The Wave

"I am on your side, Ben," his wife answered. "But I've seen you these last few days and it's as if I don't even know you. You've become so involved in playing this role at school that you're starting to slip into it at home. I've seen you go overboard like this before, Ben. Now you've got to turn it off, honey."

"I know. It must look to you like I've gone too far. But I can't stop now." He shook his head wearily. "Not yet."

"Then when?" Christy asked angrily. "After you or some of these kids do something you'll all regret?"

"Do you think I'm not aware of that?" Ben asked. "Do you think it doesn't worry me? But I created this experi­ment, and they went along. If I stop now they'll all be left hanging. They'd be confused, and they wouldn't have learned anything."

"Well, let them be confused," Christy said.

Ben suddenly jumped to his feet in frustrated anger. "No, I won't do that. I can't do that!" he shouted at his wife. "I'm their teacher. I was responsible for getting them into this. I admit that maybe I did let this go too long. But they've come too far to just drop it now. I have to push them until they get the point. I might be teaching these kids the most important lesson of their lives!"

Christy was not impressed. "Well, I just hope Principal Owens agrees with you, Ben," she told him. "Because he caught me as I was leaving today and said he'd been looking for you all day. He wants to see you first thing tomorrow morning."

The Grapevine staff stayed late after school that day to celebrate their victory. The issue on The Wave had been so successful that it was almost impossible to find an extra copy anywhere. Not only that, but teachers and admin­istrators and even some students had been stopping them all day and thanking them for revealing "the other side' of The Wave. Already they had heard stones that some students were resigning from The Wave.

The staff had realized that a single issue of the paper was not enough to stop a movement that had gained as much momentum as The Wave had that past week. But at least they had struck it a serious blow. Carl said he doubted there would be any more incidents of threats against non-Wave members — or any more beatings.

As usual Laurie was the last one to leave the publica­tions office. One thing about The Grapevine staff — they were great at parties, but when it became time to clean up somehow they all disappeared. It had come as a shock to Laurie earlier that year when she realized what having the top position on the paper, editor-in-chief, really meant: having to do every little stupid job no one else wanted to do. And tonight that meant cleaning up after the rest of the staff went home.

By the time she finished, Laurie realized that it had already grown dark out, and she was practically alone in the school building. As she closed the door of The Grapevine office and turned off the light, that nervousness she'd felt all week began to return again. The Wave was undoubt­edly smarting from the wounds The Grapevine had inflicted, but it was still strong in Gordon High, and Laurie was aware that as the head of the paper, she... no, she told herself, you're just being silly and paranoid. The Wave was nothing serious, just a classroom experiment that had got slightly out of hand. There was nothing to be afraid of.

The corridors were darkened now as Laurie headed to her locker to drop off a book she would not need that evening. The silence of the empty school was eerie. For the first time she heard sounds she'd never heard before: the hums and buzzes of electrical current running to and from alarms and smoke detectors. A bubbling, splashing sound coming from the science room where some overnight experiment must have been left brewing. Even the unusually loud, hollow echo of her own shoes as they rapped the hard corridor floors.

A few feet from her locker, Laurie froze. There on her locker door, the word "enemy' was painted in red letters. Suddenly the loudest noise in the corridor was the quick, insistent beating of her own heart. Calm down, she told herself. Someone is just trying to scare you. She tried to get control of herself and started to do the combination of her lock. But she stopped in mid-turn. Had she heard something? Footsteps?

Laurie backed slowly away from her locker, gradually losing her battle to suppress her own growing fright. She turned and started walking down the hallway towards the exit. The sound of footsteps seemed to be growing louder, and Laurie quickened her pace. The footsteps grew even louder, and all at once the lights at the far end of the hall went out. Terrified, Laurie turned and peered back down into the dark hallway. Was that someone? Was there someone down there?