intervention

"I'm not going to tell them that. Are you nuts?"

"You won't be in trouble," I say, without quite knowing if it's true. But he rouses himself from his slouch in the corner and goes willingly to Chemistry for the first time maybe ever. And when he leaves I abandon my gathering class and warn him as he walks that if he won't go to the nurse, I will. I veer first to Guidance, roust his counselor then his principal, assemble a posse that fans out between classroom and clinic. The speed of our steps tells the story.

Doors are opened and shut, chairs pulled up beside. Denials are issued and vitals are taken. All are inconclusive.

I again meet his principal out in the hall. "He says he was joking, that you just overheard." I tell him the actual story, the one about the friend and the pills and the pain he was feeling: the facts as presented to me directly a ten-minute eternity ago. The father is called.

I'm not wrong. I am not mistaken. His past habits, his struggles, his complaints this morning--it adds up to a negative sum. Officially, what's true is irrelevant. His early morning confession is like shouting "bomb!" at the airport: say the word, be exited regardless. Liability is the watchword. But it's not why I dashed down the hall.