Storytime Blog Hop: She Stood by Lyn McCarty

Although Amanda is tall, she never offers to reach down books from a top shelf. At school she keeps to herself. Not today. The crush behind overturned library tables takes proximity to a new level. A boy she doesn’t know shoves himself against her, the zipper on his jacket catching a loop of her sweater. The whole thing will unravel. She’s trying to focus on the immediate, the inconsequential, but a jumble of wreckage and slabs of debris whirl between her ears; trucks and trash cans and pieces of rooftops spiral towards heaven—her mind is hurricane. 

She suppresses her breathing, shrinks, but still takes up more space than anyone else; looks (not peeks) over the edge of an oak table turned on its side.

A fist yells on the other side of the door, angry, threaded with sinews of fear, pounds through the silence. The sound winds around her heart, choking her belief in good, her trust in humanity. He has no right. A gunman. No, a gun-boy. What claim does he have on anger? 

She’s angry, too. She can’t help being tall. Kids see her shuffle, minimizing height, but her anger stands. Polar Bears die on ice floats because we drive Hummers, willing to trade lives for luxury. She’s pissed. Her children will be on ice. She believes in the right to wear a rainbow, or hajib. She gets it. The arc of justice bends slowly; but she’s not patient; she’s angry.

The door is breached. Bodies huddle. The table catches bullets as if this were normal. Splinters spring to life around each thudding entry. Every slug finds a place to rest, to wonder. Did I find my target? Is this the answer? 

Amanda’s height betrays her. She’s hit, wonders if her anger is hotter—or the same.