I was always the big, tall kid in all my classes, so my class and I would always make remarks about how if we ever had an intruder I would be the one to “take him down”, or “stop him.” We were in third grade, I was never going to take down a grown man, so I never thought about it.. About 5 months into the school year, I hadn’t thought about a lock down or anything in that category. One sunless Thursday, I was sitting in Mrs. Garcia's math class confused trying to figure out decimals. Out of the blue, the loud speaker pops and turns on, we continue to hear the assistant principal yell something like, “This is not a drill, all classrooms are to enter lock down, I repeat this is not a drill.” When I heard, “this is not a drill”, I tried to stay calm as my heart started racing out of my chest.

      Lock downs were always a big fear I had locked in me whenever I was at school. I always wondered, what am I going to do if a threat comes into my classroom or even the halls? I always hated the dark so whenever we did lock down practices, I would tense up as me and a few of my third grade classmates were scrunched up in a corner confused and afraid wondering if this was a drill or real life.

      Everyone springed out of their seats and started barricading the door with the lightweight plastic chairs in the classroom, and heavy wood desks. When we finished stacking anything we could find on the door, we bolted to go hide under our teacher's metal cold desk. It was a pretty big desk that was able to fit a bunch of fifth graders. The desk was cold to the touch making my panic feel worse. As it was completely still and quiet, I could hear footsteps coming down the hallway closer to our classroom door. I wasn’t sure if that was school staff, police, the intruder? All these thoughts running through my head I hadn’t even noticed we have been sitting under this table for almost an hour. My legs ached and I was empty. The teacher slowly tip-toes towards us from the side of the desk and whispers, “We won’t be here for a lot longer, hang on tight and stay calm.” I didn’t really like Mrs. Garcia because of how she taught, but at this moment there was nothing I could do but trust her. 

      Another 30 minutes by and as we are feeling hopeless like we are going to stay here forever, we hear the loud speaker pop and hear the voice of the assistant principal saying the lock down has been lifted and we could unlock our doors and go home. As I got home at around 5:30, my dad told me that we had a lock down because a kid thought it would be hilarious to bring a BB gun to school. I think that's pretty stupid, because what was he gonna do, shoot the teacher with a fake gun? I heard that that student later got expelled because that wasn’t the first time he had caused mayhem and trouble in our school. The following day, Friday, we were given the day off to pick ourselves back up and try to forget what happened. To this day, I am still a bit uneasy whenever we have a lock down drill.