We continued forward on the path by the creek to get near the back of the school. The sloped dirt mounds that led up from the creek and toward level ground finally came to a close as the broken fence that led to the school opened up.
I went to that school and experienced this "break" that they told us we would all have. Just a couple of weeks to slow the curve of this disease going around. In hindsight, everything accelerated so fast that it was hard to believe I would never go as a student again.
My family, Gammie, and Papa included, all climbed that mound and peered over the hill to see what was going on.
The way the creek was positioned, it followed the eastern end of the school down a fenced-off portion that kids weren't able to climb because of the height. Due to some terrible weather three nights previous, a tree collapsed onto the fence and broke a pathway open. Had it not been for that storm, it's very possible we would've been trapped.
"I don't see anything... I mean, besides the obvious. No soldiers, no people, nothing," Dad said. He climbed the mound a little more, peering through the opened soccer field closest to the creek. I commonly hit a soccer ball over the fence throughout my years at the school, so I was convinced if we kept walking along the creek, we could find my favorite one.
"What's the plan here? Camp out here? Go inside?" Mom asked Dad after moving away from Skylar. Nikolas was taking care of her now, letting my Mom make some decisions as well.
"We'll see what's inside first. See if any doors are open. Come on," Dad said, moving towards the far back door to the school.
From the opening in the gate, it was probably only about four-hundred steps until we reached the door. In pure silence, awaiting the results of the door, we reached the sidewalk at the base and looked around the brick wall to see if any soldiers were nearby.
Surprisingly, Dad lightly pulled on the door, and it opened without any delay following. It wasn't locked.
He smiled and led us all in, waiting to be the last one, and quietly closing the door behind him once we entered.
It was an elementary school, so the halls weren't anywhere near as big as they were to me to my parents and grandparents. With such small hallways, the decorations on the walls full of paintings with brushes, fingerprints, and stencils crowded it even more. Every so often, there would be a small indent in the hallway to lead into the classroom.
On our very right side was a closed door inside of a classroom without any lights on. That too was unlocked, and once Mom opened it, she peered inside, looking at a family crouching in the back of the room with a small, makeshift campfire burning on the stone floor.
"You're not the military, are you?" The family asked us.
It was a small family of three people. One kid dressed in multiple layers, and parents with darkened eyes from a lack of sleep, covering their kid with their bodies. They were afraid of the military too? Did they see what we saw?
"No... however, it's nice to meet you guys. We're just another family looking for a place away from the military. They came to our neighborhood and started burning houses down and shooting at them," Dad explained, slowly reaching his hand out to shake theirs.
The mother and father of the kid lit up in expression, rising up to shake his hand kindly. They were kind people, not flinching at the sight of friendship at all.
"My name is Bob, and this is my wife Mary. This little one is Connie... I live in the neighborhood right across the way, and the military shot a man in the head on the street for no reason! It's unreal to me... I can't have my daughter living in a place like that," Bob said. He was passionate in the way he spoke, looking down at his daughter Connie while he explained what atrocities the military committed.
"You said you live in the neighborhood across the way... but they did that over by my neighborhood as well. Is this a common thing or something?" Dad asked Bob.
The way our neighborhoods were set up, we lived on the eastern end of the school, split by the creek we had to travel across. Bob's family lived right across the street from the school, but the things the military was doing were consistent with each other... something didn't feel right.
"No, I don't trust it at all. Have you guys secured every entrance to this school?" Dad asked Bob's family. He shook his head.
"We only went into this room to gather leftover breakfasts and whatnot for food. The rest of the school is blank to us. Why, what's your plan?" Bob asked, adjusting his shirt, symbolizing that he wanted to help my Dad with whatever it was that he was doing.
"Secure every entrance. I'm not too big on the military as is, especially under the orders of a government, so I want to keep this place locked away from them. My son, Leon, goes to school here, so he can help me out in blocking the entrances. What about your little girl? Does Connie go to school here?" Dad asked Bob.
We all walked out of the room as Dad began talking, looking for each and every entrance.
With the handles to the doors sticking out toward the inside of the building, all it would take to lock them tight is to lodge a tight bar within those handles. It couldn't be opened unless we wanted them to.
To compromise for the lack of tight bars around an elementary school, Dad and Bob secured the back entrance with a plastic chair, since it had a metal bar for a leg. The door was unable to be opened and secured in one part of the school.
"What other entrances are there, Leon?" Dad asked me, crouching down to my level to talk to me.
"Well, there's the side one, over by where you guys drop me off, and then two in the front. Then, that's all of them that can be opened from the outside. All classrooms have doors to the outside, but only able to be opened from the inside because there's a bar you have to push in," I explained to him.
He caught on, nodding, and moving toward the side of the school by where the drop-off point was for kids.
The basic design of the elementary school was that there were about thirty-five classrooms on the inside, each with its own private doors, closets, and bathrooms in them. Then, there were two hallways, connected by three lines in the back, middle, and front of the school.
Off on the front end were the cafeteria and gym on the left and right sides of the school respectively. The rooms in the middle, between the two hallways that ran up and down the length of the school were staff rooms, which were smaller, but still added onto the already 35 established rooms.
On the bottom ends were big rooms, meant to be toy rooms for the smaller kids and recreational centers in a sense.
After about thirty minutes of walking around and checking all doors, Dad and Bob boarded up the last doors near the front of the school, nodding in confirmation that the school was now secure and nobody could get in.
When I thought about it, it seemed like if the military wanted to get in, they could've. It's military, they could've busted down the simple doors or pushed their way through no matter what. I didn't open my mouth because I didn't want Dad to be upset or disappointed with the work he did, and I trusted in his decisions. To me, those doors wouldn't break down if they were hit with a cannonball.
"Now that's it's boarded up, what should we do next?" Bob asked, looking around the slim hallways for something else to do.
"I guess the next major thing would be to see what we have. It's only a temporary home until the military goes back to where they belong and we can go back to our houses, right?" Dad asked the rest of my family. They all nodded and I joined in too, trying to have my own opinion on the matter.
"You're right, let's not trash anything and keep it all in good shape. Connie, Mary, if you would please," Bob held out his hand for his wife and daughter and requested a backpack from them, to which Mary took off of her back and handed to him. There were water bottles inside of it, along with a jar of peanut butter, some bread, and some jelly.
"Do you guys want water? Food? We have some of it. How long do you think you'll stay here?" Bob asked Dad.
"As long as we need to, but we got a few things ourselves. Thank you for the offer though, your hospitality really means a lot to us," Dad answered him. Bob nodded in approval and started to drink water out of a bottle.
"As long as you're well off on your own. They have a really good library here for kids, Connie and I were about to head over if you and your boy Leon want to join?" Bob offered to Dad. He took the offer and we soon went to the library altogether.