“Yeah, I think I do,” she said.
20
They think I’m weak.
That one thought echoed inside Sam’s head. He knew they were thinking it. His own gang. The whole school. Everyone saw what happened in the quad. They saw David and his gang of beggars kick Sam’s ass.
“Come on and throw with us, Sammy! Get that blood moving!”
Sam looked down from the bleachers at Alan Woodward, who slapped a football in his fat hands. His round cheeks were red like cherry bombs, and Sam wished they’d explode.
“No,” Sam said.
Piss off, you fat lump. It wasn’t that Alan was a bad guy. It was just that he was an idiot. Ninety percent of Sam’s day was dealing with idiots, keeping them happy so they didn’t gang up and kill him. It was starting to drag him down. But he couldn’t slip now. That was what everybody was waiting for.
Alan shrugged and shuffled off. He cocked his arm and threw the ball to a group at the other end of the gym. Sam admired the tight, spiraled throw. It was a nice toss. The guys at the other end elbowed and shoved each other to get a clean grab at the ball. Their shoes squeaked on the varnished floor.
It sounded like the squeal a dog made when you hurt it.
When Sam was seven, he had a curly-haired black dog named Trixie. It was a stupid name, because Trixie was a boy. His mom named it. She wanted a daughter but only had sons, so the dog became Trixie. It was one of those miniature dogs that women kept in their pocketbooks. Twitchy. Fragile.
Every time he petted it he could feel its brittle ribs. It used to chase him around the house trying to hump his leg. Nasty little thing. Nothing was more disgusting than its little furry hips thrusting away at his ankle. It scratched at every door he hid behind, always wanting to hump him more. And no one helped him, all the adults just laughed. “Look, Sammy’s afraid of Trixie. How cute!” They stopped laughing when he stomped down on the thing and snapped its back. He could still hear the dull crunch. His father beat him for that. “What’s wrong with you?” he yelled. No one seemed to understand. The per-verted little thing was assaulting him. It was self-defense.
“Hi, baby.”
Hilary walked up the bleacher. She sat beside Sam and slid her hand down his thigh to his knee. Her nails made a zipping sound along synthetic fabric of his breakaway pants. She kissed him on the cheek.
“How come you’re not playing with the boys?” she said.
“Where’ve you been?” Sam asked. He readied himself for one of her lies.
“Downstairs. I said it was okay for people to have the drop party at the pool. How was the market? Did it make you feel better?”
“Saw your boyfriend.”
Hilary pulled her hand off his knee. “Why do you say things like that?”
Sam laughed. “Relax, baby. It was a joke.”
“I hate it,” she said, her eyebrows digging down deep.
Just what he needed, Hilary pissed at him. He took her hand and put it back on his knee. He touched her face with his other hand and turned it toward him with a little force.
She kept her eyebrows angry and her lips tight. She was playing angry, another lie.
“You don’t like jokes?” he said.
“Not funny, Sam. Just not funny,” she said, doing her vulnerable act. There was still no one hotter than her. Sam leaned in to kiss her but stopped. There was a one-inch smudge of filth on the underside of her jaw. He swiped it with his finger.
“What is this?” he said.
He looked at the dirt on the pad of his forefinger. She looked at it too. Dirt and grime were prevalent in McKinley, but not on Hilary. She was always clean, made up, and smelling sweet.
“It looks like dirt, Sam.”
“It was on your face,” he said, his words heating up.
“Okay, so?” Hilary said, then let out an exasperated breath.
“When are you going to stop acting like this?” She was avoiding the question. She was covering for something. She was lying and lying and lying.
Hilary lowered her voice. “You’re starting to freak people out.”
Someone was laughing. Sam snapped his head toward the gym floor where Alan’s half-assed game was under way. His team was huddled near the basketball foul line. Alan was braying like a donkey over some joke. He hated Alan’s laugh.
Sam caught his eye from fifty feet away. That sort of thing didn’t happen accidentally. Alan was talking about him. He knew it.
“Would ya come on and play, Cappy?” Alan shouted over the gym. He was trying to cover his ass.
“Go,” Hilary said, a little anxiety in her voice. “They need you, Sam.”
Sam didn’t move. Alan sighed and waved him off, pulling the ball up and nodding to the rest to get started. His boys talked to each other and smiled. They weren’t talking about the game. Who cared about games anymore? They all had their little plans for him that they’d kick off when the moment was right.
They didn’t think he had it in him anymore. He could still feel the fingernails of those Scraps tearing at him. They never would have stopped if David hadn’t called them off. David. As long as David and his gang were walking the halls, no one would forget that Sam had crumbled when it mattered.
“Who’s Alan’s girl?” Sam said.
“Roberta Fennessey,” Hilary said.
“Have her dump him.”
“What?”
“We’ll hook her up with one of my sophomores.”
“I can’t do that. She likes Alan. They like each other.”
“Do it.”
“No,” Hilary said. Her tone was firm. Sam looked at her.
She’d betrayed him. He didn’t know how, but she’d done something. He was slipping. He was asking for her betrayal.
He was asking for a coup. Nobody feared him like they used to, back in the early days, after he’d disposed of Danny Liner.
His tangle with Bobby in the market meant nothing to them.
They all saw it as a desperate move.
“Fine,” he said.
Sam stood up. He picked up an aluminum baseball bat. He never went without it in the gym. You could never be too careful. He stepped down the bleachers, reaching the gym floor in five long strides.
“Sam?” he heard Hilary say distantly.
Anthony had just run a touchdown for his team. Alan was acting as his quarterback.
“YES!” Alan shouted, and raised his fists to celebrate. His offensive line was a good ten feet in front of him after the play. Alan turned toward the bleachers, smiling toward where Sam had just sat. His smile bent down when he saw Sam charging him.
Sam smashed his aluminum bat across Alan’s face.
Alan dropped to the floor. He writhed at Sam’s feet. Alan groaned. He was disoriented, reaching for his head, trying to understand what had happened. Blood spouted from his ear.
He clawed at the air in front of him.
Sam heard the shouts behind him. He heard Hilary crying out for him to stop. Sam raised the bat over his head and brought it down again. He felt Alan’s face give way. Blood and teeth flew. Alan barely looked like Alan by the third swing.
He was dead by the sixth. But Sam didn’t stop until the tenth.
It was an awful mess. He dropped the bat, and it clanged onto the hardwood floor beside Alan’s collapsed face.
Sam turned to the gathered crowd. The Pretty Ones buried their faces in the sleeves of their Varsity boyfriends. None of them dared to meet his gaze. He saw the fear in their faces now.
It had to be done.
21
David snuck into the market. Every light was off. Every trading post door was closed and locked. There was no bustle, no hocking of goods, no fighting. Everyone was gone.
The sounds of his own shoes scuffing the floor made him tense up. If anybody happened upon him, even just a few Skaters, they could overpower him and hold him for ransom.
Stupid. The Loners would either have to bend to them, maybe give up all their food as a payoff, or they’d have to fight to get him back. Either way he’d be dragging everybody down, just because he couldn’t control himself.