Fires Alarmed
Fire drills always unnerve me. One time, our dean asked me to stand in one of the streets, a standard procedure for fire drills as we escort students to about a one-block radius from the school in case of emergency. As the teachers escort the kids to their designated spots, a black SUV with a rather angry disposition pulls up within a feet of my knees and waits patiently for this drill to end. I stood my ground, waiting for all the students to cross the streets and holding my “Fire Drill” sign in a choke hold. The kids crossed the street, and the SUV grew more impatient, inching closer to my less-than-superhuman legs. My throat tightened up. The man kept yelling about having to get to work. I thought how the man could have just gotten to work early like everyone else and not at 9:30am. None of this mattered. My silence held clenched abs tight against what I felt might have gotten really ugly really quickly. The dean and my supervisor talked the man in the SUV down, and not a second too soon as I could feel the heat careening off the bumper could have steam-ironed my pants. The man cursed us all out as he let his engine growl while I stood my ground. The dean had waved the students back, but I couldn’t move until all the classes got back in the building. Every 30 seconds felt like an hour. When I heard the dean wave the
