The Sixth Inspector (a short story)

Untitled Part 1

            I let my breath out slowly, watching ice crystals form in the air. I hugged my arms tight around my body and tried not to shiver. I looked down at my feet, and at the frozen ground. My shoes were half a size too small; they don’t give you anything at the school for the troubled and elite.  I dug my toe into the snow to see if I could find the dirt. I suspected that the school didn’t even bother planting grass, it would freeze in a week, just siting under the ice. No one would be able to see it anyways. I slammed my toe even harder, it cracked the ice, but that was no accomplishment. I had spent whole afternoons digging in the snow. Once, when we had a day off, I spent the whole day digging. By the end my leg was knee deep in the snow and I felt I was no closer to seeing the dirt. It was no use trying to continue a hole you started the previous day. Every night the clouds would darken, and a brisk wind would create mini tornados all over the ground. In the morning, the ground would again be as smooth as ice.

            Someone blew a whistle that meant all clear. I sighed gratefully, and started following the line of people inside. We all knew the drills were standard procedure, but it didn’t make them any warmer. While many schools have drills incase there is a fire or an earthquake, we have drills incase there are inspectors. There was only one time that I cam remember that the inspectors ever came. It was three years ago I think, when I was in the seventh grade. We all thought it was just a drill, but then the cars pulled up. When the men came out we all grew quiet. We stared them down; our unblinking eyes followed them all the way to the front door. Then we waited. Our lips turned blue from the cold, and we huddled together, sharing jackets and stomping our feet to keep warm. None of us really knew how long it was supposed to take, or even how long it actually took, but when the first inspector came out of the building, we all knew it hadn’t taken nearly long enough.

             The inspectors were curious creatures. They always wore dark sunglasses, and an official badge pinned to the breast pocket of a spiffy black suit. For some mysterious reason, they always traveled in groups of six, they all went into the building together, but only five ever came out. I think that’s why people call them inspectors, because you can inspect the whole binding and never find the missing body. So when the first inspector came out, I reasoned that however long he had spent in that building, it would never have been enough time for the sixth inspector to be killed, and his body hidden where no one would ever find it.

The first man to walk out was carrying a box of various school supplies that obviously came from different classrooms seeing that there was everything from crayons to graphing calculators in his arms. The second man to come out was holding bags, which must have been heavy judging by the way he was bent over and breathing hard. Then out came the third and fourth men, both carrying bags as well. That was when something quite unexpected happened. There was a plain stout boy, with simple cloths and a baseball cap with the name of some sports team printed on it. He must have been at least two grades below me.

He slid through the crowd like a panther, silent and hardly noticed until seeing him was inevitable. I remember his icy hands on my arm, excusing himself in a high polite voice as he passed. I didn’t stop him whatsoever; I didn’t even bother to wonder why he was out of line. My attention was too focused on the inspectors, I barely even saw it happen.

Before I knew it the boy was running towards the inspectors, screaming at the top of his lungs. No one really knew what he was screaming. But pretty soon he was on top of the third inspector, tugging at one of the backpacks, and all the while screaming. That’s when I realized something very alarming. That backpack he was tugging on, it wasn’t his. And I knew that it wasn’t his, because… because it was mine. But then the inspectors closed in on the boy, blocking our view. The strange thing was, no one made any move to help the boy, not even the impa. We were all too stunned to react, and by the time we got over ourselves, the gun had already whent off. The inspectors backed away, and there was the boy, lying dead on the ground.