On most days school is just as it always was\!q — seven hours filled with reading, writing and arithmetic taught by a young Amish girl, Emma Mae Zook.

But there are times when class discussion veers from academics to the students' memories of Oct. 2.

Emma Mae lets them share their stories about the morning — one month ago today — when Charles Carl Roberts IV shattered their quiet community.

Roberts, brandishing a gun, invaded their school, ordered all the boys to leave and then tied up and shot 10 girls.

"She talks about it with us," 13-year-old Aaron Esh said, referring to his teacher. "Where people were ... we talked a lot about where our dads were at the time."

After school Wednesday, the lanky boy with a perfect bowl haircut stood on his friend's porch cradling a volleyball and wondered aloud whether he would later go hunting.

Aaron and his friends returned to the classroom, set up inside an Amish family's garage, just a week after the Oct. 2 massacre at the since-demolished West Nickel Mines School.

Amos Ebersol, a Nickel Mines school board member, said the rush to return to school was not for the sake of education.

"It was more to get them back into a routine," he said Wednesday. "They wanted to get back into it."

Ebersol's 7-year-old daughter, Naomi Rose, was the youngest to die in the shooting.

Five girls, including Naomi Rose, died. Four have returned home after lengthy hospital stays, and one remains hospitalized.

One of the wounded girls returned to school Tuesday, Aaron said.

Emma Fisher, the 9-year-old who escaped the schoolhouse before the gunman opened fire, also is back in school.

Emma Mae, whom the children simply call "teacher," also returned the week after the shooting.

"School's where she wants to be," her father, Leroy Zook, said. "It was the best healing for her. This brought her and the kids closer."

Emma Mae has been described as a heroine in the Nickel Mines tragedy. When she saw Roberts' gun, she risked her own life by running out of the school and to a nearby farm to call for help.

Police have said if officers hadn't arrived as quickly as they did, Roberts may have sexually assaulted the young girls.

It's a horror the girls' families can be relieved never occurred, Emma Mae said the day after the shooting.

Zook said his daughter loves to be inside the classroom — she's a born teacher.

Aaron said sometimes he'd rather be hunting or playing football but added he, too, is glad to be at school with his friends.

"Everyone was anxious to get back," Aaron said. "To see each other again."


Colby Itkowitz's e-mail address is citkowitz@lnpnews.com. blog comments powered by Disqus