The 8th

David shrugged. I turned to look at mum who was still sitting in the car. I could tell she was getting impatient but hated leaving David like this. I guess everyone has a breaking point and this must have been his. I don’t blame him. I haven’t been here half as long as him and I’m already close to mine. I turned back to David to continue our conversation but he was already stepping in through his front door. Without so much of a goodbye he closed the door. Maybe he’ll be back to normal tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep?

I walked back to the car and climbed into the front seat, next to my mum.

“He seems quiet,” she said. I shot her a look.

“What are you doing?” asked Mrs Price. I was just standing there, in front of the class. My mind was elsewhere. Drifted off for a minute. Disappointed there isn’t enough time to deal with them all individually. “We need to get Ben some help.”

“He’s dead,” I said. I didn’t even look at him. I could tell he was dead. His breathing was noisy earlier. Now I can’t hear it at all.

“You’re going to prison…” said Mrs Price, “For a very long time.”

“No, I’m not.” I smiled at her and glanced at the gun.

“You killed someone!” she continued.

“So did Piers!” I yelled. “Chloe…” I pointed to where she was still weeping. “Murderer! Lynn…” I pointed to a girl sat towards the back near to where Piers was sitting, “Murderer! Robert…” one of Piers’ friends, “…Murderer…John…” another lad close to Piers, “even Ben and Daniel…They’re all murderers…The only difference is they didn’t pull a trigger.”

Lessons are about to start. The class is quieter than usual. David is doing his usual trick of leaving it until the last possible minute to come to class. There are whisperings from the back row. I can’t quite make them out. Something about David. I wonder, after last night, whether he’s coming back to class or whether his mum and dad are finally pulling him out of here and sending him somewhere else?

I turned round to look at the back of the class. Piers and his friends are missing again. Same old story with them. They fight with someone and then disappear for a few days. A few days later they re-emerge from whatever hole they crawled into, as though nothing has happened. Pieces of shit. With the mood I’m in, it’s probably a good thing they’re missing. For what they did last night, I don’t think I could keep my calm. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were just Piers by himself but…Him and all of his gang? I would have just ended the same way as David did last night.

My attention turned to the back of the class, again, when the door opened. I half expected it to be David but it wasn’t. Mrs Price walked in; a solemn expression on her face. Well, this is new.

The class watched, in silence, as she put her bag by her desk. She looked as though she was taking a couple of minutes to collect her thoughts.

“We’ve just heard,” she said after a few more minutes, “that last night David took his own life…”

“No one in this class is innocent!” I shouted. “No one!” I waved the gun around at each of the pupils. They tried their best to duck out of the way of the barrel. “Not you! Not you! Not you! No one! You all need to learn…You need to be taught a lesson. The only innocent ones are standing here…” I turned to see David, Lindsey, Elizabeth, Marcus, Samantha, Kate and Helen.

“There’s no one there,” said Mrs Price.

“Just because you don’t see them, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there but they’re always here. Always walking the corridors where they were tormented for so long…What I’m doing…What I’m here for today. Someone should have done this a long time ago…”

“What you’re doing…This doesn’t make anything right. This doesn’t change anything…”

“It will! Don’t you see. People will hear of this. This story will spread across the world…Newspapers, television programmes…A warning to others who may be tormenting colleagues close to them…”

“It won’t. You’ll just go down in history as another psychopath killing innocent people in their school…”

“Just as David will be another suicide statistic?”

Mrs Price’s short words were all that was mentioned of David in the school — at least in front of the pupils. There were no speeches, in the morning assembly, offering people in the same position as David any help. There was no advice for handling bullies. There was nothing. Even the local newspaper hardly went into any details about it when it landed on the doorstep three days after the event.