both threats, raised her right knee across her body and fired it, angling the outside edge of her foot straightforward. The hosed foot struck the man's right leg just above the knee, breaking the knee joint. Linda hopped back as her taller foe fell to the floor like a downed tree. In the process, he lost his grip on both his rifle and his pistol, the weapon he had in his back pocket, went sliding across the floor. Both hands flew to his injured leg; his once loud boasting now was screams of pain. Linda quickly turned to the Home Economics teacher.

"Call the police on your cell, and tell them to use the service entrance in the back. It's a long story, I can't explain right now; I have to go. Will you do that?" Linda said.

"Why yes, Linda, and thank you," the teacher said as Linda darted out the door. She then looked down at the pained man squirming and howling in agony. "Lilly, could you get the first aid kit, please? And Johnny, I need you to go over to the materials closet to pull out some long scraps."

"Any certain type of material?" Johnny asked.

"Burlap should do nicely, we have plenty of that." She flipped open her cell phone as she gathered the class to her. "Class, I need you to listen to me as I dial 911 so you'll know how to act in an emergency. Then we're going to learn a lesson in first aid and restraint. Taylor, could you get the scissors, please?"

Linda was halfway to the next room before she realized she still had the spatula in her hand. It was bent and useless now, so she dropped it on the carpet. Two down and eight to go, she thought to herself. She tried to remember the schedule of classes for that part of the school. If she remembered correctly, only three classes were going on at that time; she passed the first one, and took care of the home ec class, so that left the third one she was approaching.

Her revelry was interrupted by a gunshot, this one softer than the others. She peeked in the doorway to see a large black student slumped in the corner holding his arm. Linda realized it was Nick Harrison, a running back for the school's football team.

"And that, boys and girls, is what a silencer is for," another man who stood about 5'8" in height said as he unscrewed the silencer from his pistol. Unlike the other two, the revolver appeared to be his weapon of choice. Like the others, he wore body armor, and like the last one, he liked to hear himself talk. As the teacher rushed over to tend to Nick, he gabbed on.

"You know, at my church, dudes like your "hero' over there, and you other dark folk are known as "mud people.' We believe one day all the mud people will be taken out, we'll be scum free, and vanilla will rule the earth. That's kind of why we're here. Now is there anyone else who wants to be a hero?"

Linda had already heard enough. If she let him jabber long enough, he'll start popping off about people of Asian decent, and she definitely wasn't going to stand for that. Taking a cue from football, she charged forward, her feet hitting the carpet silently. When she got within range, instead of using a flying block like she used on her first assailant, she converted it to a flying side kick that hit the gunman between the shoulder blades. The force sent him flying over a desk and onto the floor. When he looked up, he saw Linda picking up his revolver and dropping it into a trashcan. She was about to walk over and finish him off, but she then had another idea.

"Juan, would you be so kind to come and restrain this man?" Linda asked Juan Larson, a 5'4", 135 pound black student who was one of the stars on the school's freestyle wrestling team. Many colleges were already scouting him, and it was likely he would have his pick of scholarships as soon as he graduated. The man was built like a tank, but was as fast as a train.

"It would be my pleasure, Ms. Kim," Juan said, cracking his knuckles and sporting a small grin.

The gunless gunman who was taller and thirty pounds heavier, realized what was happening, and sprung to his feet to attack his opponent, delivering ethnic slurs as he did so, along with remarks about Juan's height. Juan silently faced him in his standard wrestling stance.

Linda had left the room, already on her way to the next hallway, but before she was out of earshot, she heard the teacher cry, "Get him, Juan!" along with the rooting of the class. The last sound she heard as she turned the corner was a cheer of triumph. She'd seen Juan in action before, so she had no doubt in his abilities. She just wondered how much of a pretzel he was going to make out of the gunman. Three down, seven to go.

The teacher took a quick break to look over Jerry's story. The next chapter was about the bloodbath in the cafeteria. Linda's heart leaped; in such an open area, the students would be sitting ducks. Two assailants with guns could maim or kill a number of students before they're stopped. As he approached the lunchroom, from hearing the gunshots, she thought this was true. But it was not quite the case.

When she looked through the windows of the cafeteria, there were the standard number of students and teachers running for cover, and unfortunately a few bodies lying on the floor. She couldn't tell if they were still breathing or not. One of them was the Physical Education teacher, Paul Brownie. Two students snuck forward and pulled him to safety. The same happened with the other downed students; some brave male or female student would risk their life dragging their fellow students to safety.

The sight that really threw Linda for a loop was the two gunmen. From seeing them from a rear view, they had revolvers in their back pocket while they held automatic rifles. One of them was the same height as the man Juan subdued. The other one was not much taller than Linda, and had their face covered with sunglasses and a ski mask. But instead of being in control, they were being backed up against one of the doors of the cafeteria. A small group of students were slowly advancing on the duet; one of the leaders was Jane Larson, Juan's fraternal twin. She also was on the wrestling team, and like her brother, was built like a tank, save for more of a figure.

"Stay back! Stay back, or I'll blow a hole in all of you!" The taller gunman said.

"We know you only have one shot left, man," Jane said. "And I bet your friend's gun here is empty. After you fire that shot off, what are you going to do?"

"We have more guns," the other gunman said defensively.

"If you can get to them. By that time, I'll take your skinny little arms and twist them off, along with your head," Jane said.

In the brief stalemate that followed, finally the smaller of the gunmen opened the door and fled, leaving the other one alone and momentarily distracted. That was when Jane, perched on a lunch table, jumped on him. From the sounds that followed, Linda was relieved that another gunman was neutralized. However, the second one was loose, and had a head start on the pursuers. Enough of a head start for the assailant to finally drop the rifle, draw their pistol and take aim, which was thwarted when Linda intercepted the foe with a flying tackle. A simple wristlock was enough to disarm the attacker, while Linda grabbed the ski mask with the other hand and pulled. For a moment, Linda was surprised, because the gunman was actually a gunwoman. The unmasked opponent took that moment to pull a large Bowie knife from a sheaf on her belt.

"Why Ms. Linda Kim, what a surprise; I've heard so much about you," she said, taking a swing that caused Linda to jump back.

"Do, do I know you?" Linda said.

"No. I'm Loraine, Jerry's girlfriend, pleased to meet you," she replied, taking another swing at Linda. "He told me you taught him almost all he knows."

"What?" Linda said, confused, but remembering to keep her guard up.

"You taught him how to use his creativity. When I met him, I knew he had that potential inside him, but I didn't know how to let it out. Then one day, he took your class. Now he's a great leader, making a strike for our cause, and now an even greater lover. Of course he's been one, ever since he was a freshman."

Linda could not and would not believe this. She was not going to take the blame for creating a possible serial killer. "How old are you?" She asked.

"I'm thirty; why, you have a problem with women liking younger men?" Loraine sneered.

"You got him into this!"

"I introduced him to our group and our cause, yes. Jerry said you were pretty bright. You know we actually thought about sparing you. We would've too, if it wasn't for the fact that your stepfather is one of the mud people. That's all right; you'll have the honor of dying by my hand, and then we'll set the bed on fire with our passion, out of tribute on what you helped make possible."

This woman needs help, Linda thought. Not only was she an admitted pedophile, she believed all this nonsense that this group had about being superior. A quick flash of recollection told her that Jerry was like any normal freshman in high school until near the end of the school year when he had this sudden urge to embrace darkness, according to what she heard. Of course, no one thought anything of it at the time. And now wasn't the time to play analyst either. She still had the other gunmen to track down.

"Even if you get past me, you won't make it out of here," Linda said.

"Is that so? The way I see it, after I slice and dice you, they'll be too busy trying to put you back together to come after me; and the rest of the boys have an extra gun for me to use," Loraine said.

"I already took down a few of them, and you're next."

"Well now, a teacher who knows how to fight. Let's see what you got."

A small crowd had already started to form, watching the two women circle each other. Suddenly, a couple of gunshots sounded off in the distance startling everyone except Loraine, whose smile grew even wider.

"You hear that, teacher, that's the sound of freedom, that's the sound of victory," Loraine said in an intense whisper.

That was it, Linda thought. While she was wasting her time with this fool, more students and teachers were being shot, possibly killed. She needed to take Loraine down quickly. Assuming Linda was taken off guard by the sound of the gunshots, Loraine attempted a straight jab with the knife aimed just under Linda's breasts. Linda, who wasn't distracted at all, quickly raised her left forearm, blocking the thrust, deflecting it to the side. She then raised her right knee chest high to the outside, then snapped her right foot straight across in front of her, executing a textbook perfect Inside Crescent Kick. The kick found its target as Loraine's head snapped over to the right violently. She appeared to be out on her feet, but taking no chances, Linda grabbed her knife hand, which now held the blade loosely, and spun into Loraine's body to execute an over the shoulder throw. The woman terrorist landed hard on the carpeted floor, her large knife tumbling out of her hands. For good measure, Linda straddled Loraine's prone form and fired a straight punch into her face. The last few moves only took a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to the teacher as she wondered in the back of her head when the gunmen were going to fire again.

A quick inventory found Loraine's face bloody from the punch, and some blue discoloration around the jaw area from the kick, possibly broken. I probably could've stopped with the kick, Linda thought as she suddenly got up and ran down the hallway where she heard the shots. The small crowd came over to check out the unconscious Loraine.

"Dag, I don't want to ever make Ms. Kim mad at me," a male student said, looking at the prone woman.

When Linda raced down the hall, she saw a sight that later chilled her when she thought about it. A gunman of medium height fired his shotgun into a crowd of freshmen. Those who weren't downed by the shots were either running in the opposite direction or futilely looking for a place to hide. The wounded were pleading for mercy.

Unlike the previous attacks, Linda threw caution to the wind as she just ran faster toward the man with the shotgun. She realized he just fired his gun, and needed to take a second to reload. The armed assailant somehow found out from some of the silent cues of his victim that someone was behind him, and he turned around, the shotgun aimed.

However, Linda was already in front of him, and using her left forearm, drove his arms and the shotgun upwards. Unintentionally, the shotgun fired, this time, the only damage made was to the ceiling, as bits and pieces of the ceiling material came raining down. Without missing a beat, Linda swung a right knife hand chop into the man's neck. If the blow landed close to where the skull and neck meet, it could kill; if the blow landed just an inch lower, it would only stun.

Linda didn't remember where she hit him.

All she did know was the man quickly fell down, no longer a threat to anyone. She looked at the wounded students, and realized with some difficulty the choice she had to make. A quick count revealed that six of the ten gunmen were already taken down, which left the remaining four still prowling the hallways. With tears forming in her eyes, Linda tore herself away and ran down the hall, to find the other gunmen. Someone had to stop them before they harmed any more kids and faculty. She hated leaving like that, but she felt it was the best choice to make.

The seventh gunman, who was planning to bust into an arts and crafts room, was the one to receive Linda's wrath. She quickly spun the 6'0" man around, and delivered a left palm heel strike into his nose, breaking it. Now cursing, the man tried to club Linda with his pistol in his right hand, using an overhead blow. Linda deflected the blow, pushing it away with her left forearm, but not before she trapped it with her right forearm. With the use of his momentum, she jerked her two arms toward each other.

No matter how much body armor one has, there's only a certain way the human arm was made to go, and the way the gunman's right arm was going was not it. He screamed in agony as he grabbed his broken arm. Linda followed this up with a knife hand blow to his throat. Now the gunman fell to his knees, trying to tend to his broken arm and his damaged throat. Linda had her left knee up; ready to fire a kick that would pulp his face, but further examination indicated that we wouldn't be any harm to anyone for a while. She almost forgot about his gun, but he did too, having dropped it to his side. It would be hard to just fire the pistol, much less aim and shoot when the nose was broken and the throat was bruised. The first priority would be to breathe. To be on the safe side, she kicked the gun away from the man, who was now lying on the ground squirming in agony while trying to get some air.

Linda's experience with firearms was limited, plus she wasn't too fond of them. They're too loud, and she heard of too many things that happen to the user instead of the target. If she tried to use it now, she'd be more of a danger than the gunmen themselves she figured, so she tossed it in a nearby trashcan on her way to the next hallway. Seven down, three to go.

Her bout with the last gunman already answered the question Linda just now started to ask herself; she was already prepared to use lethal force if necessary. If the last foe wasn't subdued by breaking his arm and nose and the shot to the throat, she was prepared to deliver a side kick that would've snapped his neck. This was no longer some mere skirmish, this was war, and she was prepared to take no prisoners if it came to that.

Each gunman had a two-way radio strapped to his belt, but they were to be on radio silence unless it was necessary. The remaining two hallways were vacant because of lunchtime, and any remaining classes received text messages from the other teachers to get their classes to safer ground. According to Jerry's story, the plan worked out to where no teachers or students would have time to notify anyone because they would be either shot or getting shot at. Linda knew this because from her vantage point, she saw the remaining two gunmen trying to contact the others on their radio, and trying to figure out where the classes have went.

Looks like someone threw a wrench into your plans, Linda thought to herself with a grim grin. She was trying to figure out the best way to take them on. From her training, she could take on two men; two men with guns was another story. Maybe she shouldn't have thrown that pistol away. She could have wounded one of them at least. Perhaps a weapon was in order.

Quietly she opened up the door to the janitor's closet. The closet was seldom used; the janitors normally use the bigger closet on the other end of the school. All that was in this closet was an old mop bucket and a mop handle, broken in two pieces.

Perfect, Linda thought to herself.

The martial art of Hapkido has a few weapon forms in its repertoire; the cane, umbrella, and fighting stick techniques. To become a second-degree black belt, Linda had to be familiar with the weapon forms. Of course, at the time, the thought never occurred to her that she would be utilizing those skills at that very moment.

One of the pieces of the mop handle was about twelve inches long ' the same length used for a fighting stick in Hapikido. She briefly considered using both pieces of the mop handle, but she didn't think she was that good. She should be skilled enough to handle one. Now all she needed to do was to figure out a way to encounter them. That appeared to be taken care of as soon as she thought about it.

There were voices not too far behind her; they sounded like some of the students from the cafeteria; and from the sound of them, they sounded like those who saw Linda take down Lorraine, and ran across the other gunman. They seemed to be looking for her to see if she was alright. While she appreciated their concern for her well-being, at the same time, she wanted to scold them for moving down the halls without heeding any possible danger, and moving unsupervised. Then again, she should thank them, because they seem to be providing the distraction she needed. The two gunmen heard the noises, and sensing potential victims, they started moving down the hallway.

As soon as they reached the janitor's closet, where the door was left open, they peered in to check for anyone in hiding. From behind a water fountain, Linda shot out, and appeared between the two of them. Before the first gunman could even raise his rifle, Linda delivered a side-arm strike with the broken mop handle, hitting the right side of his neck. The man dropped his rifle and fell to the ground. Not prepared for the sudden ambush, the second gunman struggled for a second to raise up his weapon. It proved to be a second too long as Linda used a back-hand strike to hit the inside of his left wrist. The blow temporarily paralyzes the tendons of the inner wrist. With one of his hands now numb, the gunman attempted feebly to attack Linda with his good hand. She parried the rifle aside, and delivered three quick blows with the mop handle. The first struck the man's soft facial bones; the second struck him on the bridge of the nose, while the third struck his groin, rupturing his bladder. Linda quietly watched the gunman fall to his knees; then for good measure, struck him on the back of the head. He fell the rest of the way at Linda's feet. She looked at the mop handle in her hand, once a light gray, now painted crimson with blood. She tossed it by the water fountain, and started walking down the hallway hub to reach the office. Nine down, one to go.

This time, Linda saw no reason to hurry to the office. In the climactic part of the story, the group would hold a mock trial, accusing the principal and front office staff of "crimes toward true humanity." A judgment would be passed to each person, which was guilty, and the sentence would be given, which was death. Then they would shoot each one execution-style, one at a time. Linda remembered marking that flaw in Jerry's first draft of the story; how would you have time to do all that with a time bomb ticking in the furnace room? In the revised story, there was still a bomb planted, but it wasn't a time bomb, it was set by remote control. It didn't take a stroke of genius who would be pushing the button. Besides, it would be hard to have a trial all by yourself. In the background, she heard the students run across the last two gunmen she took care of. It sounded like some of the students took some extra pleasure out of kicking them. At the moment, she didn't care.

When Linda reached the office, she made no show of caution or any such procedure; she just walked in the front door. Inside, she saw all of the office staff placed alongside of the wall bound with rope and gagged with duct tape placed over their mouths. The only exceptions were the principal and the school counselor placed against a different wall, where a tall man in a black trench coat was walking back and forth, twirling his pistol. He didn't hear the teacher approach until Linda slammed shut the door. Jerry Carter turned, and aimed his pistol at Linda.

The years after graduation hasn't been cruel to Jerry; but it would be fair to say while he matured physically the way most people do after they graduate high school. What the years have done was bring out the true character that was carefully hidden. The flames of hate, fed and nurtured by this "church" he went to, his overage, oversexed girlfriend Lorraine, and time out in an environment where he could share these views openly, had shown his normally placid demeanor for what it truly was, a condescending sneer of what he thought of the world, and a promise to do something about it.

"Why Ms. Kim, what a pleasant surprise!" Jerry said, aiming the pistol. Linda didn't flinch.

"Stand down Jerry, it's all over," Linda said neutrally.

"I wondered about sending Steven to deliver your execution, because I thought that honor went to me. However I had other duties to take care of," he said, cocking his head to the office staff. "Apparently you either escaped or weren't there when he came by."

"Actually we have met. He's still there now if you want to see him. Thanks for providing the script," Linda replied, taking the manuscript from her belt and tossing it on a nearby desk.

"So you caught that, I'm impressed! We wondered if you would remember any of that story I sent you. We thought you'd be too busy screaming and pleading for your life with the others. You're quite bright. It's a pity you have to die."

"Why, because my stepfather is a "mud person?' Is this why you did all this in the first place, to get rid of people who don't fit into your mold of humanity?"

"You wouldn't understand, because your mind is polluted from sharing the same air of those who don't deserve it. What did you do with Steven?"

"I left him handcuffed to a desk in my room. He got off easy compared to the others."

"The others? What are you talking about?" Jerry demanded, his aim with the pistol starting to waver just a bit.

"There's no one left out of your group except for you," Linda said calmly, her finger tracing circles on a desk as she came a step nearer. "All of them, including Loraine, have been taken down or captured. Like I said before, Jerry, it's over."

"No, it's not over!" Jerry said a little franticly. "Even if those kids somehow took my men down, I still have my trump card." He held up a device that looked like a remote control device for a car.

"Actually the kids took care of two of them. I handled the other seven," Linda continued as she stepped closer.

Jerry was now confused. "H-how did you do that?"

"If you continued to check your background information on me past who my stepfather is, you'd find I'm also a black belt in Hapkido. Today it came in very handy."

"Hapkido? What's that?"

"It's a form of self-defense created by the Koreans; you know, some of the "mud people' you're so fond of hating. You need to stand down and put your pistol away, Jerry."

"No, I'll shoot you, everyone here, and blow this place sky high. Stay back!"

"Jerry, you need to stand down; for once I start hitting, I don't think I will be able to stop." Linda took another step closer.

"You-you're partially responsible for this, you know. You helped bring out my creativity to create stuff like this," Jerry made a wild motion with his free hand, gesturing to the school around him. "You'll take part of the blame."

Linda formed a small grin. "You'd be surprised at some of the things I've been blamed for; terrorism would be just another log on the fire," she said.

"You're not going to talk me out of it," Jerry continued, a little more hysterical. "I'll shoot you first."

"If this were the movies or TV, this would be the part where I would either talk some sense into you or keep you distracted long enough for the police to arrive. But this isn't any of those things. Nor am I going to try to explain to you how what I taught you influenced you to do this or not. What I'm here to do is to give you one more chance to give up. If you don't, I am prepared to use any necessary force to bring you down."

"You couldn't, you wouldn't dare," Jerry said with what little bravado he had left.

"You may be surprised at what I have done or what I will do. After what I saw today, you're not going to receive any sympathy from me just because you used to be one of my students. So if you're going to shoot, you better do it now, because you won't get another chance."

At this point, Linda was now roughly four and a half feet away from Jerry, whose pistol was now shaking. It also didn't take her long to figure out that despite the creativity and planning he put into this horrible scheme of his, he was a coward. He could've shot her a long time ago. Instead of doing the shooting himself, he sent his group to do it. Chances are the "executions" would be carried out without him even pulling the trigger; not to mention he would be far away when he set off the bomb. Linda didn't see Jerry any more as a former student. At that point, she didn't see him as much of a human being. He seemed the equivalent of a dog driven mad with rabies; something that needed to be put down.

Jerry shouted, "Stop, I'll-"

The end occurred in just seconds. Linda grabbed Jerry's gun hand, applying a painful wristlock that forced him to drop the gun. She next applied a right straight punch that stuck Jerry in the center of his face, breaking his nose and fracturing a cheekbone. Holding on to the gun hand, she spun around and applied an over the shoulder throw, landing Jerry hard on the carpeted floor. Just as Jerry was about to hit the floor, Linda using his momentum, gave a quick jerk, dislocating his arm. Jerry cried out in pain, prompting Linda to deliver a left straight punch into his face. The force of the punch snapped Jerry's head back, hitting the back of his head on the carpet. Out of the corner of his eye, Jerry saw the pistol lying nearby and made an attempt to grab it with his good arm. But five inches may as well had been five feet as Linda stood up and kicked Jerry in the forehead with her hose-covered left foot. Linda then landed ' hard ' on Jerry's chest with her left knee, and grabbed Jerry's chin with her left hand. It wasn't a gesture; it was actually positioning his face so she could deliver a palm heel blow into his damaged nose. But before Linda could deliver the fatal blow, someone called her name.

"Linda, stop! He's finished! It's over!" The school counselor said.

While Linda and Jerry were having their dialogue, the principal and the counselor were working together, trying to loosen each other's bonds. They succeeded in getting one of the counselor's hands free, just in time to tear the duct tape off her mouth and call out to Linda. Linda, without giving him a second look, got off Jerry and loosened her bonds. They proceeded to free the others, including the school nurse, who put a small bag of ice on Jerry's face, and then rushed off to do what she could for the other injured students and faculty.

After everyone in the office was freed, the sound of the police, fire department, and ambulance sirens filled the air as they finally arrived at the school. They discovered later that the gang of terrorists in a quick alteration of the original plan, parked two old 70's cars, one for each entrance to the school. Since the police were told to take the service entrance, moving the car out of the way was relatively simple, but time consuming. True to the original script, land mines were placed, lightly buried. There was a varied assortment of them; some that were vintage World War II relics and some were of homemade design. Any of them were able to disable if not destroy any vehicle that ran over it. It took the bomb squad a couple of hours to find them all after they found the bomb in the school's furnace room. A vacant van was found parked on a hill overlooking the school and the nearby lake. It was filled up with gas and ready to go.

During the rescue that continued, Linda suddenly felt very tired. No surprise, she told herself. In the space of a school day, she ran through the whole school, and personally engaged in hand-to-hand combat with eight armed terrorists. She walked to a nearby bench and sat down. While she was sitting, she looked down and examined her legs. She looked them over two, three times, and suddenly burst out laughing, to the shock of those nearby. They may have thought she was hysterical, but that was far from the truth. Prior to coming to school that day, Linda put on a new pair of pantyhose she bought the other day. The hose, a little more expensive than most, boasted to be virtually run-free; then again, almost all packages of pantyhose say that. But since the crisis started, Linda had ran, fought, and even kicked in her stocking feet, and she didn't have a snag, rip, or tear anywhere!

"I've got to buy a few more pairs of these!" She said.

In the weeks that followed, South Central High School had received their fifteen minutes of fame, and then some. The media, both local and national, covered all aspects of the attack, and once again brought up the issue if public schools were safe places to send your children. Eventually the principal had to put his foot down, and start throwing out reporters and cameramen, who started hanging around the hallways, so the students could have a normal life. Even the students, who like people their age like being in the limelight every now and then, grew tired of some stranger shoving a microphone in their face and asking them how they felt since the event happened.

Nick Harrison's wound turned out to be a minor one, and before long, he was able to throw a football again. His act of courage, though it fell a little short, labeled him as a hero, and female admirers, teammates, and even players from other schools heralded him.

"My coach always told me I needed to keep my head and shoulders down when I run," he said at an awards dinner, "now I'm going to listen to him."

For Juan Larson, his act of heroism had earned him some more scholarships, and requests to speak to other athletes about heroism.

"You shouldn't just have me up here," he said at one school, "You should have Ms. Kim here. She's the one who gave the thug to me."

His twin sister, Jane, because of her action against the gunmen, also received a couple of scholarships to sort through, along with some chances to urge more women to get into high school wrestling. She peddled her case well, because the next year, the number of women trying out for the team at the high school tripled.

Linda became a celebrity overnight. Since the aftermath, she's been asked for interviews from local news to national shows. She even was the keynote speaker for the upcoming Martial Arts Festival. She made it her point to promote her philosophy that women should not be helpless, and to follow their dreams. Even the pantyhose company rewarded her. When they found out that she worn their hose, and it did indeed was resilient to runs, they gave her a year's supply with different varieties, from knee-highs, reinforced toes, even colored and the fancier patterned hose. This eventually had more male students and some teachers watching her legs, and some requests to take her shoes off when she taught, but she rolled with it. Linda noticed more of the girls were wearing ballet slippers as part of their wardrobe, but hey, they could pick up worse habits.

She also made it a point to visit every wounded student and faculty member, as well as attend every funeral, where she cried at each one.

As with a crisis of this magnitude, the school counselor was busy with students, the parents, and school workers, helping them deal with what happened. After the fervor finally died down, and life at school was normal again, Linda requested to see her, but not at school. The teacher invited her over to her place to talk things over.

She rang the doorbell, prompting Linda to say, "Come in." The counselor opened the door to find the teacher seated at her dining room table grading papers. She was wearing a lightweight brown sweater dress.

"Hello Linda, and what color pantyhose are you wearing today?" The counselor said smiling, repeating the question that she now normally got asked at the beginning of class.

"I knew you would ask me that." Linda swung her stocking feet on top of the table. The hose were brown, sheer, and shiny. "Normally at this time, I would answer "none,' but these stockings are so comfortable, I don't walk around barefoot like I normally do. I guess you heard my students prefer me to teach now with my shoes off. It makes them feel "right at home," Linda replied, rolling her eyes upward, and taking her feet off the table.

"Maybe I should buy me a pair," the counselor said.

"I'd recommend it. Would you like some hot tea? It's a special blend they serve in Korea."

"Sure."

Linda walked to the kitchen, and shortly brought out two steaming cups of tea on a serving tray with sugar and cream. "I thought since we seem to spend half our lives in school, a change of scenery might be a good idea."

"Thank you. If I spent any more time at my office, I'd have to move my bed in the back."

The two talked for a while about trivial school topics until they got to the subject at hand.

"I don't know if I had the chance to personally say so, Linda, but I want to personally thank you for saving us. That took a lot of guts," the counselor said.

"Thanks; I'm just not too crazy about the mindset I had when I did it," Linda replied.

"The counselor wrinkled her brow in confusion. "What do you mean? You did what you needed to do to save the day," she said.

"Oh Ann, you don't understand. If you didn't stop me, my next blow was going to go midway through Jerry's skull. I wasn't going to stop hitting him until there wasn't anything left of his face or his skull either. By the time I entered that office, I didn't even see Jerry as human anymore; I saw him as a devil who must be destroyed."

"Well you knew you couldn't enter that office being timid," Ann said. "Perhaps seeing Jerry as something other than himself was what was needed."

Linda took a long sip, then placed her cup on the table. "Ann, you saw the fight yourself. It was over as soon as I disarmed him. It was over long before that, because he didn't have the nerve to pull the trigger. Have you kept track of what I did to the others?"

"Well, no. To be honest, I've been busy keeping track of what they did to our students and teachers."

Linda ticked off the points on her fingers.

"The first one, I dislocated his arm, and the second man, I broke his leg, no big deal there. The other two I left to the mercy of the twins, so I don't know what shape they were left in," she said.

"They roughed them up pretty good, but I don't think they broke anything," Ann replied.

"Then I ran into Lorraine, who seemed to push all the right buttons."

"Ah yes; you gave her a broken jaw and cheekbone. She has a pretty long rap sheet. Her specialty seems to be aggravated assault, and she likes her men young. Real young. A real piece of work."

"When she smiled when we heard that gunshot, I almost lost it. I probably could've spent the time beating her to a pulp, but I didn't have the time. So instead, I took it out on the next guy with breaking his nose, arm, and bruising his throat."

"You remember what you did to each one of the gunmen?" Ann asked.

"Every blow, every strike, every kick, every throw. It's like a movie I've seen ten times. I just knocked out the next man, but I caved in the face of the man after him. I imagine his next trip to the bathroom might be a little painful too. You already know what I did to Jerry."

"He received cosmetic surgery, along with getting his arm relocated. Linda, why are you giving me the list of injuries you inflicted on the terrorists?"

Linda sighed. "I guess I'm trying to say my mindset changed after I fought Lorraine."

"And I say you did what you needed to do to survive; it's that simple."

"No it's not. Let me explain it this way. Did you know it only takes eight pounds of pressure to break a bone? That's all, only eight pounds."

"I did not know that. So that's how much pressure a black belt in karate uses?" Ann asked.

"Not exactly. Eight pounds of pressure is relatively nothing. A novice in karate could do it, or a man in a bar fight who threw a lucky punch. I'm a martial artist; I could do that much pressure in my sleep. At first, my plan was to just disable them. The particular discipline I practice has plenty of non-lethal moves I could've used to neutralize any attacker without causing serious injury. However, after I ran into Lorraine, I suddenly wanted to do more than that. But knowing that there were other gunmen on the school campus, and you calling out my name in the office when I attacked Jerry stopped that."

A light started to dawn in Ann's eyes. "You mean if it wasn't for your knowledge of the others out there, and me stopping you-" she started.

"There would've been five of them in body bags. Who knows, I might've came back and finished off the others too. That's using a little bit of excessive force, don't you think?"

Ann was silent.

"Heh, that's something I can't share at the upcoming Martial Arts Festival. "When I went into action, I wasn't thinking about the kids or my own life, I was thinking how fast could I knock their heads off their shoulders, and smash the remains.' I guess I'll save it for my upcoming book that I'm supposed to write about this mess next year. As you know, a publishing company already approached me with the offer," Linda said.

"Linda, are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine now, really. And don't worry, this upcoming Spring Break, I plan to go someplace far away by myself and clear my head. I understood I put myself in focus, placed my mind someplace else so I could do what I did. But where my mind was is not a place I want to go to again anytime soon."

They finished their tea in silence, and then Ann rose to go. She told Linda she'll see her at school, and then paused before she got to the door.

"Oh Linda, one last thing. When I checked out Jerry's family, there was one little thing I missed, I didn't bother to check," she said.

"What's that?" Linda asked.

"Where they attended church. It turned out the whole family are members of this church that preaches this extremist junk about "mud people' and so on. When they moved, it was so they'd be closer to their congregation."

"Oh wow. But Ann, you had no way of knowing they belonged there."

"I know, I know; but I sometimes wonder if I went ahead and found out-"

"That you might have been able to prevent it?" Linda interrupted.

"Yeah, but we'll never know, will we? Goodnight, Linda, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Ann."

A Few Months Later

Linda was in her room going over the rosters during her planning period. It looked like it would be a good year. The room was repaired from the damage done by the shotgun, and that old file cabinet was finally "retired," though Linda was suddenly sad to see it go after the "sacrifice" it made. She was asked if she wanted a different room, but she refused, because she liked feeling the sunlight as it came in. On this day, she wore a white sleeveless blouse; black Capri pants with elastic cuffs, white hose, and black ballet shoes. The shoes were already discarded and parked under the desk, partly because she taught without them now, and so her stocking feet can feel the new shag carpeting that was installed in her room at the beginning of the school year.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Linda said.

The principal of the school came in, looking at the new carpet. He found the desk nearest Linda's and had a seat.

"So to what do I have the pleasure?" Linda asked.

"Linda, since the incident last year, and the way you carried yourself; heck, for saving our lives, we owe you a lot. Many students, and several of the faculty has asked about maybe finding out where they could learn this ' I'm sorry, what was it again?" The principal asked.

"Hapkido," Linda replied.

"What I'm trying to say is you can have your after-school hapkido class."

Linda squealed with delight, jumped from her desk, and ran and gave the principal a big hug. The principal discovered Linda was stronger than she appeared when he felt his ribs being compressed.

"Linda, please, you're crushing me!" He croaked.

Linda quickly released him. "I'm sorry," she said. "How soon can I start?"

"How soon can you get started?"

"Next week! Hey, won't the parents and the school board have a problem with this?"

"Some of the parents asked for this after finding out you're a black belt, and as for the school board, you leave them to me."

"Oh thank you again, Mr. Taylor!" She said as she rushed to hug him again. Mr. Taylor backpedaled toward the door.

"Another hug won't be necessary, Linda, I just had lunch. Just give the secretary the details, and she'll put it in the afternoon announcements as soon as possible. Good luck," he said as he left.

Linda could barely sit down, she was so excited. She realized her days were now going to be very busy, teaching both classes, but that was okay. The benefits would far exceed the liabilities. She'll make it a point to ask her step dad for pointers on running the class. She leaned back in her chair, stretched out her legs, and gave a big smile, feeling a warm beam of sunlight on her face. Yeah, this looked like it was going to be a good year.

For comments, suggestions, or story ideas, email the author at shrewsberry@juno.com.