By
Mike
HixenbaughNBC
News
UVALDE, Texas — The teacher arrived on her doorstep Wednesday night with puffy eyes from crying and hours without sleep.
“What do you want me to tell you?” he asked a reporter.
“What can't I eat?
That all I hear is their voices screaming?
And I can't help you?"
Around 28 hours and 45 minutes had passed since an attacker opened fire inside Robb Elementary School, killing at least 19 children and two educators.
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After some thought, the teacher agreed to speak to a reporter on the condition that she not be named, in part because, she said, district administrators have asked staff not to speak to the media, but also because she is terrified.
Nothing feels safe or normal
anymore, he said.
His students were watching a Disney movie on Tuesday morning as part of their end-of-the-year celebration.
When she heard gunshots in the hallway and knew exactly what it was.
She yelled at her children to get under their desks and ran to bar the door to her classroom.
[Irma García, Annabell Rodríguez, Xavier López... Here's what we know about the 21 victims of the Texas school shooting]
The children did exactly as they were instructed, he said.
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"They've been practicing for this day for years," the teacher explained, referring to the active spiker drills that have become just as much a part of public education in the United States as math, science and reading.
“They knew this was not a drill.
We knew we had to be quiet or else we were going to give ourselves away.” As the children hid under their desks, remaining silent as their injured classmates cried across the hall, the teacher sat on the floor in the middle of the room and tried to stay calm.
She tried to make herself strong for them, she said.
What followed was "the longest 35 minutes of my life," he said.
Some students began to cry, so he motioned for them to sit next to him.
She hugged them and whispered to them to pray silently.
Without speaking, she tried to convey to the class: They're fine.
We'll be fine.
[A day after the massacre in Uvalde, Biden calls for “action” after the deaths of 19 children and two teachers]
Finally, the police approached the classroom from the outside and broke the windows.
The teacher asked her students to line up.
Quick but with order.
Just like they do every day for lunch and recess.
One by one,
the teacher took their hands and helped each of her students out of the window.
“After the last child, I turned around to make sure everyone was outside,” the teacher said.
"I knew I had to go fast, but I wouldn't leave until it was safe."
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That same afternoon she rejoined her students at another school across town and tried to comfort those who were worried about their best friends or cousins, who were in the classroom down the hall.
The ones who might not have gotten out of a window.
Later, when the unthinkable number of victims of the shooting became known, some parents texted the teacher:
“Thank you for keeping my baby safe”
.
"But it's not just her baby," she said, sobbing on her front porch.
“That's my baby too.
They are not my students.
They are my children,” she added.
[The killer was bullied as a child and became increasingly violent. This is how he perpetrated the fatal shooting]
The teacher hasn't thought about what the next school year will be like, if she even dares to come back.
First, she will have to attend funerals.
Interviews with researchers, who she said will never really explain what it is that drives someone to shoot up a class full of kids.
"I want you to say this in your article," the teacher asked before closing the mosquito net.
“Our children did not deserve this.
They were loved.
Not only for their families, but also for their family at school.”
