There's this tape I heard the other day that I can't get out of my head.

It's a little girl. Her name's Leah. She's in kindergarten. She's describing her classroom.

There's a window in the closet. And I was out of the window with pigeons. They were, like, hanging off of the tree.

Leah's talking about this moment when everyday things around her changed.

When the world went from straightforward and understandable to ominous,

like those birds she saw at the window.

They looked a little goldish and a little gobliny.

And we were afraid at first.

Then we picked out the window and saw that it was just pigeons.

Shadows.

Leah was feeling jumpy like this because she was hiding in that closet from a stranger.

I got a feeling stuck on my head. I was thinking if we were going to be okay because the

stranger was literally just outside the door of our classroom and it was actually just our

principal dressed in stranger clothes.

I saw her wearing, like, a boy wig with her hair on the bun,

and I thought it was kind of scary because I didn't know who her true self was.

Leah's school was in the middle of an active shooter drill. I am in kindergarten. First grade. Second grade. Six grade. Eighth grade. Ninth grade. I'm in the 10th grade. I'm in 12th grade. And I live in San Diego, California. I'm a touch in New Jersey. In Louisville, Kentucky. Baltimore City.

L.A. County. South Orange, New Jersey. I live in Seattle, Washington.

This is a cold red lockdown drill. Please stay wherever you are. I repeat, this is a cold red lockdown drill.

Slate and the gun reporting project, The Trace, spoke to nearly two dozen kids like Leah over the last few weeks and months.

We've been trying to puzzle out how these drills are impacting students.

And then I hear like footstops outside.

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