He also used his Web site to enjoy a certain notoriety in his lifetime. He loved the irony of his online world, where all the other kids were posing but his fantasy was real.

One contradiction to Eric's control fetish is apparent in his willingness to entrust power to Dylan. The yearbook exchange represented a huge leap of faith for each of them. They had been talking about murder for months now, and corresponding catchphrases in both journals suggest they had been riffing on these ideas regularly. Eric had gone semipublic with his threats already, posting them on his Web site, but no one seemed to notice or take it seriously. This time, he scrawled out incriminating evidence of his plot in his own handwriting and turned it over to Dylan.

They hinted about plans in a few friends' yearbooks, but it all sounded like jokes. Dylan said he would like to kill Puff Daddy or Hanson, while Eric went with irony: don't follow your dreams, follow your animal instincts--"if it moves kill it, if it doesn't, burn it. kein mitleid!!!" Kein mitleid Kein mitleid is German for "no mercy," and a common shorthand for his favorite band, KMFDM. This was just the kind of move that delighted Eric: warn the world, in writing, to show us how stupid we all are. is German for "no mercy," and a common shorthand for his favorite band, KMFDM. This was just the kind of move that delighted Eric: warn the world, in writing, to show us how stupid we all are.

In each other's books, they took a real gamble, particularly Dylan. He wrote page after page of specific murder plans. They were at each other's mercy now. Exposure of the yearbooks could end their participation in Diversion and bring them back on felony charges. For the final year, each boy knew his buddy could get him imprisoned at any time, though they would both go down together. Mutually assured destruction.

Dr. Fuselier considered the yearbook passages. Both boys fantasized about murder, but Dylan focused on the single attack. Eric had a grander vision. All his writing alluded to a wider slaughter: killing everything, destroying the human race. In a passionate journal entry a month later, he would cite the Nazis' Final Solution: "kill them all. well in case you haven't figured it out yet, I say 'KILL MANKIND.'"

It's unclear whether Eric and Dylan were aware of the discrepancy--neither one addressed it in writing. It's hard to imagine that Eric failed to notice Dylan's focus on a more limited attack. Was he including Dylan in the full dream? Perhaps Dylan just didn't find it plausible. Blowing up the high school, that could actually happen--killing mankind... maybe that just sounded like science fiction to Dylan.

Despite the press's obsession with bullying and misfits, that's not how the boys presented themselves. Dylan laughed about picking on the new freshmen and "fags." Neither one complained about bullies picking on them--they boasted about doing it themselves.

The boys changed dramatically after they began Diversion--in reverse directions, once again. Eric launched a new charm offensive. Andrea Sanchez became the second most important person in his life. Snowing her was the best way to appease the first, his dad. It also kept the program from diverting Eric from his goal. Eric had a plan now. He was on a mission and he was revved. His grades dropped briefly after the arrest, but they rebounded to his best ever once he had his attack plan. It was a lot of work, which he complained bitterly about in his journal; but he worked his ass off to excel.

Dylan didn't even try to impress Andrea. He missed appointments, fell behind in community service, and let his grades plummet. He was actually getting two D's.

NBK was nothing but a diversion to Dylan--fantasy chats with his buddy about what they would like to do. Dylan didn't believe it; he didn't plan to go through with it. All he knew was that he was a felon now. His miserable life had grown pathetically worse.

Eric was the star performer in the program, at work and at school. He even earned a raise, and when school let out for his last summer, he got a second job at Tortilla Wraps, where his buddy Nate Dykeman worked. Eric started putting away more money to build his arsenal. His cover story was that he was saving up for a new computer. He worked both jobs, in addition to the forty-five hours of community service the judge had ordered for the summer. That was boring, menial crap, like sweeping and picking up trash at a rec center. He despised it but pasted on a smile. It was all for a good cause.

Dylan did not appear to contribute much to the attack, financially or otherwise. He quit Blackjack and didn't bother with a regular job over the summer; he just did some yard work for a neighbor.

Eric kept both his employers and the rec supervisors satisfied. "He was a real nice kid," his Tortilla boss said. "He would come in every day with nice T-shirts, khaki shorts, sandals. He was kind of quiet but everyone got along with him." Nate liked to wear his trench coat to work, but Eric didn't feel that was professional.

The boys were required to write apology letters to the van owner. Eric's exuded contrition. He acknowledged he was writing partly because he'd been ordered to "but mostly because I strongly feel that I owe you an apology." Eric said he was sorry repeatedly, and outlined his legal and parental punishments so the victim would understand that he was paying a price for his actions.

Eric knew exactly what empathy looked like. His most convincing moment in the letter came when he put himself in the owner's position. If his car had been robbed, he said, the sense of invasion would have haunted him. It would have been hard for him to drive it again. Every time he got in the car, he would have pictured someone rummaging through it. God, he felt violated just imagining it. He was so disappointed in himself. "I realized very soon afterwards what I had done and how utterly stupid it was," Eric wrote. "I let the stupid side of me take over."

"But he wrote that strictly for effect," Fuselier said. "That was complete manipulation. At almost the exact same time, he wrote down his real feelings in his journal: 'Isnt America supposed to be the land of the free? how come if im free, I cant deprive a stupid fucking dumbshit from his possessions. If he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his fucking van out in plain sight and in the middle of fucking nowhere on a Frifucking day night. NATURAL SELECTION. fucker should be shot.'"

Eric betrayed no signs of contempt to Andrea Sanchez. In her notes, she remarked on Eric's deep remorse.

Few angry boys can hide their feelings or sling the bullshit so convincingly. Habitual liars hate sucking up like that. Not psychopaths. That was the best part of the performance: Eric's joy came from watching Andrea and the van owner and Wayne Harris and everyone who caught sight of the letter fall for his ridiculous con.

Eric never complained about those lies. He bragged about them.

Eric could be a procrastinator--a common affliction among psychopaths--and Andrea suggested he work on time management. So Eric bought a Rebel Pride day planner, filled a week in, and brought it to his biweekly counseling session to show off. He gushed about what a great idea it was. It was really helping, he said. Andrea was impressed. She praised him for it in his file. Then he quit. He used the book to vent his real feelings. It had come packed with motivational slogans and tips for better living. Eric went through hundreds of pages rewriting selected words and phrases: "A person's mind is always splattered.... splattered.... Cut old Cut old people people and other and other losers losers into rags.... Ninth graders are required to into rags.... Ninth graders are required to burn and die. burn and die." He altered the Denver entry on a population chart to show forty-seven inhabitants once he was through.

Andrea Sanchez was delighted with Eric. She worked with the boys directly for a few months and then transitioned them over to a new counselor. In Eric's file, Andrea ended her last entry with "Muy facile hombre"--very easy man.

Dylan got no affectionate sign-off. And why wouldn't Andrea Sanchez like Eric more? Everyone did. He was funny and clever, and that smile, man--he knew just when to flash it, too; just how long to hang back, tease you with it, make you work for it, and then lay it on.

Dylan was a gloom factory. The misery was self-fulfilling: who wanted to hang around under that cloud all day?

Inside, he was a dynamo of wild energy, hurtling in eight directions at once, jamming music in his head, thinking clever thoughts, bursting with joy and sadness and regret and hope and excitement... but he was scared to show it. Dylan kept it behind a veneer--you could see him silently simmering sometimes, but he mostly came across as sheepish and embarrassed. Anger was the one thing that would boil over sometimes. The loving part, that stuff could be singing inside from the highest mountain, only he wasn't about to let it show. The anger would just erupt. That would freak people out. You never would have expected it out of that kid.

Eric complained about his medication. Before he transitioned from Andrea Sanchez, he told her the Zoloft wasn't doing enough. He felt restless and couldn't concentrate. Dr. Albert switched him to Luvox. The change required two weeks unmedicated, to metabolize the Zoloft out of his system. Eric told Andrea he was worried about going without. He told a different story in his journal. Dr. Albert wanted to medicate him to eradicate bad thoughts and quell his anger, he wrote. That That was craziness. He would not accept the human assembly line. "NO, NO NO God Fucking damit NO!" he wrote. "I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts. but before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit." was craziness. He would not accept the human assembly line. "NO, NO NO God Fucking damit NO!" he wrote. "I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts. but before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit."

It's not clear exactly what Eric was up to with Dr. Albert. He might have actually complained about the Zoloft because it was too too effective. Every patient reacts differently. The maneuver definitely solidified the facade of Eric working to control his anger. effective. Every patient reacts differently. The maneuver definitely solidified the facade of Eric working to control his anger.

"I would be very surprised if Eric was being honest and straightforward with his doctor," Fuselier said. "Psychopaths attempt to, and often succeed, in manipulating mental health professionals, too."

Wayne Harris was the hardest person for Eric to fool. He had seen Eric's boy scout act. It never lasted. Wayne made one undated entry in his journal sometime after the orientation meeting for Diversion in April. He was frustrated. He listed bulleted points for a lecture for Eric: * Unwilling to control sleep habits. * Unwilling to control sleep habits.* Unwilling to control study habits.* Unmotivated to succeed in school.* We can deal with 1 and 2: TV, phone, computer, lights out, job, social.* You must deal with 3.* Prove to us your desire to succeed by succeeding, showing good judgment, giving extra effort, pursuing interests, seeking help, advice.

He put Eric on restriction again: a 10:00 P.M. P.M. curfew except for studying, no phone during study time, and possibly another four weeks away from his computer. curfew except for studying, no phone during study time, and possibly another four weeks away from his computer.

The crackdown was the last entry Wayne Harris would record--and nearly the last words the public would get from him. The search warrant exercised on his home a year later was specific to Eric's writings. Nothing else from Wayne or Kathy or Eric's brother was confiscated. In the ten years since the attack, they have issued a few brief statements through attorneys, met with police briefly, and with parents of the victims once. They have never spoken to the press. The outlines of Eric's relationship to his father came through in their journals, and from testimony of outsiders. Kathy Harris is murkier, and a full picture of the family dynamic remains elusive.

With Eric, Dylan paid lip service to NBK. Privately, he was juggling two options: suicide or true love. He wrote Harriet a love letter, confessing all. "You don't consciously know who I am," he started, bluntly. "I, who write this, love you beyond infinince." He thought about her all the time, he said. "Fate put me in need of you, yet this earth blocked that with uncertainties." He was actually a lot like her: pensive, quiet, an observer. Like him, she seemed uninterested in the physical world. Life, school, it was all meaningless--how wonderful that she understood. Dylan caught a glimpse of sadness in her: she was lonely, just like him.

He wondered if she had a boyfriend. Odd that he'd never checked that out. He hardly saw her anymore. He realized this might be a bit much: "I know what you're thinking: '(some psycho wrote me this harassing letter.)'" But he had to take the chance. He was sure she had noticed him a few times--none of her gazes had gone unnoticed. Dylan confessed his scariest intentions--just like Zack, who had found a soul mate in whom to confide his suicidal desires. At first Dylan was a little coy: "I will go away soon... please don't feel any guilt about my soon-to-be 'absence' of this world." Finally he conceded that she would hate him if she knew the whole truth, but he confessed it anyway: "I am a criminal, I have done things that almost nobody would even think about condoning." He had been caught for most of his crimes, he said, and wanted a new existence. He was confident she knew what he meant. "Suicide? I have nothing to live for, & I won't be able to survive in this world after this legal conviction." But if she loved him as strongly as he loved her, he would find a way to survive.

If she thought he was crazy, please don't tell anyone, he pleaded. Please accept his apologies. But if she felt something for him, too, she should leave a note in his locker--No. 837, near the library.

He signed his name. He did not deliver it. Did he ever intend to? Or was it just for him?

Eric, meanwhile, was upset. He lashed out at Brooks Brown by e-mail. "I know you're an enemy of Eric's," it said. "I know where you live and what cars you drive."

Psychopaths do not attempt to fool everyone. They save their performances for people with power over them or with something they need. If you saw the ugly side of Eric Harris, you meant nothing to him.

Brooks told his mom; Judy called the cops. A deputy wrote up yet another suspicious incident report and added it to the ongoing investigation of Eric. It said the Browns were worried. They'd requested an extra patrol for the night.

The threesome was over. Zack was not included in NBK, and Eric froze him out completely. Eric went cold on him that summer, Zack said--he never figured out why. Open hostilities erupted that fall. Dylan kept clear of it. He stayed close to Zack, away from Eric, chatting away by phone every night.

Randy Brown called the cops again. Somebody had tagged his garage with a paintball gun. He was sure it was that same old little criminal, Eric Harris. A deputy interviewed Randy and wrote up a report. "No suspects--no leads," he wrote.

"Eric is doing well," his new counselor, Bob Kriegshauser, wrote in Eric's file at that time. Eric was exceeding expectations and covering his mistakes. He got into a bit of a procrastination jam on his last four hours of community service. He waited until the last day, and he wasn't going to get to complete his full forty-five hours. So he sweet-talked the stranger in charge at the rec center that day, who was impressed enough to lie for him. As far as Bob Kriegshauser knew, Eric completed his service on time. Eric used the work for brownie points with a teacher that fall. He boasted about the summer he'd dedicated to the community.

The boys continued diverging philosophically: Eric held mastery over man and nature; Dylan was a slave to fate. And Dylan had a big surprise. He had no intention of inflicting Eric's massacre. He enjoyed the banter, but privately said good-bye. He expected his August 10 entry to be his last. Dylan was planning to kill himself long before NBK.

Senior year started for the killers. Eric and Dylan began a video production class. That was fun. They got to make movies. The fictional vignettes were mostly variations on a formula: aloof tough guys protecting misfits from hulking jocks. Eric and Dylan outwitted the bullies, but saved the real contempt for their clients. They bled the losers financially, then killed them just because they could. The victims deserved it; they were inferior. The story lines spilled right out of Eric's journal.

What an opportunity. Eric was guiding his unsteady partner: fantasy to reality, one step at a time. Dylan ate it up. He came alive on camera. His eyes bulged. You could sense true rage smoldering beneath his skin. The boys had riffed on NBK for months, but now they were acting out bits on film. They were celluloid heroes, screening their exploits for classmates and adults. Eric loved that. Hilarious to reveal his plans that way. He was right in the open, and they still couldn't guess. And he had Dylan out there with him.

Eric was gobbling up literature: Macbeth, King Lear, Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Macbeth, King Lear, Tess of the d'Urbervilles. He could never get enough Nietzsche or Hobbes. Once a week, he wrote a short essay for English class on one of the stories or sometimes on a random topic. These essays reached Dr. Fuselier weeks after the murders. He found them revealing, particularly for what they omitted. He could never get enough Nietzsche or Hobbes. Once a week, he wrote a short essay for English class on one of the stories or sometimes on a random topic. These essays reached Dr. Fuselier weeks after the murders. He found them revealing, particularly for what they omitted.

In September, Eric titled one of his short essays, "Is Murder or Breaking the Law Ever Justified?" Yes, he responded--in extreme situations. He described holding pets and humans hostage, threatening to blow up busloads of people. The irony of masking grisly murder fantasies in moralistic essays amused him. A police sniper could save many by killing one, Eric argued. The law must bend. Eric made the same case in his journal but took it a step further: moral imperatives are situational, absolutes are imaginary; therefore, he could kill anyone he wanted.

It's revealing that Eric took on a provocative issue and gauged exactly how far he could run with it. Fuselier saw no moral confusion, clearly no mental illness--Eric demonstrated his sanity by his ability to navigate such tricky terrain. He got the satisfaction of warning us in yet another way without giving himself away.

Dylan expected to be dead soon. What was the point of school? He had a light schedule and was still pulling two D's. He was sleeping in class. He missed the first calculus test and didn't bother making it up. Those grades are not acceptable, Bob Kriegshauser, his Diversion officer, said. He could get them up ASAP or do his homework at the Diversion office every afternoon. Kriegshauser was thrilled with Eric's progress. Eric was working on a speech about foreign music and memorizing "Der Erlkyoethe's darkly operatic poem. He'd taken a road trip to Boulder to catch a University of Colorado football game. He was making a batch of doughnuts for Octoberfest, and soaking up everything he could find on the Nazis. He pored through books such as The Nazi Party,Secrets of the SS, The Nazi Party,Secrets of the SS, and and The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism. The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism. He cited a dozen scholarly books for his paper "The Nazi Culture." It was a strong piece of work: vivid, comprehensive, and detailed. He cited a dozen scholarly books for his paper "The Nazi Culture." It was a strong piece of work: vivid, comprehensive, and detailed.

The paper let Eric indulge in depravity right in the open. It began by asking the reader to imagine a stadium packed with murdered men, women, and children--not just filling the seats but piled high into the air above it. That would still represent just a fraction of the people exterminated by the Nazis, he said. Six million Jews they did away with, and five million others besides. Eleven million--now, there was a body count. Eric fantasized about topping it.

He described Nazi officers lining up prisoners and firing into the first man to see how many rib cages the bullet would penetrate. "Wow," his teacher responded in the margin. "This is scary.... Incredible."

Eric photocopied a passage from Heinrich Himmler's infamous speech to SS group leaders and kept it in his room. "Whether or not 10,000 Russian women collapse from exhaustion while digging a tank ditch interests me only in so far as the tank ditch is completed for Germany," Himmler said. "[Germans] will also adopt a decent attitude to these human animals, but it is a crime against our own blood to worry about them and to bring them ideals." Here was someone who got it! The Nazis used human animals for labor; Eric only needed his to explode. Five or six hundred dismemberments ought to be enough for one awesome afternoon of TV.

Eric was feeling rambunctious. He started wearing T-shirts with German phrases, he littered his papers with swastikas, and he yelled "Sieg Heil" when he landed a strike at Rock'n' Bowl. For Eric's buddy Chris Morris, all the damn Nazi shit was wearing a little thin. Eric was quoting Hitler, spouting off about concentration camps... enough.

In October, Eric faced a setback. A speeding ticket. His parents were strict, and it cost him: they made him pay the fine, attend Defensive Driving, cover any increase in insurance premiums; plus, he was grounded for three weeks.

All the open Nazi lust was beginning to paint Eric into a corner. Four days after turning his paper in, Eric confided to his journal that he was showing too much. "I might need to put on one helluva mask here to fool you all some more," he wrote. "fuck fuck fuck. it'll be hard to hold out until April."

He tried a new tactic: recast what he had already revealed. He wrote a deeply personal essay for government class and turned it in to Mr. Tonelli--they called him T-dog. Eric admitted he was a felon. He had faced the horror of the police station as a criminal. But he was a changed man. He'd spent four hours in custody, and it had been a nightmare. When they put him in a prison-style bathroom, he had broken down. "I cried, I hurt, and I felt like hell," he wrote.

He was still trying to earn back the respect of his parents, he said. That was the biggest blow. Thank God he and Dylan never drank or did any drugs. In the closing lines, he made a classic psychopathic move: "Personally, I think that whole entire night was enough punishment for me," he wrote, explaining that it forced him to face a whole new world of experiences. "So all in all," he concluded, "I guess it was a worth while punishment after all."

T-dog fell for every move. What chance did he have against a clever young psychopath? Few teachers even know the meaning of the term. Tonelli typed up a response to Eric: "Wow what a way to learn a lesson. I agree that night was enough punishment for you. Still, I am proud of you and the way you have reacted.... You have really learned from this and it has changed the way you think.... I would trust you in a heartbeat. Thanks for letting me read this and for being in my class."

Fuselier compared the dates of the public and private confessions: just two days between them. It was remarkable how often Eric addressed the same ideas in both venues, and how craftily he obscured his true intent.

Months after the attack, following a briefing on the killers, Tonelli went to see Fuselier.

"I have to talk to you," he said. Fuselier sat down with him. Tonelli was racked with guilt. "What did I miss here?" he asked.

Nothing, Fuselier said. Eric was convincing. He told you exactly what you wanted to hear. He didn't play innocent; he confessed to guilt and pleaded for forgiveness. Civilians always believe a good psychopath.

Eric bragged about his performances again in his journal, and then took a turn: "goddammit I would have been a fucking great marine, It would have given me a reason to be good." That was unusual for Eric. He usually reveled in his "bad" choice, but just for a moment there he toyed with the other road: "and I would never drink and drive, either," he added. "It will be weird when we actually go on the rampage."

Dr. Fuselier read the passage with only mild surprise. Even extreme psychopaths show flickers of empathy now and then. Eric was extreme but not absolute. This was the closest he would come to betraying reservations, and it was a logical pass. The plan was becoming real now. Eric finally had the means to kill. He felt the power; he had to make a decision--keep it fantasy or make it real?

Eric's reflection lasted two lines. The sentences run together as if he was writing rapidly, and the next one envisioned a massive attack. A jumbo ammo cartridge would be great: "just think, 100 rounds without reloading, hell yeah!"

43. Who Owns the Tragedy

There is a house, outside of Laramie. It's a rugged Wyoming town on the fringe of the Rockies. That's where Dave and Linda Sanders were going to retire. A quiet college town, Laramie may appear desolate to most eyes, but it teems with youthful energy and is the intellectual capital of the state. Dave's Ford Escort could get them there in under three hours, and they made several trips a year.

They were closing in on it now--two years away, maybe three. They were looking forward to it. They called it retirement, but it was a work addict's version: off with one career, on to the next. Dave would move up to a college position; Linda had her eye on an antiques store. After twenty-five years at Columbine, Dave had qualified for his teaching pension. It was just a matter of an opening. University of Wyoming was a good bet: he had been scouting for them for years and coaching the summer camp, and was great friends with the head basketball coach.

They would watch their retirement home glide by from the highway every time they approached town. It was a gray ranch house with a wide porch running all the way around. They would add rocking chairs, and a porch swing for the grandkids.

Linda Sanders thought about that house in Laramie a lot after Dave died. She thought about how different her struggle was from all the other victims. All the attention was on the students and their parents.

Kathy Ireland had wanted to save her boy. Now she wanted to get her hands on the kids who did this to him. She looked into Patrick's eyes. Serene. Like hers, before this horror struck. Kathy had breathed tranquillity into her family, but it took all of her effort to stay calm around Patrick.

Kathy stood by Patrick's bed and asked if he understood who'd done this to him.

It didn't matter, he said. They were confused. Just forgive them. Please forgive them.

"It took my breath away," Kathy said later. At first she assumed Patrick was confused. He was not. He had too much work to do. He was going to walk again, and talk again, like a normal person. And he insisted he would still be valedictorian. Anger would eat him up inside. He couldn't afford that.

OK, Kathy said. She had been praying incessantly that Patrick would come through this with a sense of happiness--that in time he would find a way to let it go. This, she had not expected. She feared that it was more than she could do, but she would try to forgive, too. It would take her years to let go, and she never shook the anger completely, but she kept looking to Patrick leading the way.

Patrick Ireland was struggling. His days at Craig Hospital that first summer were exhausting. Speech therapy, muscle therapy, testing, prodding, poking, and the endless efforts just to communicate. Retrieving the right word often eluded him. At night Patrick would lie quietly in his room, winding down before settling off to sleep. John or Kathy would stay with him. They took turns each night; one of them would sleep on a fold-out chair beside his bed. Just in case.

They would turn the lights off around eleven or twelve and just sit there in the dark with him, quietly at first; then he would begin to ask questions. He needed to know everything. What exactly happened in the library? How did he respond? What was going to happen now? Patrick wanted to know about the other victims, too, and the killers sometimes--what could make them do something like that?

"There were certainly times that I was mad," Patrick said later. "But I think a lot of those were more for realizations of what was taken from me, rather than actually what transpired. My life was going be completely changed." Patrick tried not to stay angry on the basketball court. Make a mistake, brush it off. "Keep your eye on the ball," he could hear his dad say. Patrick focused on the present.

His speech was returning slowly. Short-term memory was a struggle. There were exercises for everything. A therapist would recite a list of twenty things, and he'd have to repeat them in the same order. It was hard.

Patrick shed his anger toward the killers early, but his condition could be infuriating. Outbursts are typical with head wounds. Anger and frustration commonly last several months. The blue period, they call it. His therapists were tracking that as well. When Patrick shook his fist at them, they would note it in his chart.

Patrick stayed at Craig Hospital for nine and a half weeks. He walked out on July 2, using a forearm crutch to support himself. He wore a plastic brace on his right leg. His doctors sent him home with a wheelchair for when he needed to cover long distances. A banner signed by friends welcomed him back.

The summer went quickly. Patrick wasn't ready for school to start. He was overbooked already: occupational, physical, and speech therapy, and neuropsychology. They were exhausting days. But he was walking more steadily. His speech was pretty intelligible, and the extended pauses while he searched for words grew briefer. A sentence might be interrupted only once now, or sometimes not at all. The blue period passed.

As he continued working, Patrick thought more about the lake. He knew he couldn't get on the water. He could hear the buzz of the boat, smell the water lapping the pier. Eventually, Patrick convinced his father to take him out to watch his sister make some practice runs. He loved waterskiing. John started the boat. As the engine sputtered, Patrick smelled the fumes, closed his eyes, and he was out there riding the surface again. He sat on the dock reliving it all. Then he began to cry. He shook violently. He swore. John rushed over to comfort him. He was inconsolable. He wasn't angry at his parents or himself or Eric or Dylan--he was just angry. He wanted his life back. He was never going to get it. John assured him they would get through this. Then he held on to Patrick and let him cry.

Four months after the police tape went up, Columbine was set to reopen. August 16 was the target date. The atmosphere that morning would mean everything. If students came home feeling like they had made a clean break over the summer and moved on, then they would have. The first few minutes of that morning would set the tone for the entire year. Administrators had gathered students, faculty, victims, and other stakeholders and brainstormed all summer. They'd consulted psychologists and cultural anthropologists and grief experts and had come up with an elaborate ritual. It would be called Take Back the School.

For the ceremony to have impact, they needed an adversary to overcome. And the more tangible and odious the adversary, the better. It was an easy choice: the media. The Denver Post Denver Post and the and the Rocky Mountain News Rocky Mountain News were still running Columbine stories every day--several a day. As the fall semester beckoned, coverage shot back up: ten stories a day between the two papers. And the national outlets were back. were still running Columbine stories every day--several a day. As the fall semester beckoned, coverage shot back up: ten stories a day between the two papers. And the national outlets were back. How do you feel? How do you feel? everyone constantly wanted to know. Students started sporting bite me T-shirts, and quite a few faculty members did, too. everyone constantly wanted to know. Students started sporting bite me T-shirts, and quite a few faculty members did, too.

The media had made their lives hell. And reporters could be counted on to appear in record numbers. The rally would include speeches and cheers and rock music and a ribbon cutting, but the heart of the event was a public rebuke of the media and a ceremonial reclaiming of the school--from them. Thousands of parents and neighbors would be recruited to form a human shield to rebuke the press. The shield would function both symbolically and practically. It would prevent reporters from performing their despicable job. They literally would not be able to see what was going on. The rally could have easily been planned for inside--virtually every school rally was. This event would be held outside specifically to stick it to the media. No doors or locks or walls would keep out the media; they would be blocked by a human wall of shame. And the school would dare them to try to cross it.

Reporters were kept in the dark about the agenda until seven days before the rally. On August 9, the school convened a Media Guidelines Summit. Forty news organizations attended, local and national. The invitation was filled with conciliatory phrases like "exchange ideas" and "balance the interests." The district lined up a group of trauma experts. A professor outlined bereavement: these kids were still in the early stages, and many were suffering from PTSD. Mental repetition of the trauma trapped them there. The TV stations kept recycling the same stock footage: SWAT teams, bloody victims, hugging survivors, kids running out with hands on their heads.

Reporters did not like where this was going. Then victim's advocate Robin Finegan introduced the larger idea: kids felt as if their identities had been stolen. "Columbine" was the name of a tragedy now. Their school was a symbol of mass murder. They had been cast as bullies or snotty rich brats. "There comes a point where victims need to have ownership of their tragedy," Finegan said. So far, the media owned the Columbine tragedy. That was about to change, the district said--or good luck getting your precious "Columbine returns" stories. Administrators outlined the gist of the ceremony.

"What's the human chain for?" a reporter asked.

"To shield the students from you folk," district spokesman Rick Kaufman said.

Most media would be excluded. A small pool would be escorted in. Reporters were incredulous. One print reporter? The White House didn't limit its pool that tightly. Reporters for the big national papers huddled in the back of the room, discussing options to "lawyer up."

The district wouldn't back down, Kaufman said. In fact, the pool would come only with major concessions: no helicopters, no rooftop photographers, and no breach of school grounds. "If we can't get agreement, then there's no pool," he said.

Try it, reporters threatened; it will backfire. "As long as parents understand that by saying no to everything, again it's going to be a situation where we're coming out of rocks and stuff in order to get sound and pictures," a TV executive said. "And I wonder if the parents really understand, if they think they control us by just saying no, they're really not; they're forcing us to go in other directions."

Kaufman said his back was to the wall. Angry parents had objected to any pool at all. "Parents and faculty, they have really hit the wall with you folks. They're saying, 'We're done! Enough is enough.'"

Later that week, a compromise was reached. The pool was expanded slightly, and a "bullpen" was added within the shield, where interested students could approach cordoned-off reporters. The press agreed to all previous demands and two new ones: no kid would be approached on the way to school that morning, and no photographs of any of the injured survivors would be used. The kids finally felt a sense of victory.

Mr. D was excited about the rally. But he was also worried about the new kids. It was a principal's thing--the incoming freshmen always commanded his thoughts this time of year. Kids would either assimilate quickly or spend four years struggling to fit in. The first two weeks were crucial.

Mr. D chose to combat the chasm by highlighting it. He met with the academic and sports teams and the student senate over the summer, and he gave every kid and every teacher the same mission: These kids will never understand you. They will never endure your pain, never bridge the gap between social classes that you did. So help them. These kids will never understand you. They will never endure your pain, never bridge the gap between social classes that you did. So help them.

By and large, they went for it. Kids thought they were overwhelmed by their own struggle, but what they really needed was someone else to look out for. They had to salve a different sort of pain to comprehend how to heal their own.

Mr. D's team brainstormed up a slew of activities to grease the transition. The wall tile project seemed like an easy one. For three years, kids had been painting four-inch ceramic tiles in art class. Five hundred had been plastered above the lockers to brighten the Columbine corridors. Fifteen hundred new tiles would be added before school resumed, representing the single most noticeable change to the interior. For one morning, kids could express their grief or hope or desires visually and abstractly, without the intervention of words that wouldn't come.

Brian Fuselier didn't want his parents standing in the human shield. "The more you do that, the more you make it unnatural," he told his dad. Brian was doing OK with the trauma; he just wanted his life back, and his school back, the way it had been.