Trial By Kindle Fire

It's back-to-school season. And you know that THAT means!

DRILLS!

Uh huh. What better time to cram in all the emergency drill procedures that the first full week of classes? Gotta get those kiddos ready to run. Never mind that I have yet to talk to a kid that remembers the first week of school.

So we had an intruder drill on Monday, after which a young man declared, "I never want to stand that close to Bob again!" Let the record show that the name has been changed to protect the obnoxious.

Throughout the week, we also evaded a tornado, dashed from a faux burning building, and survived a New-Madrid-level tremor. Those poor freshmen must think we are the unluckiest campus in the world.

It's the fire escape that commanded my attention. All because of The Pony. He stuck his Kindle Fire under my nose last night. "Look at this." I was in the middle of something which I can't remember, but nothing more important than interacting with my youngest son, who rarely comes forward and shares with me, preferring to have information drug out of him by hook or by crook.

"Oh. That's nice." It was one of his classmates, standing in front of a whiteboard in The Pony's last class of the day. I was surprised that he had bothered to take a picture on his Kindle Fire. Which is kind of ironic, I suppose. You be the judge when you hear all the facts. If there's one thing Val's not an expert on, it's irony.

"Look at her."

"I did. Why did you have your Kindle out taking pictures? I thought that wasn't allowed."

"It was this time. See?"

I looked again. The poor little gal had a sign around her neck. A homemade laminated sign. Which declared that she had just burned to death in a fire, and nobody even noticed. Then I understood. When we have drills, the drill-holders spirit away a few kids and hide them. Just to test us. One year a big strapping basketball player was told to lay down in the classroom during an earthquake drill, and refuse to leave the building. "I'm hurt!" he declared. "My leg is broken. I can't walk." The teacher thought he was pulling a prank. She grew quite agitated. Demanded that he get up, the fun was over. She tried to pull him out the door. He screamed that she was hurting his broken leg. By the time the support staff came by to check her room, she was in tears, almost hysterical. But she received high praise, because she did not abandon her student.

"How did that happen? Didn't you tell the teacher that she was missing?"

"Not my job."

"What about her friends?"

"No. They didn't say a word. And they're her really good friends, too."

"I guess they WERE. Now she's burned up. How could your teacher not know? We have to take our rosters and take roll."

"Our teacher is also in charge of the kids in the room next door. The ones who take web classes. She got all of them. She took a picture of her seating chart so she would have it on her phone when she went out, but the phone cut the little burned-up girl's name off the picture."

Huh. Technology failed us this week. A student fake-burned-up. But one thing held constant.

The Pony really does not care very much about helping people.