“Then touch it.”
The squirrel lay dead on its side in the center of the street, one blank eye staring skyward. It looked to me like all it wanted was to be left alone. I knew how it felt.
“Fine,” I replied. “Give me the stick.”
“No stick for you, Timmy-my-boy. You gotta touch it bare-handed. You’re lucky I don’t make you pick it up for being such a girl about it.”
A voice cut through the rising din of the crowd. “Leave him alone, Billy.”
The crowd parted. I couldn’t help but wince. There, straddling her bike, was Alison Ashbrook, all elbows and scabby knees. Billy broke into the kind of grin that you feel in the pit of your stomach.
“You hear that, Timothy? Your girlfriend wants me to leave you alone.”
“His girlfriend,” Harrington echoed in that same singsong falsetto.
I opened my mouth to reply, but all that came out was a dry croak.
“Hey, Billy,” Alison said, nodding toward Mike, “tell your boyfriend he sounds like my little sister, only maybe not as cute. You think he’s getting jealous you’re paying Tim so much attention?”
Harrington went red and silent.
“You should watch your mouth, you little bitch,” Billy replied, shaking with rage. The crowd had turned on him, laughing at his discomfort from the safety of a few feet away. Anonymity is a hell of a cure for cowardice.
“And you should watch yours,” she replied. “Every time you open it people get to see what kind of guy you really are.”
Billy picked up his bike from where it lay on the street and climbed atop it. “C’mon, Mike,” he said. “Let’s bail. Too many losers around here for my taste. Oh, and Timothy? I’ll see you around.”
Mike collected his bike without a word, and they rode off, leaving a snickering crowd behind.
With Billy and Mike gone, the crowd began to disperse. I was grateful. My face was flushed with embarrassment, and tears welled in my eyes, threatening to spill over. Soon it was just me and Alison. She looked at me with an expression of sympathy. I looked at my shoes.
“Don’t worry about those guys,” she said. “They’re more bark than bite. You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, turning away. “I’m fine.”
“You wanna go get some ice cream or something?”
“Can’t,” I replied. Truth was, I couldn’t stomach the thought of the looks we’d get, the whispers as we passed. Timothy Hewitt, saved by a girl.
“Oh. Another time, maybe.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” I started down the street, toward home. There was a flutter of playing cards against spokes as Alison turned her bike around to do the same. I took a breath and turned around.
“Hey, Alison?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
Alison flashed me a smile that almost made the day worthwhile, and then turned and rode off. I strolled home beneath a sky of deepening orange. I thought about Billy and Mike, and the price I’d pay for Alison’s intervention. I thought about the squirrel, lying dead and bloated on the sun-bleached pavement. I thought about Alison, so quick and so fearless when I was clumsy and afraid.
But mostly, I just thought about her smile.
When I came down for breakfast the next morning, my father was sitting at the table, hidden behind his morning paper. A half-eaten plate of waffles sat in front of him. I sat down at the empty plate beside him as Mom fished another batch of waffles out of the toaster and set them down in front of me.
“You see this, Meg? Looks like another coupla animals went missing from the neighborhood again. Coyotes, they’re saying. Says here the heat drives ‘em out of the woods looking for food. They’re telling folks to make sure to bring their pets in at night.”
Mom said nothing. I concentrated on my breakfast. Dad continued from behind his paper, “Only I was talking to Mark Holbrook the other day, and he says that isn’t so. His brother works over at Animal Control, and he says the ones they found were taken apart, but there wasn’t anything missing. Way he tells it, no animal coulda done it. You ask me...”
“David,” Mom replied sharply. “We do not need that kind of talk at the table.” At the table is what she said. In front of Timothy is what she meant.
“What?” Dad glanced over the top of his paper. “Oh geez, kiddo, I didn’t know you were up yet. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure Thurston’s fine.”
“That’s okay,” I mumbled. It wasn’t, though. Thurston was our cat, a four-year-old tabby. Earlier that summer, she had wandered off. Nobody’d seen her in weeks. Mom insisted she was all right, that some nice family had taken her in, but I knew the truth. Thurston wasn’t coming back.
“So,” Mom said, “I was thinking you could ride your bike over to Ben’s today if you like, maybe go for a swim? Ben’s mom says she’d love to have you.”
Ben’s house was half a neighborhood away. The route took me right past Billy McMahon’s house. “I don’t feel like it,” I said, pushing waffles around the plate.
“Well, I’ve got a house to show, and you can’t just lie about all day. You’re going to Ben’s.”
“Fine.” I pushed back from the table, leaving behind a congealing mess of waffles and syrup. I threw my swim trunks and a towel in a bag and headed for the door. As the screen door clanged shut behind me, Mom called out.
“Timothy?”
“Yeah?”
“Be safe!”
Safe. Right. I grabbed my bike from the garage and rode off down the street.
The important thing was, I had a plan. Three blocks up to Forest, four blocks over to Cherry, and then back onto Oak. That’s five blocks more than I needed to go, but it would be well worth it if it kept me away from Billy.
I was barely to the end of my street when I heard the call.
“Hey, Timothy, I got a present for ya!”
He’d been hidden behind a tree, waiting. In his hand was a tree branch. By the time I spotted him, he was less than an arm’s-length away. He jammed the branch into my spokes. The bike jerked to a halt. I didn’t.
I sailed over the handlebars. Palm-first onto the pavement. He was on me in a flash.
“You think I’m gonna let you make a fool outta me?” he asked, rolling me over with a nudge of his foot. “You think you and that girlfriend of yours are so smart?” He hit me. I didn’t even try to stop him.
“I asked you a question.” He hit me again. Tears spilled down my cheeks. “What’sa matter? Cat got your tongue?”
Behind us, I heard the slam of a door, and footsteps approaching. “Hey!” someone shouted. “Get off of him!”
Billy straightened. I didn’t get up.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing?”
“We’re just having some fun,” Billy said. “Ask him, he’ll tell you.”
“The hell you are.” He glanced at my bike. Front wheel bent. Spokes snapped like twigs. “You could have killed him.”
“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
“Sure you didn’t. Only now you’ve got a problem. See, you so much as set foot on this street again, I’m calling the cops, you hear me? You don’t come anywhere near him.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Don’t shrug me off, William. Not unless you want me to take this up with your father.”
Billy blanched.
“I thought so,” the man replied. “Now’s the time for you to leave.”
Billy shot me a look of pure venom and took off down the street. The man turned his attention to me. “You all right?”