She wasn’t the only one leaving. Parents were fleeing the scene with their children in cars.
She could see the expressions. The anger on parent’s faces, the fear on the faces of children.
As she looked, she could make out one car. A man, bedraggled, more like a homeless person than a lower-middle-class parent, was waiting to pull out onto the street.
The only person parked outside of the school who hadn’t picked up a child.
She pulled her phone from her pocket, bending down, and she took his photo. No flash, no noise, but his head still whipped around. He made eye contact with her. No older than thirty, his eyes were heavily lined. More like Maggie’s mental picture of someone who’d gone to war or someone who hadn’t slept in days than a parent. Any suspicion she’d had were confirmed in that moment she made eye contact with the man.
He pulled out, almost as if he was in a hurry to get away, and she took another picture of his license plate.
He disappeared, leaving her with only suspicions.
■
Sunday
“What did you talk about?”
“Stuff,” Maggie said. She shifted position so her legs were stretched out across the back seat. “Dreams, her idea of family, my idea of family. Careers. Stuff I might do after school.”
“What are you thinking you might do after school?” her dad asked.
“I’m thinking I might have no idea. I’ve been telling myself, you know, a few months left until the end of the year, then a year left until I graduate. Then I’m done. Now it’s like… wait, I’m going to University? Three to six more years of studying? I’m not that keen.”
“We’ve talked about the role High School plays in life, remember?”
Maggie sighed a bit. “I remember.”
“The things you learn are a very, very small part of it. You’re learning how to learn, and you’re learning how to socialize, how to deal with people and problems. University is the same way. Studying is a very, very small part of it.”
“I know. I get that. The rest of it is partying.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know, dad. It’s a few years off.”
“It’s the sort of thing you need to think about in advance. What do you want to study?”
“What’s easiest?”
“Maggie.“
The conversation was cut off as the ads stopped playing on the radio. Her father turned up the volume on the car radio.
“…believed to be the work of a group of high school seniors, celebrating the end of their final year, taking the pranks and activities several steps too far. When we inquired, the police stated they have no leads on culprits, but will be talking with schools in the area. The police chief stated, ‘It would be fitting and appropriate, if we did prove it was the work of out-of-control students, to hold back their diplomas until restitution could be made.’ Other sources speculate that the spate of attacks has to do with the changes in environmental policy, which prompted the Ontario government to rehouse nearly two thousand residents…”
He turned off the radio. “We’re into speculation. Nothing more worth hearing tonight.”
“Still going on, huh?” Maggie asked.
“What a shame. Cruelty to animals, attacking the elderly, scaring children… when you told me about what happened a few days ago, I’d hoped it would be one isolated incident, that they would realize what they did went a step too far, and leave things be. Or if it is people angry about losing their homes and workplaces, maybe that anger could get burned off.”
“But they’re getting more riled up,” Maggie said.
“They are. Which means I want you staying close to home. I’ll drop you off. I’ll talk to some parents. Maybe we can arrange a system, where you come and go in groups, each group can spend the afternoon at someone’s house, doing homework-“
“Oh god.”
“What?” Her father asked. She could see his smile in the rearview mirror. “Social suicide?”
“You can’t kill that which does not live,” Maggie said.
“You have friends.”
“I don’t like my friends.”
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
“You were just reminding me how high school is meant to instill lessons in all of us. ‘People suck’ is lesson number one. Weren’t you paying attention, way back then?”
“I was too busy being miserable,” he said. “Way back then.”
“How to be abjectly miserable is lesson two,” she answered.
“Ahh. See, I must have missed a lesson along the way.”
Maggie smiled.
“But, you know, one of the first lessons that University hammers into you is that you have to let go of the past. Let go of who you were, and let yourself be who you need to be. Let go of being miserable, let go of hating people.”
“Yeah. I can see that. Getting sloppy drunk, getting high, partying. Artificial happiness and friendships. It’s kind of like the inverse of the high school lessons, but it’s kind of messed up in its own way. A good way.”
“I’m kind of hoping you find genuine happiness and friendship, Maggie. I’m hoping you can unlearn all of the less happy lessons and retain the good stuff. But yes, maybe you’ll need to unteach yourself some of the more cynical lessons you’re learning now.”
Maggie grinned. “Lesson ten of High School is ‘sex is horribly overrated.’ I’m gonna look forward to unteaching myself that one.”
“Is that so?”
Maggie’s grin dropped off her face.
“Chris and I promised each other and promised you that we’d have an open dialogue about these things.”
Maggie flopped back in her seat, hitting her head against the car window. “Regretting saying it already.”
“We want you to be happy and safe, and we have focus on steering you clear of any mistakes that are going to follow you for the rest of your life.”
“Oh god. I haven’t done anything, and I most definitely haven’t had sex so awful it’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“I meant pregnancy, or illnesses, or-“
“Oh god,” Maggie said, again. She looked to the passenger seat, where her father’s husband was unconscious, reeking of too much wine. He and her mother had been borderline competing, towards the end of the night. “Chris, wake up and rescue me.”