What I Did At School Today

This article depicts a short story based on the 2005 attempted assassination of actress and singer Christine Fletcher by a radical Islamic group in the Union of Everett.

"Come on, come on.." exclaimed Christine, who was waiting for her high school bell to ring so the students could be released from school. She was excited to get home today. Today she was heading to New York City to audition for future roles as an actress in television series. She also had to go meet the Mayor about her recent CD release. He wanted to award her for producing a special edition 9/11 album which all the proceeds went to 9/11 victims' families.

The bell rings and Christine jumps from her desk, "Bye Byes, everyone!" Her teacher responds smiling, "Good luck Christine." As Christine walks out the classroom door, one of her body guards greets her in the hallway. She is used to having armed body guards. Recently a death threat was received, written in Arabic, which warned she was going to die for insulting Islam. How did she insult Islam? She never understood. Christine walks from the school with her body guard and to the waiting motorcade in the parking lot. All the students rode on buses but Christine had her own motorcade, three black Chevrolet Suburbans. Inside were three drivers and three passenger body guards. Christine rode in the middle truck. She climbed inside the back seat and buckled up. She had to go home to change her clothes, freshen up and then had to head out for an almost two hour drive to Manhattan in New York City. The trucks pull off, one by one, and they head off down the road. After a left turn, the motorcade heads north towards the town of Montgomery, her home for sixteen years. Although rich, she still lived with her parents, in a middle class home, in a middle class neighborhood. She hoped to change that when she turned eighteen. Moving out and getting a mansion was her goal for independence from her parents. Fifteen minutes pass and she is day dreaming as she watches the houses, trees and telephone poles wiz by. A loud pop bang and she looks up and out the front windshield. A whistling is heard for only seconds and then she watches as the motorcade truck in front of her erupts in flames, an explosion and pieces fling outwards. The driver slams the brakes and jerks the wheel to the left, tires screeching and one of her body guards yelling "Oh shit!"

The truck comes to a stop. More screeching is heard and then a crashing thud. Whipping her head around, Christine watches as the truck behind her rolls over into the field to the right. Suddenly gunfire and window shattering. The front windshield is rattled with bullet holes and her guards in the front have ducked down. The driver has taken a hit to the shoulder. Christine watches as men run out from the field with a recognizable rifle, the AK47. Her driver rolls out of the driver side door and opens the driver side rear door and drags Christine out, both plopping to the ground behind the truck. The second guard in the passenger seat draws his gun and return fire erupts. The driver pops up and opens fire as well but takes a second hit to the shoulder and he drops down. Watching from under the truck, Christine sees two of the attackers fall to the ground and gunfire stops. Then she hears a man yelling in Arabic.

"Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!" She sees legs running across the field from her view under the truck. More gun shots and then a yell and then more silence. Christine gets up and looks around, seeing two dead men on the road and one in the field. Then she hears another gunshot and glass breaking. Another man in the field. She ducks down and grabs her downed body guard's gun. It's one of Christine's favorites, a Glock. She pops up to see the man right on the other side of her motorcade truck, wielding a machete. The man screams in Arabic and raises the machete and runs toward her. Christine raises the gun and fires three shots into the man's chest. He falls to his knees and then plops back. The sound of metal dropping to the ground, the machetes fall out of his hand and bullet shells hitting the hood of the truck and rolling off to the ground. Christine ducks back down, clenching the gun and sits against the truck next to her injured bodyguard. She doesn't move until the sound of sirens. And then the calming sound is heard, the whooping siren of an Orange County Sheriffs Deputy.