There Are Children Here By Jonny Shae Ransbottom

Donald Lee Pardue CC




There Are Children Here

   When we have a hall check drill, my seventh grade students perk up. Their usually mile-an-hour-mouths have clamped shut like they are ingesting something fictional, something so chewy and large that once they swallow it they will be sick. It will stick to the bone and grow as a tumor near their fragile organs. They know it. 
                                                                                                                                  ****
                                                                                            Fall, 2022: 34 School Shootings, 31 Deaths
   When our junior high school goes into a soft lockdown because of a threat on social media, I do not tell my students. My principal speaks over the intercom and asks all teachers to check their email. I walk over to my desk, leaving my students to work, to draw doodles of hearts and names and smiley faces in bright sharpie on their worksheets. I read and re-read the email. The high school has been threatened. 
   @PrestonHighSchool better lock your doors. 
   Law enforcement is around every school in the district. We are to limit student movement but continue as normal. Continue as normal. I will continue. I will continue as normal and hold a poker face when my stomach drops through the floor. I will continue as normal with small talk to the thirteen year old who loves Jack Harlow and wears Vans and narrates everything like we’re on his Youtube channel. To the girl whose sister I graduated with, who loves to write fantasy. To the quiet boy in the corner that wears the same Venom hoodie nearly every day. I will do this casually while I lock my classroom door. I will continue as normal as I watch from between the folds of each dusty blind. I will continue as normal as I text my friend who teaches at the high school and ask, You okay?  I will continue as normal and evade answers when my students ask why I won’t let them use the restroom. I will continue as normal when my husband calls and texts me, terrified and helpless. I will continue as normal as more and more students are checked out of school. I will continue as normal as I imagine what it will take to ask 24 pre-teens to huddle in the corner of my classroom without speaking in the dark. I will continue as normal as I imagine a full lockdown and question if I have the upper body strength needed to push the filing cabinet with the “I Heart Teaching” sticker in front of the classroom door. I will stack four desks up against it and place the bean bags strategically on top so that the shooter cannot see us. I will stand there, shaking, with wasp spray that shoots up to 15 feet away and kiddy scissors in my hands. I will continue as normal. I will continue as normal. I continue as normal when the kids ask me if there is a shooter in their school. They will continue as normal.
                                                                                                                                 ****
    Early Symptoms of pregnancy are similar to those of a typical menstrual cycle, which can make determining whether or not a woman is pregnant deeply frustrating. Implantation bleeding may accompany cramps, which can easily be mistaken for a woman’s period. Irritated nipples, darkened areolas, and sensitive breasts can also be a sign of early pregnancy, but can also indicate an oncoming cycle. Women may experience the need to urinate more frequently, bloating, headaches, back pain, fatigue, or nausea. Similarly, periods, or PMS, can also cause bloating, headaches, back pain, fatigue and nausea. The largest indicator, of course, is a missed period. 
   Late periods can be misleading, depending on the frequency and regularity of an individual woman’s cycle, they may not always be anticipated. This can be because of hormone irregularities or a change in birth control. 
   Understanding when it is possible to conceive, or for successful conception, actually comes down to six days in a woman’s cycle. This happens during the ovulatory phase, when her egg is released. This fertile phase can also be inconvenient to track, though oftentimes the best way to tell is based on how the woman is feeling. Other than those six days in her cycle, it is unlikely for successful conception to take place. However, as soon as the sperm ejaculates and meets vaginal fluid, it can travel to the fallopian tubes with ease. The question is whether it will successfully find and reach an egg. 
   If conception is successful and timed properly, implantation will begin. The Zygote, the implanted egg, will travel down the fallopian tubes and make its own home attached to the uterine wall. At this point, it is possible for a woman to experience implantation bleeding and cramps, which many mistake for their period. 
                                                                                                                                 ****
    
                                                                                      Winter/Spring of 2023: 6 School Shootings, 2 Deaths
    I watch the screen where the camera catches a close up of what I miss of the chocolatier's quick hands from three rows back. She scoops the fresh melted milk chocolate out of the mixing bowl with her right hand. Speaking to us about the careful steps to be taken, she releases the silk-like waterfall onto the dense marble board to temper it. A draft from the cold February swims through the creaks in the door, prompting goosebumps on our arms. The chocolate will temper quickly because of the chill, she says. I nod, impatient, wondering when I can place my own hand into the warm bowl. My husband is out of town with his father and brother. The girls, my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and I have met together to take a hand-dipped chocolate class. We continue to watch as the chocolatier runs her right hand in circles over the chocolate, allowing it to temper on the marble.
   “You have to be careful,” she starts, “move quickly once it tempers. If it gets too chilled, you might not be able to cover your filling properly, or it won’t have smooth corners.” It’s a long, precise, and detailed process. She tells us she will instruct for an hour before we are to begin making our own.
    The chocolatier smiles as she glazes her gloved fingers over the chocolate. She reminds me of a new mother admiring her infant, her fingers soft on its face feeling of its tenderness and familiar calm. She pushes it forward and pulls it back toward her, watching it stretch and bend to her mercy: this new becoming. This new thing she molds and forms for someone else to take from her. She repeats herself, and once the chocolate is tempered, she explains that it has reached room temperature, and that she can finally begin the next step.
    It’s a process she unfolds to us in many procedures. She scoops with her right hand again, but this time from the marble board rather than the bowl. With her clean left hand, she places the filling into her cupped calm, and pulses her fingers into a fist and extends them back out until the filling is covered. It’s satisfying to watch, these chocolate waves over a soft cube of caramel until it is just clothed. Something like creation, like purpose. “You have to be patient.” She reminds us. Meaningful creation takes time.
    When the chocolate has finished setting, she places it face down on parchment paper, smooth like a child’s skin. She demonstrates how to sign the chocolate, walks us through our fillings, and places sprinkles on top. I’m watching the green box-like numbers on the oven clock pass by.
    “It’s tempering a bit too quickly,” she says. I watch as her nimble hands struggle through the clumping chocolate on the marble board to prepare for her next filling. “We have to melt it again.” She takes her scraper and molds the remaining chocolate into a neat circle, and then begins scraping the cooling mess off the board and back into the bowl. 
                                                                                                                                  ****
                                                                                                  Fall, 2022: 34 School Shootings, 31 Deaths
    Between classes, other teachers and I huddle in the hall. One first year teacher asks if he should tell his students. I say no. One of the other teachers wonders if she can still take her students out on the grass to enjoy the last of the fall weather as she had promised them. I say I wouldn’t. She asks the secretary and gains permission. The teacher takes her class outside. I lock my door. I think of the ceramics teacher down the hall, who I’m told has been one to tell his students to use the back door of the hallway to take their clay pots and bowls into the sun. I’m also told that he tells them to use a chair to hold the door open so that they don’t get locked out. I think of Uvalde. I wonder where his confidence comes from. We’re in a small town, a population of about 6,000. Very little crime happens here. I know people who leave their keys in the car so that people can borrow it if needed. I know people who forget to lock their back doors. But I remind myself that Sandy Hook has a population of just over 3,000. 
    Minutes after I receive the administration's email, my phone vibrates. My husband’s picture lights up the screen. I love this picture of him. That night in college we drove his GTO in freezing weather and trespassed onto the empty, frozen Bear Lake. He’s wearing his red and black flannel, his skin reflective of the flash from the camera against the fog and the night. I’m not sure he knows what’s happening today, and there’s no reason for him to know now. He’ll just worry. They don’t think it’s a valid threat. Just a group that is threatening schools across the nation for kicks and giggles. The soft lockdown is just a safety precaution. I know this, but sometimes my logic lies. I ignore his call and watch his sweet face vanish from my screen and text him instead. 
    Hey you. Everything okay?
    I want you to come home. 
    I can’t. They don’t think it’s real. We are safe. My door is locked. Cops are here. I love you.
    When I return home, I find out that a substitute at the high school told their class in the separate agriculture building that there was an active shooter in the halls of the high school. Their information was wrong, but it spread quickly. Kids texted home and posted on social media. My husband received a text from our brother-in-law asking if I was okay. My husband hadn’t heard anything yet, to which our brother-in-law told him that there was a shooter in the high school. I don’t know what happened after that, only that my husband wanted me to come home. Only that my in-laws said that he was not okay. Only that he had a panic attack when I was asked to “continue as normal.” I never had thought much about what signing my contract to be a public school teacher had meant to him.
    I know he doesn’t want me teaching because he is terrified of what I will do if there is a shooter. But I am terrified of what I won’t do. 
   He is thinking of past conversations after Uvalde, anxiety filled words in which he told me not to be a hero, tear-brimmed moments where I try to convey that I could never live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could for my kids in the classroom. If I hid. And how do I know? How do I know if I will barricade them, if I will fight for them, or if I will hide? Will I be brave enough to open the door to grab any lone students from the hall? I have prayed that if the time comes, I will do whatever needs to be done. I have prayed that I will do what is right because my logic and emotions lie and tell me different stories when it plays out in my head. 
   I once had a piano teacher who told me to imagine my performances measure by measure, each note, to hear it, to see myself play it. To imagine it perfectly, without hesitation, no missed half note, no ignored rest. When I try that with an imagined active shooter, it always ends differently. Sometimes it ends with my death, with a student’s death, the shooter’s death, or a long, dark lockdown. I don’t know which ending is the right one. When you’re told not to think about something, you always end up thinking about it. 
    I don’t tell you this because I want to be a hero. I tell you this because I don’t know if I can be one. 
                                                                                                                                ****
    Between ovulation and the oncoming menses begins the real test of patience. 
Many suggest not to take a pregnancy test until a woman’s period is late, or better yet, even after she has entirely missed her period. If one cannot bring themselves to wait that long, it is suggested to at least wait until two weeks after suspected conception. 
    If a woman has any uncertainty about whether or not she is carrying and had unprotected sex at any point during the month, she should take a pregnancy test to ease her mind and receive reliable answers, so that she can make decisions going forward with her pregnancy to make sure that all are safe. However, it is important to be patient in order to receive accurate answers, as creating a zygote is a process that takes time and many moving parts as a woman’s body prepares and reacts to the growing changes. A woman should be patient with herself and her body, as well as the possibility of tender life growing inside. 
                                                                                                                                ****
                                                                                       Winter/Spring of 2023: 6 School Shootings, 2 Deaths
   When it is time to dip our own fillings, we stand in a line to wash our hands and get our gloves and supplies. Everyone seems giddy. They’re laughing and excited to try their own hand at creation. The chocolatier has provided us with the sweetest of Valentine’s Day themed fillings: cinnamon hearts, strawberries, raspberry cream, caramel. We stay at the table furthest back, near the door.
    When I first reach into the bowl, I’m surprised at the way the chocolate feels in my hand. It feels unnatural to reach in, to use my hands for something so sweet, so tender. I cup the chocolate in several handfuls and let it spill to my tempering board. I run my fingers through it, trying to understand the new process. I pull it around in circles, cupping it and urging it forward like a nurturing mother does a fearful toddler.
   The draft from the doorway outside into the cold winter quickens the tempering process, and I begin dipping. I take my time at first, feeling out the structure, the rules, the undertaking. I think about each step, say it aloud to my sister in law as she urges me along. We all need validation. My first one turns out smooth, with little excess chocolate. 
    By the time I begin my second, the chocolate has stuck to my right hand in clumps. It clings to my fingers and palm, and the tempering board looks similar. I begin scraping up the remaining clustered chocolate and place it back in the community bowl to be melted and try again. 
                                                                                                                                  ****
                                                                                            Spring of 2022: 27 School Shootings, 27 deaths
    The day after the Uvalde shooting, I returned to school feeling emotional. I expected everyone to be similar. I wish the media wouldn’t cover the details so much, I’m terrified of those details. I worried about it starting ideas, but reminded myself it was the last week of the school year, surely no one could be that cruel. I ran into my department head in the hall; I asked her if she heard about what happened. “Oh, that’s so sad. But, you know. That won’t ever happen here,” she says with a shrug, and walks down the hall. When the media released pictures of the victims, I teared up. One looks just like a student I had taught the year previous. Sweet chocolate eyes and long caramel hair.
                                                                                                                                   ****
   Whether or not a woman is desiring a pregnancy, waiting for results can be an emotional time, and one may have to accept diverse thoughts and feelings. It is easy to make a mistake with methods of protection, and while the chances of successful conception is slim with only one mistake, it is still possible and should be treated as seriously and carefully as possible to keep both the woman and the potential zygote in the best health for decisions going forward. If the woman is pregnant, her body becomes a reliable home to prepare her child for an unreliable world. 
    While a woman is only fertile for six days of her cycle, she should be very aware of her chances of pregnancy while engaging in sexual activity so that she can plan either for pregnancy or use effective protection. Her partner should also be aware of the chances and prepare for whatever their collective plan is going forward so that all can be safe and healthy. No matter the chances, it is always best to be safe and well-educated.
                                                                                                                                   ****
                                                                                        Winter/Spring of 2023: 6 School Shootings, 2 Deaths
   On my second try with freshly melted chocolate, I try to move faster. I coat the filling quickly and try to shake the chocolate from my hand. I balance it on the tip of my finger and, with impatience, assist by putting it down to its new home on the parchment paper with my left. The left hand should only be used for picking up and placing fillings, not for contributing to the mess of chocolate, but I’m losing patience amidst my effort. I peer over shoulders to look at the hand-dipped chocolates of those around me. They’re moving slower than I, even with the draft that invites itself. Their chocolates are coming out smooth, heart shaped, with clean and careful angles and curves. I look back to my own collection, which now looks as if it’s covering mountains and ridges. It’s not working. But there is one single chocolate, smooth and sweet, and I place it in the middle of the plate.
    When we’re finished, everyone admires each other’s productions. Carefully placed sprinkles, beautiful curves, smooth edges and signed chocolates. Made in an hour with effort and devoured in a second. 
                                                                                                                                   ****
                                                                                                Fall of 2022: 34 School Shootings, 31 Deaths
    At the beginning of the school year, the district holds a lockdown drill for staff on a professional development day. I finally feel comfort knowing that I am not the only one that sees that even slim chances are chances. Only a few students are invited to participate to avoid knowledge of law enforcement’s plans being spread throughout the student body. We are not sure who our enemies are. It has become less of an “if,” and more of a “when.” The students who are invited have intricate makeup on their face and arms, blood and open wounds for all to see. The first responders have to practice, too. Law enforcement is here, with empty barrels. Fish and Game are here. First responders are here. School administrators, educators, and paraprofessionals are here. We gather in the junior high cafeteria for our training, but we receive none. 
    We are told that we were sent an email that we were to have read, and that we will follow protocol from that email. We are told that we will be role playing. We are organized in lines by police officers and sent off to our classrooms. I roleplay as a teacher, with far more experienced teachers I do not know from the elementary roleplaying as my students. When we arrive at my classroom, my blinds are already closed. They are almost always that way. I lock the door immediately when we arrive. I’m too nervous I won’t be fast enough when our role-playing shooter sounds his blank through the hall. We are told this will take only a couple hours, though originally the police force wanted to take all day and the superintendent said no. There was no reason to put school employees through more than was necessary. We wait, sitting against the wall of my classroom with the lights off. One teacher grades class assignments. Others sit on their phones. Others giggle and listen to what’s happening in the hall. 
    I sit next to a white-haried woman I have never met before, a fifth grade teacher who attempts to calm my nerves. I ask her questions and she proposes answers. She tells me about her years as a seasoned teacher. About teaching at a school without classroom doors. About teaching during 9/11 at a school in NY. About wondering if her husband was alive while calming the nerves of thirty young children whose parents worked at the twin towers. She tells me and I listen and stare at our shoes. My legs are feeling restless, falling asleep as I hug them to my chest. Another teacher better barricades my door with a trash can. I try not to scoff. I know she’s only trying. We hear the “shooter” wriggle the door handle. We hear the cops come down the hallway. We hear them say my classroom has been cleared, but no one has knocked on our door or come to get us. 
    Other teachers who have noticed our absence from the gathering back at the cafeteria to discuss the drill and text a few of us. We are the last classroom to return. The cops did not come for us until we asked the other teachers to send them. When we return to the cafeteria, we ask about the potential of cops having classroom keys rather than knocking –“anyone can knock, right?”– we ask about safety software provided for the district, we ask questions and are promised answers and solutions that never come, and I fear for the children here.
                                                                                                                                     ****
                                                                                       Spring, 2023: Fourteen School Shootings, 10 Deaths
I’m two days late. 
   I sit in the bathroom, watching the clock, counting down until it changes from 4:58 to 5:03. I refuse to look at the white stick with the pastel cap sitting on the bathroom windowsill by the toilet until it’s been exactly five minutes. The sun is shining its gentle glow; spring has arrived. Light pours through the bathroom window, and birds sing sweet melodies from the pine trees in the backyard. Six days, one chocolate, slim chances.
    We weren’t trying, but when there was a slip up, we decided not to do anything to stop its potential. We aren’t ready, but over the last few weeks, as I’ve felt fatigued and not like myself, I haven’t been able to remove the idea–even the slight hope–that perhaps there’s a little Zygote growing inside me, a sweet little piece of him, a tender little piece of me. It makes me think of the chocolates, held in careful hands, admired and adored, and how they are passed into a box and sent away. And I think of yellowed teeth biting into the one successful hand-dipped chocolate that left the warmth of my palm, the only one from the bowl of primed, melted single body that looked right in a decorative red box, caressed by a paper insert. And I think of that foreign hand, reaching in and taking it, and I think of ten children, fourteen schools, twenty parents, forty grandparents, and I watch chapped lips close over my chocolate and smile something that makes me sick.
   I look in the mirror while I wash my hands. I tell myself that whatever the answer, it will be fine. It’s terribly human to want two opposites. I take a couple steps to the windowsill, into the light, where the dust forms in that beautiful way it does. There is one thick, bold, pink line. 
    Negative.


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Jonny Shae Ransbottom is the author of several essays and poems, and has been published in Minerva Rising’s “The Keeping Room” and Club Plum. She enjoys writing all genres, and finds herself drawn to the raw and real stories of love and hardship, particularly those that speak to the feminine experience. As an educator, she believes in the passion of writing as a tool for connection and healing. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University in 2023 and continues to write diverse works of poetry, fiction, and lyrical nonfiction.