to die,â I say. âYou were demented. You wouldnât shut up about your hallucinations.â
He shakes his head at the memory. âThank god Mom let me stop.â
âYou donât need meds, Dallas. Your brain is supreme.â
âYours too, Max.â
âParents always make you do more than you have to. I pull nineties with moderate effort, but thatâs not good enough for Mom. I should exhaust myself for hundreds.â
âNo kidding. Dad would do anything to make me more employable. He wonât stop pushing until I break.â
âIt bleeds,â I say. âItâs not natural. We shouldnât have to try harder.â
Austin pounds on the bedroom door. âHelp, guys!â he shouts. âIâm stuck!â
Dallas opens his door to his giant brother, whoâs bending over with his pants down, laughing maniacally.
âThen again,â I say, âmaybe some of us are not trying hard enough.â
Itâs raining as Ally and I walk to school. She hangs her head and looks for drowning worms. Sheâs happy, but it saddens me. Sheâs at the mercy of a merciless world. If she had to cross a river and a crocodile said, âStep on me. Iâm a log,â sheâd say, âReally? You look like a crocodile.â âNo, no,â heâd say, âIâm a log. Step on me and youâll see.â And off sheâd go, never to be seen again.
I keep her company outside the school, holding her umbrella while she saves one last worm.
I donât carry an umbrella for myself. Iâll take my hood down when I get near school because hoods are not fit, but I wear it on the road to protect my hair.
Unfortunately, it blocks my peripheral vision so I donât see Tyler Wilkins and his goons sneak up behind me. They grab me tight, Washington on one arm and some grade nine beast on the other. I drop Allyâs umbrella. Iâm so startled I barely have time to exhale before Tyler hits me in the gut.
I come up fast and furious. Instead of struggling away, like they expect, I lean into Washington to get some leeway for my arm, then I elbow him in the throat. He lets go fast, freeing my hand to grab the head of the grade nine goon and jerk it forward into the spot where Tylerâs next punch is aimed. Kapow. Iâm like a movie star. Then Allyâs umbrella trips me up so I take another shot from Tyler.
That makes me mad. I kick Tylerâs kneecap as hard as I can, twice. He squeals and falls forward. I ram my knee into his jaw. His head cracks back with a sound that cuts through my frenzy.
Ally screams.
I grab Tylerâs throat, partly to be tough but mostly to make sure his head doesnât fall off in front of my little sister. I look him in the eye and say, âThereâs not going to be a next time. If you need more than two guys to take me down, itâs time to give up.â From the regurgitated crap of Xavierâs damaged movies come the words, âThereâs no honor in this for you.â
Tylerâs goons stand back. Washington holds his throat, and the other boy staunches a nosebleed.
I shake the rain from my face and pull Tyler to his feet.
âI donât want to fight you again,â I say. âYouâre nothing to
me now.â
He eyes me intently for a few seconds. I canât tell if
heâs going to knife me or confess that heâs in love with me. He nods and spits on the groundâbut nowhere near me or Ally because Iâd take his head off if he did that. He wipes his face and glances at the school to see how many first graders have witnessed his humiliation. âJesus Christ,â he whispers.
I look over too. Washington and the other goon look over. Ally looks over. We all stand there speechless, staring at the schoolyard.
There are no faces glued to the fence watching our fight. Nobody watches from the play structures. Nobody pauses in a puddle, points an
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