I tried to get up, but my arms felt like jelly, and before I could do anything else, Big Red was down on one knee beside me. He pulled his fist back, blocking out everything else in my vision. It was a pale comet hurtling toward me.
But then a look of surprise came over his face and his whole body shot back away from me, like he’d been grabbed up by an angel. There was shouting and a commotion, but my head was too swimmy to make it all out.
Someone grabbed my shoulder and tried to push me up, but it was no use. I was like a rag doll filled with lead.
There was a voice in my ear, close and rushed. “Come on, get up. We have to get out of here.”
The world snapped into focus. Jenny was leaning over me. Her bottom lip was split and trailing blood down her chin and neck, soaking the top of her T-shirt. Her right eye was surrounded by a red and black bruise and nearly swollen shut.
“Did we win?”
“Ha! You are a pistol, Stephen,” she said as she pulled me up. “Now let’s get out of here.”
“Jenny Tan!”
“Oh crap.”
Tuttle stormed up the hill toward us, clutching his wooden ruler like a sword. He was being led by the second of the slug twins. I saw the plan immediately: Will starts a fight, then sends one of them to get Tuttle, no doubt blaming it on me and Jenny. Idiot, I cursed myself.
He was followed by a group of students, all excited to see what was going on. In the middle of the pack were Derrick, Martin, and, finally, Jackson. As soon as Jackson saw Jenny and me together, he stopped cold. The group broke around him, but he didn’t move.
He was staring at my hands.
They were covered in dirt and bruises and blood. The new clothes Violet had given me just that morning were torn and stained. Jackson looked from me to Jenny and back again, his body rigid with anger, his hands knotted into fists. I knew what was going through his head. The last straw. A calm day was smashed to pieces and maybe this time it would lead to a vote that would turn his world upside down. I wanted to say something, tell Jackson it wasn’t my fault, that it was Jenny, that it was Will, that everything would be okay, but before I could do anything, Tuttle barked, “Enough. Detention for both of you.”
“But what about them?” Jenny asked.
Tuttle ignored her. He whirled around, sending the mass of kids behind him scurrying back toward the school. Jackson didn’t move at first, but then Martin tapped him on the shoulder, whispered something, and pulled him away.
“You’re done,” Will said as he passed me, flashing that easy wolfish grin. He and his friends strolled down the hill in Tuttle’s wake.
My hand curled into a fist so tight I nearly broke a bone.
“Easy, tiger,” Jenny said. She laid her hand on my shoulder, but I jerked away.
“Get away from me.”
“Oh come on. We’ll get ours.”
“Our what?”
Jenny’s lips brushed my ear as she whispered, “Revenge, Stephen. We’ll get our revenge.”
“I don’t want revenge,” I said, pushing away from her down the hill. “I just want you to leave me alone.”
SEVENTEEN
When the classroom was empty except for me and Jenny, Tuttle regarded us over the rim of his steel glasses. “American History,” he said. “Chapters one through three.”
“Read them?” I asked.
“Copy them.”
I opened the book and flipped through the pages. Chapters one through three were about twenty densely worded pages. My bruised knuckles ached at the thought of it. Tuttle leaned over a stack of papers, making quick little check and X marks down the length of them. I couldn’t concentrate. Every time I tried, I saw Jackson’s face growing more and more angry as he looked from me to Jenny after the fight. I had tried to explain, tried to pass him a note even, but he’d ignored me, that hard fury like a wall between us. Stupid, I thought, over and over. Why didn’t I just walk away?
What made it worse was Jenny, twirling a pencil in her bruised fingers, totally unconcerned.
Tuttle cleared his throat and I leaned over my paper. I swallowed the anger as best I could and started to write. I only had two pages done before something bumped against the side of my boot. When I looked down there was a folded piece of paper lying on the floor. I checked on Tuttle, then leaned down and picked it up, unfolding it onto my notebook.
How are the war wounds, tough guy?
Jenny had her head down in her book, copying away, the slightest shadow of a smile on her bruised face. I refolded the paper and went back to work, ignoring her. Minutes later another piece of paper knocked against my foot.
Awww, what’s wrong, pal? Mad at me?
Leave me alone, I scrawled across the paper in heavy black letters before kicking it back to her.
Oh come on, Stephen, she wrote back. You’ve been dying to hit somebody since the night you got here.
Well, thanks, I wrote. Now I’m in detention. Everybody hates me, and your whole family, my dad, and I are all one step closer to getting thrown out of here.
She answered: The sky’s not going to fall because of one little fight! No one’s going to throw you out. Jackson and his band of doofuses will get over it.
I made sure Tuttle was still busy grading before writing back, And if they don’t?
I could feel Jenny shaking her head as she read it. When the paper returned it was nearly torn through.
Food for thought. If someone can’t handle seeing who you are — are they really your friends?
She was wrong, of course. Jackson and the others were my friends, and fighting those guys was not who I was. Jenny hadn’t been there at the game or the quarry. She didn’t know.
What would you know about who I really am? I wrote back.
Jenny wrote something immediately, then quickly erased it. Almost an hour passed before she kicked the paper back.
Sometimes I can’t sleep, she wrote, her messy scrawl replaced by small deliberate letters. Because it’s like I can feel the whole world spinning so fast beneath me, and I’m thinking, what am I doing here? Is this where I belong? Do I belong anywhere? Some nights it gets so loud in my head that I want to break something, anything, everything, just to make it stop.
I didn’t move for several minutes. I just stared down at the words, the letters so tight, so precise and dark, they looked like they might rupture at any moment and tear the page to pieces. My pencil was near my fingers, and in one strange moment I thought, Did I write that, or did she?
I checked on Tuttle, then looked back at Jenny, but she was slipping out of her chair and heading toward the door.
“Miss Green,” Tuttle called out, but she ignored him, didn’t even correct him. “Miss Green, come back here!”
I wanted to stop her too, but the double doors behind me flew open and slammed shut. Tuttle settled into his chair, and I was surprised to see a strange look on his face, almost concerned. Maybe even a little bit sad.
“This does not mean that you are excused, Mr. Quinn,” he said when he caught me looking at him. “Get back to work.”