A Maidens Grave

more. They’re about Wonder Woman and Spider-Man. And X-Men too. Jean Grey and Cyclops. Shannon’s read them!”
    Shannon nodded. On the girl’s left forearm was a faux tattoo of another X-Man, Gambit, which she’d drawn with Pentel marker.
    “Why don’t you tell us one?” Susan asked her.
    Kielle thought for a minute then confessed that her poems still needed some work.
    “Why are birds gray in your poem?” Beverly asked Melanie. Her signing was abrupt, as if she had to finish every conversation before one of her wrenching asthma attacks.
    “Because we all have a little gray in us,” Melanie answered, amazed that the girls were actually rallying, distracted from the horror unfolding around them.
    “If it’s about us I’d rather be pretty bird,” Suzie said, and her twin nodded.
    “You could have made us red,” suggested Emily, who was dressed in a Laura Ashley floral. She was more feminine than all the rest of the students combined.
    Then Susan—who knew facts that even Melanie did not; Susan, who was going to attend Gallaudet College next year with straight A’s—explained to the other girls’ fascination that only male cardinals were red. The females were brownish gray.
    “So, they’re cardinals?” Kielle asked.
    When Melanie didn’t respond the little girl tapped her shoulder and repeated the question.
    “Yes,” Melanie answered. “Sure. It’s about cardinals. You’re all flock of pretty cardinals.”
    “Not archbishops?” Mrs. Harstrawn signed, and rolled her eyes. Susan laughed. Jocylyn nodded but seemed stymied that someone had once again beaten her to a punch line.
    Tomboy Shannon, devourer of Christopher Pike books, asked why Melanie didn’t make the birds hawks, with long silver beaks and claws that dripped blood.
    “It is about us then?” Kielle asked. “The poem?”
    “Maybe.”
    “But there are nine, including you,” Susan pointed outto her teacher with the logic of a teenager. “And ten with Mrs. Harstrawn.”
    “So there are,” Melanie responded. “I can change it.” Then thought to herself: Do something. Whipped cream on pie? Bullshit. Take charge!
    Do something!
    Go talk to Brutus.
    Melanie rose suddenly, walked to the doorway. Looked out. Then back at Susan, who signed, “What are you doing?”
    Melanie’s eyes returned to the men. Thinking: Oh, don’t rely on me, girls. That’s a mistake. I’m not the one to do it. Mrs. Harstrawn’s older. Susan’s stronger. When she says something, people—hearing or deaf—always listen.
    I can’t . . . .
    Yes, you can.
    Melanie took a step into the main room, feeling the spatter of water that dripped from the ceiling. She dodged a swinging meat hook, walked closer to the men. Just the twins. And Beverly. Who wouldn’t let seven-year-old girls go? Who wouldn’t have compassion for a teenager racked by asthma?
    Bear looked up and saw her, grinned. Crew-cut Stoat was slipping batteries into a portable TV and paid no attention. Brutus, who had wandered away from the other two, was gazing out the window.
    Melanie paused, looked back into the killing room. Susan was frowning. Again she signed, “What are you doing?” Melanie sensed criticism in her expression; she felt like a high-school student herself.
    Just ask him. Write the words out. Please let little ones go.
    Her hands were shaking, her heart was a huge, raw lump. She felt the vibrations as Bear called something. Slowly Brutus turned.
    He looked at her, tossed his wet hair.
    Melanie froze, feeling his eyes on her. She pantomimed writing something. He walked up to her. She was frozen. He took her hand, looked at her nails, a small silver ring on her right index finger. Released it. Looked into herface and laughed. Then he walked back to the other two men, leaving her alone, his back to her, as if she posed no threat whatsoever, as if she were younger than the youngest of her students, as if she were not there at all.
    She felt more devastated than if he’d slapped her.
    Too frightened to approach him again, too ashamed to return to the killing room, Melanie remained where she was, gazing out the window at the row of police cars, the crouching forms of the policemen, and the scruffy grass bending in the wind.
     
    Potter gazed at the slaughterhouse through the bulletproof window in the truck.
    They’d have to talk soon. Already Lou Handy was looming too large in his mind. There were two dangers inherent in negotiating. First, making the hostage taker