The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [98]
AT CITYGROVE, A WOMAN gave a presentation and held a workshop for a select group of students about Rachel’s Challenge. Rachel’s Challenge was a program encouraging a “chain reaction of kindness and compassion,” based on the writing of Rachel Scott, the first student killed at the Columbine school shootings in Colorado. As Joy listened to the presentation, she wept soundlessly. She remembered an incident she hadn’t thought about in a long time.
It had happened when Joy was twelve, on a sunny June day in Jamaica. Joy remembered that the sky was so clear that every outline—of trees, people, blades of grass—was sharp and clean. About five minutes after school let out for the day, Joy was laughing with friends beneath a shady tree near the soccer field when they heard a pop. “Probably some eediat bwoy wid im foolishness, yo dem need fi stop, in di name ah Jesus,” said one of Joy’s friends.
Then there was another pop, this one louder, closer, and followed by screams. Concerned, Joy and her friends walked toward the school building. Students were pouring out of their classes toward the buses. Then—pop—again. Screams. Hundreds of students scurried like ants in every direction. “Him have a gun, him have a gun, yo run, yo run!” someone shouted.
Joy lost sight of her friends and ran around frantically looking for them. Someone from Drama Club saw Joy sprinting toward the drama building stairs and pushed her down to the ground. “Stay down,” he said. “Come on, get it together. You need to help yourself. Stay low. It’s gonna be okay.” Three more gunshots pierced the air, this time close enough that Joy heard ringing in her ears. Tears streamed down her face. Am I going to die? she wondered. Is the gunman coming after someone? Is it judgment day?
“She dead, she dead,” wailed a girl Joy knew. “A gyal get shot up, yo run, dem ah come!” Panicked, Joy sprinted upstairs toward the drama classroom. Two seniors saw Joy at the gate to the building, looked around furtively, ducked, and pulled her inside the room. Two more shots rang out. Then it was quiet.
Later, Joy went downstairs to search for her friends. They reunited and wept on one another’s shoulders. “Don’t cry, Joy,” one of them said, hugging her. “It’s okay. You’re okay, don’t worry.” They heard sirens. Near the school office, police handcuffed a naked man the students had never seen.
Joy learned that only one child was injured, an eleven-year-old whose neck was punctured by glass from a bus window. She survived. But the ordeal was draining. It was “heart-wrenching, the fear knowing that you might die, and you say, ‘Today I will die and will never see my friends and family,’ ” Joy said later. “It’s one of the most unexplainable feelings one can have, hearing those bullets, the screams, the cries. When my face was down in that dirt, I said, ‘This is it.’ I couldn’t help but wonder if the person came to kill me, what would I do, just sit there and take it? Wait for it to be over and pray to God I would not die? It makes you value life and value what you have.”
Joy was struck by one of Rachel Scott’s quotes: “If one person can go out of their way to show compassion, it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go.” Joy vowed to herself to continue the chain with what Joy called “positive thinking.” She started an online group dedicated to this purpose; for the group’s description, Joy wrote, “I want people to know that one bad experience doesn’t direct our lives; things can get better, if only we have the will and drive to try.” She encouraged people to share their negative experiences, in the hope that others could help them to see the positive things