Page 103 of I Will Ruin You

One of the men had his hand up, but didn’t wait to be called on. “Hang on. You want us to read these books?”

“The best way to understand what the kids are studying—not just in my class or any other teacher’s class, but on their own—is to have a read of it yourselves. It might change your opinion, and then again, it might reinforce the opinion you already hold. But once you’ve read some of these—”

“I don’t have time for that,” said the same guy.

“I do,” said one of the women.

I smiled. “Some of you may have noticed Mr. Willow sitting at the back of the room this evening.” A few heads turned around as Herb sat up a little straighter in his chair. “I want to thank him for coming tonight and showing an interest in this subject, and I’m delighted that he has volunteered to be part of all this. When you’ve read your books and written your assessment of it, Mr. Willow will be happy to look at what you’ve done and put together a report.”

Herb’s face flushed. Fuck you, Herb.

“But there’s one other point I would like to make,” I said. “And what I don’t want is to come across like I’m lecturing any of you. I know your concerns are sincere. You care about what happens here, in this building. So do I.”

I paused.

“Mrs. Kanin started off by mentioning what happened here last week, and thank you for the kind words.” I was looking right at her. “I see the world a little differently now than I did just ten days ago. A young man came into this school intending to do harm. Your kids were here for that. You received frantic phone calls while they were in lockdown. You raced to the school. It’s something you and your kids will never forget. The longest couple of hours of your lives. What made this person want to hurt us? What’s happening to our young people?”

I waved my hand toward the cart full of books. “Maybe the answers are here. Somewhere in these thousands of pages. The inspirations and motivations for these works are varied. Some writers set out to simply entertain, and that’s great. Others seek to understand who we are, to promote understanding, to bring people together. I don’t believe keeping our kids from reading them will make them safer. I believe shielding them from ideas will make them less tolerant, less understanding, less willing to engage, and that, ultimately, will make them less safe.”

Violet Kanin slowly stood.

“I don’t think you understand,” she said. “I know what you’re probably thinking. That we’re a bunch of ignorant book banners, that—”

“I didn’t say that. I didn’t accuse—”

“Please allow me to finish,” she said quietly. “I don’t need reminding about how terrified we all were that day. We all remember it very well. I could have lost my son that day. Any one of us here could have lost a child when that man came here with a bomb. We see the news. The shootings. We see what’s happening at one school after another. At malls and churches. We know our kids are exposed to drugs and awful things online and under all kinds of pressure from their friends. And here’s the thing: we don’t know what to do about it.”

I listened.

“We feel helpless and scared and overwhelmed. And then one day our kids are assigned a book to read. A book with all sorts of ugliness in it. It may be a wonderful book, and maybe you should keep teaching it. I don’t even know anymore. But we think, we can’t control any of these threats our children face, but maybe we can fool ourselves into thinking we’re making a difference in one small area if we ask, will this book make our kids’ lives better?”

Her eyes were wet. “I guess that’s all I have to say.” She forced herself to smile and said, “Andrew’s liking Hoot, so I thank you for that.”

She sat down.

The room was quiet for a moment. I nodded slowly, looked at Violet Kanin, and said, “I hear you. Believe me, I do. This, right here, these are the kinds of discussions I want to have not just with parents, but with my students, so we can come to a better understanding of how we feel. I think we all really want the same—”

I stopped. Someone new had entered the room. A latecomer.

And I suddenly felt light-headed.

Billy Finster had arrived.

Forty-Seven

Back in her teens, Bonnie smoked. Not for all that long. Couple of years when she was in high school. Gave up cigarettes when she went on to college—mostly she couldn’t afford them, and only smoked when she could bum one off a friend—but she remembered the pleasures of drawing smoke into her lungs and blowing it out slowly, how soothing it was. She used to hide them in the garage when she still lived with her parents.

God, how she wished she had a pack stashed away someplace in the house right now.

Richard should have bailed on that school meeting tonight. They needed to talk more, figure out what their next steps could be. There had to be something that would allow them to put all this behind them.

Bonnie stood there in the kitchen a moment longer, imagining a Camel between her index and middle fingers.

Enough of this.

“Rachel!” she called out.

“Yes?” she shouted back from the family room.