I have made round 3 of the NYC Short Story Challenge! This is the round I got to last year, but didn’t make round 4. (There are only 5 rounds.) Upping my game this year and hopeful I can incorporate last year’s feedback.

Meanwhile, here is the story that won in round 2. TRIGGER WARNING THIS STORY IS ABOUT A SCHOOL SHOOTING. For those not familiar with this competition, 6-10K people enter annually; by round 3 you’re down to a few hundred. You’re put in divisions and given three story prompts: a genre, a character, and a plot point. Mine were mystery, crossing guard, hide and seek. Here’s the story:

Zero Over One-Hundred-Forty-Six

The shooting had stopped. Worse, the screaming had stopped. Ambulances lined up beside the playground. None were leaving.

Still in a daze, she watched the cop approach.

“Mahalia Matthews? I’m Officer Thomas. Ma’am, they’re bringing out kids who were hiding. They need familiarity. It would help if you could walk them over the crosswalk to the staging area. They’re freaked out.”

He pointed to the roped-off space where parents waited. Mahalia wasn’t sure if “freaked out” referred to the children or their parents. She could see officers restraining adults fighting to reach the school.

Instinctively, she reached for her crossing guard sign, and then gave a bitter laugh. The street was closed off at each end by police tape.

Officer Thomas shot her a sharp look. “You okay?”

“Fine. Bring ‘em. This is my job.”

The first heartbreakingly short line emerged, one hand on the shoulder of the child in front, the other covering their eyes. Mahalia took the hand of the ashen-faced young teacher leading it and walked them across the blocked-off street using the crosswalk.

Mahalia couldn’t have said how many times she repeated this action. Eventually Officer Thomas reappeared. “Ms. Matthews, you’ve given your statement?”

She had, during one of those long stretches of waiting for more children.

“You can go home now, ma’am. Thanks for your help.”

Few parents remained in the staging area. Her tired eyes could barely take in—didn’t want to see—their crumpled, sobbing forms. And then her gaze locked with Mr. Garretty, leaning on his cane, perfectly still, staring.

Oh God. Not Jeffy.

Jeffy Garretty was eight years old, autistic, verbal to the point of annoyance, and the smartest kid she’d ever met. His first day of school, he traversed the crosswalk beside her, his grandfather hobbling behind, and at the curb Jeffy said, “seventy-six.”

“Telling Grandpa’s age?” Mahalia gave an indulgent smile.

Jeffy returned a look of deep contempt. “You took seventy-six steps. I needed ninety-two because my legs are shorter. Someday I will be taller than you and take less steps.”

Jeffy’s grandfather offered an apologetic smile from beneath bushy white eyebrows. “Jeffy is—”

“I’m autistic,” Jeffy said, neither bragging nor invoking sympathy, as if stating he had blue eyes. Which he did.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Mahalia said, preparing to cross again for another group. Shifting her guard sign, she felt a small hand tap hers.

“You’re supposed to shake. With your right hand. You’ll have to put that in your left.” Jeffy spoke with condescending patience. His grandfather shot Mahalia another apologetic glance.

When school dismissed that afternoon, Jeffy crossed the street with her, reciting, “One-hundred-twenty-three, forty-eight, forty-two.”

Mahalia was ready. “To where?”

“Toilet, chalkboard, teacher’s desk.”

“From where?” Mahalia asked, but Jeffy gave a sly smile.

“Starting points are secrets.”

She loved that kid.

Now, in this terrible moment she couldn’t escape, she walked toward Mr. Garretty, but could not form words to ask.

He spoke as if she had. “Missing. Not among the dead, thank God. I’ll wait here until ….” His voice faltered.

Mahalia nodded. “They told me to go home.”

He gave a sad smile. “You must be exhausted. Dear God, what a day. Dear God, please let him be alive.”

“Amen,” said Mahalia as her phone buzzed. “My husband. He’s been checking on me every twenty minutes.”

“Good,” said Mr. Garretty. “Be safe, Ms. Matthews.”

Mahalia called her husband back. “Coming home now. … I’m fine to drive. … No, hun, stay there. It’s crazy down here. … More than thirty, last count. … I know. I can’t either. Hun, I’m at the car. … Yep, straight home. Love you, too.”

Unlocking her car door, she hesitated, and then turned toward Never-Alone Park.

She and Jeffy invented special names. He called her “Hey-Hey” because most kids greeted her in the morning with, “Hey, Mahalia.” A viciously busy road separated Never-Alone Park from the school. Jeffy was fascinated by the place. Hence the name.

The first time Mahalia saw Jeffy in what became Never-Alone Park, he was walking repeatedly around the edge of a flower bed. She raced across the busy street.

“Child, what are you doing?! You know you ain’t allowed over here by yourself!”

Jeffy’s startled glance lasted a split second before he ran.

“JEFFY! Get back here!” She gave chase but her arthritic knees had nothing to offer. Puffing, she flopped onto a bench. Came to her senses. Sang out between gasping breaths, “Hey, hey, Hey-Hey’s here.”

He halted as if pulled up by a string. Turned. Ran to her and put out his hand. She shook it.

“I thought you were angry,” Jeffy said. “Angry people scare me. My dad was always angry and now I live with Grandmother and Grandfather. They don’t get angry.”

“For future reference, Jeffy, worried yelling is different from angry yelling. You know it ain’t safe to come here by yourself. First, that’s a busy road. Second, strangers sleep rough in this park. Third, someone might …. It’s hard to explain.”

Jeffy spoke as if narrating a documentary. “Small children might not be safe alone around strangers because some grown-ups like to—”

Mahalia heaved herself up from the bench. “That’s enough. I get that you get it. Why ain’t you in school?”

Jeffy kicked a rock. “The kids are mean. They say rude things to me. They’re not even angry; they like doing it. That’s weird.”

“That’s called bullying.” Mahalia sighed. “A word I wish you never had to learn. I hate to tell you this, but it’s part of life. Bullies gonna bully. You got two choices: ignore them or take them out.”

Jeffy gave her an inquisitive look. “You mean kill them?”

Closing her eyes, Mahalia considered her next words more carefully. “No. I don’t mean kill them. I mean drown them out by living your best life.”

“They’re louder than—”

“I mean,” Mahalia said, loudly, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

Jeffy looked scornful. “Grandmother said that. So I called her ‘bitch’ to prove it wasn’t true, and she cried, and Grandfather made me do extra chores.”

Choking back laughter, Mahalia stalled for time to gather her thoughts. “Tell me some numbers.”

“Zero, ninety-two, three-hundred-seventy,” said Jeffy. “My three favorite places.”

“Okay. Jeffy, remember when we met you said someday you’d be tall?”

“I will be.”

“Yep. And then, when people are mean to you, you can try making friends with them, but if they won’t, you’ll be taller and stronger, so you can beat them up until they leave you alone. That ain’t the most popular advice parents give kids, but trust me, it saved my sons at school. Until you’re taller, until you have enough power to make them quit, you gotta ignore them.”

Next week, Mr. Garretty waited for her after dropping Jeffy off, and Mahalia figured she was about to lose her job over the advice she’d given his grandson.

Instead, Mr. Garretty said, “Thank you for helping him cope with bullying. Jeffy recognizes good people when he meets them, and he likes you. Thank you for being his friend.”

Staring at the park now, she thought, zero, ninety-two, three-hundred-seventy. Starting points are secrets. She knew ninety-two: her crosswalk. Zero could be his grandparents’ house.

Three. Hundred. Seventy.

The police would search the park. They would find him. Except, he would run away from them. They wouldn’t understand. Would they shout and make everything worse? Girl, you cannot get in the way of all those white police, she warned herself. Go home.

Then she shut the car door and walked into Never-Alone Park.

Several police officers gathered at the park’s side wall, huddling over something she couldn’t see. None looked her way. With child-sized mincing steps, Mahalia counted to three-hundred-seventy in a straight line from the main entrance and ended nose-to-trunk against a massive tree.

Softly she called, “Hey, hey, it’s Hey-Hey.”

The tree rustled.

“It’s safe, Jeffy,” she said. “Come down.”

An officer shouted, “You! Wait there!” and started toward her. Two more followed.

“Hey, hey, it’s Hey-Hey,” she sang through gritted teeth.

From the tree, a small voice said, “one-hundred-forty-six.”

“To where?” Mahalia asked, holding her arms up in surrender to the cops, who were moving faster now. Did one have his hand on his pistol?

“Nowhere. That’s how many times his gun fired,” Jeffy said. “Is he done shooting?”

“He is. The good guys are coming now.” She spoke loudly, praying the officers closing in could hear her. “Come down, Jeffy. It’s safe. The cops are here.”

“We’re not supposed to call them cops. They are police officers.” Jeffy’s sneakers appeared below the leaves. The men saw them and stopped.

Mahalia kept her voice calm. “This is Jeffy Garretty. He’s autistic. I got this.”

Jeffy lay on his stomach against a branch, looking first at her, then at the police. “It’s too scary,” he said, and started back up.

An officer sprang forward. Mahalia threw herself in front of the tree. “Do not touch him,” she hissed. “He’s been through enough. Let me talk to him.”

One of them reached for her. And shook her hand.

“Ms. Matthews, we meet again,” said Officer Thomas.

He motioned the others back to the sidewalk. “Let her talk to him. Poor kid is scared to death.”

“I am not,” came Jeffy’s voice from the tree.

Officer Thomas grinned.

“Why did he do that?” Jeffy asked, and at first Mahalia thought he meant Officer Thomas. “Was he mad at everyone at the school? “

Mahalia shook her head. “He probably didn’t even know anyone. He just went crazy.”

“People say I’m crazy,” Jeffy said.

“You ain’t.”

Jeffy’s face appeared again. “Who was he defending himself from?”

For a moment, Mahalia couldn’t speak. She wasn’t sure she could stand upright. “Sweetheart, that’s not … he wasn’t …. That man hurt people who never hurt him. He wasn’t defending himself; he was being a bully, picking on little kids to make himself feel powerful.”

“But he was a grown-up. He was already taller than us. That doesn’t make sense.”

Mahalia blinked back tears. “You got that right, son. It makes no sense at all. Some people are bullies; being mean makes them happy, and that doesn’t make sense. Then some people are, like, super-bullies. They’re mad at the whole world.”

“If they’re mad at the whole world, then they could be mean to anyone, anywhere, anytime. So nowhere is safe.”

“Smart kid,” muttered one of the men. Officer Thomas glared at him.

“Jeffy, why did you come here?” Mahalia asked. “To this tree?”

“It’s my—”

“—third favorite place.” She said it with him.

Jeffy moved to a lower branch and sat, sneakers inches above the ground. His legs swung harder with each passing second.

“Coming here made you feel safer. That’s how the world works. What’s familiar feels safe. Your second favorite is my crosswalk, because we’re friends. First is your grandparents’ house, because they love and understand you. See? We make each other feel safe when we care about each other.”

Jeffy looked at the ground. “Nobody made him feel safe?”

Mahalia swallowed a sob. “I don’t know, baby, but even if they didn’t that’s no excuse for what he did.”

“Safe is a feeling? It’s not real?”

“Sometimes feelings are all we got. That doesn’t make them not real. Right now, your grandparents want you home so you can feel safe together. Can you do that for them?”

“But we won’t really be safe, not even at zero. It’s like lying.”

“Remember how we talked about not saying something, even if it’s true, because it would make the other person feel bad? This is kinda like that. Your grandparents will keep you as safe as anyone can in this life, because they love you.”

Jeffy cocked his head. Mahalia held her breath. Then he jumped from the branch and held out his hand. Mahalia shook it. The officers moved aside as they walked toward the park entrance, Jeffy counting, “three-hundred-sixty-nine, three-hundred-sixty-eight ….