Found: One knife

When I turned to head down the stairs from the third floor hallway, a glint of light flashed in the corner next to the heavy door. The gleam came from the open blade of a shiny steel pocket knife.
"Oh boy!" I sighed and I picked it up. It was a cheap knife with a long blade and painted handle. I headed down to the cafeteria, where the security guards were stationed during the lunch periods, to turn it in.

These are tough neighborhoods the Max Hayes students come from, and I know for a fact that more than a few kids carry a weapon back and forth to school. They see it as a type of street insurance against the assortment of creeps and weirdos they encounter enroute to getting their education. I've walked the streets and ridden the busses in some of those neighborhoods. I've been approached by the perverts and catcalled by the punks. As an adult it is disconcerting; as a kid, it would be downright terrifying.

The schools have a zero-tolerance policy toward carrying weapons, as they should.
I wonder, though, what "insurance" I would be tempted to carry if my trek to school took me, on foot, through the seedy-side of town.