Code Blue

Something strange happened this morning when I dropped Grace off at school. We were a couple of minutes late, and signed in after the 8:00 AM bell rung. Everything seemed business as usual in the office, but as we walked down the hallway to Ms. Diane's class, things got weird: the hall lights were off, the classroom lights were off, and no one else was walking the halls. Just as we began to enter Grace's class, the door slammed in our faces. I knocked and Ms. Diane hushed me inside, whispered, "Code Blue," and directed us over to a corner in the classroom where all the kids were "huddling." I crouched down, too, with Grace, and we "huddled," in the dark while Ms. Diane made sure all the room's blinds were shut. The preschool children, two teachers, another mother, and I sat quietly for about ten minutes, until the bell went off again, in a "Code Blue" drill which was activated in response to this.