We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [202]
Rocco would have hesitated—the noise would be a distraction—but the cafeteria worker was black.
Kevin must have been kicking himself for having left that basketball off in the corner, but by this time—3:40—he’d have been more distracted by the no-show. Only nine of his ten party guests had reported for duty, along with one gate-crasher. This operation was not organized for latecomers, and as the meeting got underway he must have been frantically concocting a contingency plan to allow for the dilatory performance of Joshua Lukronsky.
“Oh, gr-ooss!” said Laura, passing the platter. “Turkey roll. Total waste of calories.”
“First off, you guys,” Rocco began, “I want to congratulate you all on having been picked for this special award—”
“O-kay!” The lobby doors burst wide. “Let’s get in character!”
Kevin would never have been quite so happy to see the consummately irritating Joshua Lukronsky. As the circle enlarged to make a place for Josh, Kevin crept out of the alcove and slipped downstairs with another Kryptonite. Although he was as quiet as he could be, the chain did rattle a little, and he may have been grateful for the banging of the cafeteria worker’s basketball at that. Back up in the alcove, he slipped his last padlock and chain around the inside bars of the alcove’s double doors.
Voilà. Fish in a barrel.
Was he having second thoughts, or simply enjoying himself? Their meeting had proceeded another five minutes by the time Kevin advanced stealthily toward the rail with his loaded crossbow. Though he drew into sight from below, the group was too engrossed in planning their own accolades to look up.
“I could give a speech,” Greer proposed. “Like on how the office of special prosecutor should be abolished? Because I think Kenneth Starr is evil incarnate!”
“What about something a little less divisive?” Rocco proposed. “You don’t want to alienate Republicans—”
“Wanna bet?”
A soft, rushing sound. Just as there is a tiny pause between lightning and thunderclap, there was a single, dense instant of silence between the arrow’s shsh-thunk through Laura Woolford’s Versace blouse and the point at which the other students began to scream.
“Oh, my God!”
“Where’d it come from!”
“She’s bleeding all OVER!”
Shsh-thunk. Not yet struggled to his feet, Miguel took one in the gut. Shsh-thunk. Jeff was nailed between the shoulder blades as he bent over Laura Woolford. I can only conclude that for those many hours Kevin spent in our backyard, the little black bull’s-eye in the middle of all those concentric circles was in his mind’s eye a perfect circle of Versace viscose. Struck perfectly through the heart, she was dead.
“He’s up there!” Denny pointed.
“Kids, get out! Run!” Rocco ordered, though she needn’t have; the uninjured remainder had already stampeded toward the main exit, where they were giving new meaning to the term panic bars. Yet given the position of the alcove, there wasn’t one square foot in that gym that couldn’t be penetrated from over its railing, as they were all soon to discover.
“Oh, shit, I should have known!” screamed Joshua with an upward glance, rattling the equipment room door that Mouse had already tried. “It’s Khatchadourian!”
Shsh-thunk. As he pounded on the main doors calling for help while the arrow stuck in his back quivered, a shaft sank into the nape of Jeff Reeves’s neck. As Mouse streaked to the boys’ locker room exit and the doors gave just a little and held fast, he took an arrow in the ass; it wouldn’t kill him, but as he hobbled to the one last exit on the girls’ side, he was surely beginning to realize that there was plenty of time for one that did.
Dana Rocco got to the girls’ exit at about the same time, weighed down by Laura’s body in her arms—a fruitless but valiant effort that would feature prominently in the memorial service. Mouse met Rocco’s eyes and shook his head. As his shrieking classmates began to circle from door to door in a churning motion