“Nothing but a thing.” I shrug my shoulders.

“You have a good day. Be careful, though. I hear there might be some unsavory characters looking to bring in weapons.”

Protected behind a glass case, trophies and awards and faded pictures of the school from back in the day hang next to a yellowed newspaper article detailing the opening of the school. I read it for the millionth time. Persons Crossings Academy has been around in one way or another since the early 1900s. From 1913 to 1938, Persons Crossings Elementary School began as a rural school that held grades one through six. I can’t imagine what classes were like back then. A bunch of corn-fed farmer boys all in one room, smelling of sweat and cow manure, sitting around trying to stay awake after getting up at 4:00 a.m. to do their chores. They probably stared out a window daydreaming like I did when I was on the computer, except they didn’t have the internet.

They also didn’t need school. Their lives had already been scripted for them. They were going to be farmers like their daddies before them and their sons after them. They had little say in what they were going to be or what they were going to do. Their world decided that for them and expected certain things of them. Maybe that’s why the school closed down when it did.

The article goes on to describe how the school switched to being a rooming house. Then a lawn mower repair shop. Then a grocery store. Then an auction house. Soon after, it was like people discovered the northwest side of town and the area suddenly boomed again and the district decided to build a new building. So in 2003, with a forgotten history and a name based on a forgotten area of town and a forgotten railroad, Persons Crossing Public Academy opened, this time housing kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

I lean against the glass cabinet and wait for the inevitable passing teacher to tell me to stand up straight and tuck in my shirt. Like I says, students and teachers all have their roles to play. Wrapping my hand around the bent metal in my pocket, like I’m afraid I’ll lose it, I cut to the head of the parade of kids lined up outside the cafeteria waiting for the eight o’clock bell to signal us to go to class.

When the bell rings, the other kids will run down the hallway, in a hurry for no reason. Rushing is its own point, I guess, one last release of energy and chatter before they have to be quiet and sit in their seats for the next six hours. But there’s no rush for me. Only the slow walk down the long corridor few kids go down, to get to the room at the end of the hall that no kids want to enter.

There’s no guilt or shame, though. It’s my class. I am where I belong.