Teddy

Teddy is remembered as a practical, decisive presence during the Bradley shooting, helping TifAni FaNelli escape the cafeteria and urging the trapped students to keep moving. In her account, his actions turn a series of urgent decisions—where to hide, whether to wait, and which way to go—into attempts at collective escape. He is shot after recommending an upper route through the school, but the recollection does not establish what happens to him afterward.

Identity and Introduction

The account provides little information about Teddy beyond his place among the students caught in the attack. He enters TifAni’s memory through action: she is on the cafeteria floor, struggling with her already impaired wrist, when he takes hold of it and pulls her to her feet. She follows him back the way she came, through the entrance into the older part of the cafeteria. The immediate importance of Teddy is therefore practical and specific: he gets her moving when smoke and confusion have left her on the ground.

The timing and route give this first act its concrete setting. The deli line for the first lunch shift began at 11:51 A.M.; instead of leaving by the way the students normally entered, Teddy and TifAni retreat through the entrance to the old cafeteria. When the smoke-filled space blocks their usual exit, they turn together and climb toward the Brenner Baulkin Room. TifAni had been there only once before, to take her entrance exam. The familiar school has become a sequence of unfamiliar choices, and Teddy is the companion who first helps her change direction.

Decisions Under Pressure

In the Brenner Baulkin Room, Teddy is among the students sheltering beneath the oak table where Headmaster Mah hosted dinners for major donors. The people gathered there cross the school’s social and age divisions: The Shark, Peyton, Liam, Ansilee, and Teddy are brought together by immediate danger. The room offers temporary concealment, not safety. Smoke begins to enter, and the group has to decide whether to remain hidden or try to get out.

The disagreement makes Teddy’s priorities visible through what he does, rather than through any account of his private thoughts. Liam wants to stay and wait for police, reasoning that help must be coming; Teddy argues that the fire is moving too fast and wants to leave. They test a possible compromise by attempting to open a high window. Teddy stands on a chair and pushes at it, but cannot get it open, despite being described as the strongest person left in the room. The failed attempt closes off one possible escape and leaves the group to reconsider its options.

As flames climb toward the room and the students continue waiting, Teddy returns to the need to move. He looks at Peyton, then looks away, and apologizes to the others before insisting that they have to go. TifAni is reluctant to leave while Peyton is still alive. That exchange shows the human cost of the group’s decision: escape means leaving someone behind, while staying risks trapping everyone. Teddy’s apology acknowledges the weight of that choice, but the account does not say that he can resolve it for the group. His position remains that delay has become more dangerous than leaving.

The Route and the Gunfire

The Shark asks whether they should go up or down. Teddy recommends going up, reasoning that the gunman would not have gone in that direction. The route is not arbitrary: the old boarding rooms connect to another stairwell, which would lead down to the Mathematics wing, where there is an exit. Liam agrees with Teddy, and Teddy smiles as they begin to follow the plan. His suggestion briefly turns uncertainty into a shared course of action.

That moment is interrupted when a bullet strikes Teddy in the collarbone. TifAni’s account links the shot to the direction they had chosen: she knows the bullet came from above and runs down the stairs instead. The plan that had united the group therefore breaks apart almost as soon as it begins. TifAni describes descending with The Shark and Liam while bullets strike the railing; the recollection follows her flight rather than returning to Teddy’s condition.

Narrative Role and Outcome

Teddy’s role in this sequence is defined by repeated acts of movement: pulling TifAni up, leading her out of the cafeteria, trying the window, pressing the group to leave, and selecting a route through the school. These are not presented as proof that he knows how to reach safety. The window will not open, and his confident recommendation to go up is followed by gunfire from that direction. The contrast gives his decisions their force without making them a guarantee of escape.

The remembered scene also changes the meaning of ordinary school spaces. The cafeteria entrance, a donor dining room, a chair beneath a high window, and the stairwell to the Mathematics wing become parts of a dangerous route through the building. Teddy’s presence helps connect these locations into a sequence of choices made under pressure. When TifAni’s memory moves on to her own descent, his immediate fate remains unresolved in this passage. What it records clearly is the work he undertakes before that break: trying to get the group out, even when neither waiting nor moving offers certainty.