Sarah Pasterne

Sarah Pasterne is one of the twenty-four students held hostage by Charles Decker in Room 16 of Placerville High School on the morning of the crisis. Though she speaks only a handful of lines, her behavior across the three-hour standoff traces a revealing arc from nervous, inappropriate laughter through boredom to active participation in the group's final, violent act against Ted Jones. She functions as a barometer of the room's shifting emotional temperature, demonstrating how quickly ordinary adolescents can shed their accustomed restraints when the usual structures of authority collapse.

Nervous Laughter and Early Reactions

Sarah's first notable response comes immediately after Decker shoots Mr. Vance through the door. As Irma Bates lets out a second high, gobbling scream, Sarah Pasterne giggles hysterically and claps her hand over her mouth. The giggle is a release of tension that no one else in the room picks up on—it is isolated, almost shameful, as if she herself is surprised by the sound. Later, when Principal Denver, speaking over the intercom, asks Ted Jones to confirm the situation and Ted reports that Decker has killed Mrs. Underwood and probably Mr. Vance, Sarah giggles again. This second outburst, coming at a moment of grim official confirmation, marks her as one of the students whose emotional regulation is most fragile under the strain. Her laughter is not cruelty but a reflexive response to the unbearable, a crack in the composure that most of her classmates maintain.

Yawning and the Drift Toward Disengagement

As the morning wears on and the initial shock subsides into a long, static wait, Sarah's attention wanders. When Decker begins to tell the story of his failed sexual encounter with Dana Collette at Schoodic Point, Sarah Pasterne yawns. The yawn is a small but significant act: it signals that the narrative of Decker's personal trauma, which holds the rest of the room in taut, hypnotic attention, fails to engage her. She is bored, and her boredom is a form of resistance to the emotional intensity Decker is trying to impose. Decker notices the yawn and feels a sudden, excruciating urge to blow her head off—a flash of murderous irritation that he suppresses. The moment reveals how thin the membrane of Decker's control has become, and how a single yawn from a minor figure can nearly tip him into further violence.

Joining the Collective Attack on Ted Jones

In the final phase of the crisis, when Decker turns the class's focus onto Ted Jones as the last piece of unfinished business, Sarah Pasterne sheds her passivity. As the students begin to surround Ted, she speaks up with an accusation: "He cheats," she says loudly. "He always looks at my answer sheet in French. Always." This is the only substantive statement she makes in the entire novel, and it is a petty, specific grievance—a classroom cheating complaint that suddenly carries lethal weight in the charged atmosphere of the room. The accusation is not about the hostage crisis or Decker's violence; it is a small, personal score settled in the chaos. Later, as the group closes in on Ted, Sarah is among those who participate in the physical and psychological assault. When the attack is over and the shades are pulled up, she files out with the others, her hands streaked with black ink from the Carter's ink that Corky Herald dumped in Ted's hair. She is one of the last to be swallowed up by the crowd of police and reporters on the lawn, indistinguishable from her classmates in the aftermath.

Narrative Role and Significance

Sarah Pasterne is a minor character whose sparse appearances nonetheless trace the full trajectory of the hostage crisis from the perspective of an ordinary student. Her nervous giggles, her yawn, and her single accusation against Ted Jones map the progression from shock to disengagement to active complicity. She is not a leader or a rebel; she is a follower who, when the social order dissolves, drifts with the current. Her participation in the attack on Ted, motivated by a trivial classroom grudge, underscores how the breakdown of authority can unleash petty resentments that would normally remain suppressed. In the end, she is one of the many who walk out of Room 16 changed, their hands marked with ink—a physical trace of the violence they have both witnessed and committed.