class.” She pulled me along with her as she started down the hall.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” She led me past the cafeteria door. “Raj was pretty shaken about what happened yesterday. Poor guy.”
“Bundy laid him out cold. He was really spaced out for a while.”
“It’s so horrible. Raj never did anything to hurt anyone. Something needs to be done about those creeps.” She led me down another hall and stopped at the drama room door, easing it open.
I felt better just being with her. “We’re cutting class to go to class?”
“I’ve heard you do a mean Strawberry Shortcake and I wanted to see it myself.”
I smiled. “That was a one-time performance.”
Peeking through the door, Allie turned her head in both directions. “All clear.” She made her way to the front of the room and slung her bag onto the stage. “Coming?” Without waiting, she climbed up, lifted the red curtain, and disappeared behind it.
I glanced over my shoulder and followed her. The thought of hiding somewhere warm and safe with Allie was so incredible that I immediately felt guilty for not deserving it. I climbed onto the stage and ducked under the curtain. The smell of paint filled my nose, and a thin shaft of light filtered over the curtains, dimly lighting the backstage area. Allie sat in the middle of the stage with her legs crossed. I walked over to her, aiming for not too close, but not too far, and sat down.
Realizing I had no idea what to say, I looked around the backstage area. Paper-mache trees from last year’s Shakespeare performance loomed over us, casting long creepy shadows over the walls. Ropes and electrical cables snaked in all directions across the scratched and worn stage floor.
Allie’s elbows went up as she put her hair behind her ears, and then she looked into my eyes. Was I supposed to kiss her? I was probably meant to say something, but I had no idea what. I gazed at her lips, and my heart beat faster.
She put her hand on my arm so gently it hardly touched. “Kyle and his friends were looking for you this morning.”
My mind stalled as it shifted gear. “What did they say?”
“Not much.” Her gaze fell. “Kyle beat up Carlos Hernandez before school. He thought Carlos knew where you were. He’s in the nurse’s office now.”
“Why would Carlos know anything about me?”
Allie lifted her shoulders. “Kyle’s a thug, not a detective.”
Trying to fix this with stupid plans to break them up was pointless. Kyle wasn’t going to stop, and the more I put it off, the worse it got. I rubbed my eyes, tired from being awake all night. “I thought I could figure this out, but I can’t.”
She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it, biting her lip. We sat quietly for a moment, listening to the soft hiss of the heater, lost in our thoughts. She leaned over and examined the cut on my throat. “Does it hurt?”
I gave a weak smile. “Not as much as Kyle’s hurting from the beating he got.”
Allie brushed her fingers across the skin of my throat, and I closed my eyes. Her warm touch was the best thing I’d ever felt. “Allie, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
On the opposite side of the drama room, a loud thump rattled the door and I flinched. The hinges groaned, and the door slammed shut. Footsteps padded across the carpet toward us. I stared at Allie and put a finger to my lips.
She scooted to the stage curtain and peered through the gap. “We have visitors.”
Bursting out of my skin, I leapt to my feet and looked for a backstage exit.
A voice called out, “What’s going on in here?” A hand appeared under the curtain and lifted it. Raj’s head poked through.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Allie said. She gave me a teasing smile. “Sorry, I should have told you. I asked them to join us.”
Raj climbed onto the stage and crawled over to me. “Relax. Nobody knows we’re here.”
A pair of crutches slid under the curtain. Gordie dragged himself underneath and painstakingly butt-scooted next to where Raj was sitting. I sat down again, letting out a breath and cursing myself for thinking Allie wanted to be alone with me.
Even in the darkness I could see the deep purple bruise on Raj’s cheek. “How’s your head?” I asked.
“A little messed up. I accidentally poured OJ on my Cheerios this morning.” He touched his fingers to the bruise. “I did that last week too though, so maybe it’s a separate problem.”
Allie frowned. “Did you tell your folks what happened?”
He nodded. “Football injury.”
“And they believed you?” Gordie asked.
“You’re looking at Cannondale’s new shooting guard.”
I smiled. “That’s basketball.”
“As if my folks would know the difference.”
Gordie removed his glasses and wiped them with his sleeve. “So you tried to escape in a cab driven by a maniac?”
“No, we tried to escape in a cab not driven by a maniac,” I said. “But we got unlucky.”
Raj glanced at his watch. “Cutting class, Allie? When did you break bad? Next you’ll be listening to rap music.”
“Class can wait. You guys need serious help.” Her eyes hardened. “We have to fix this before something even worse happens.”
Gordie dug his fingers under his plaster cast and scratched his leg. “I know it’s lame, but we need to tell principal Grendelmeier. There’s something really wrong with Kyle – he’s not like normal people.”
“What’s the use in telling Grendelmeier?” I asked. “So he can give Kyle a stern talking to? So he can suspend him for a few days? Or run a handholding session so we can learn to live peacefully together? Grendelmeier won’t help us – he can’t. Have you ever heard someone say, ‘I was picked on by this bully until I tried to understand his problems, and then we talked about it and he changed his ways’? No, that doesn’t happen. Nobody can protect us. Anyone who says otherwise is clueless or selling bullshit self-help.”
Gordie opened his mouth to speak and hesitated a moment. “My dad always says if you ignore bullies they’ll leave you alone.” He shook his head.
“You know, “ Raj said, “what annoys me about all this hoopla with bullying lately is that no one acknowledges that facing down the bully is the only way to end it. Watery-eyed do-gooders holding candlelight vigils do nothing.” He looked at me. “You’re right. We have to stop them – whatever it takes.”
That was all I needed. I turned to Gordie. “If Kyle and his crew want to hurt us, they will. The only way to stop them is to give them a reason to back off, right?” I looked at Raj. “We can rule out a love fest with Grendelmeier, so we need a way to show them we’re not to be messed with.”
“Do you mean like ambushing Kyle when he’s alone?” Raj asked.
“Maybe.”
“Fighting won’t solve this,” Allie said. “They’ll just get you worse next time.”
“How would we fight them anyway?” Gordie lifted one of his crutches. “I was useless in a fight before this. And Allie’s right, Kyle would make beef jerky out of you guys with his switchblade, and he’d still have one hand free to strangle puppies.”
“Maybe this’ll help.” Raj reached into his bag, pulled out a metal handle, and unfolded a four-inch blade.
Allie gasped. “Raj! What the hell? You’ll get expelled. And arrested.”
He brought the tip of the knife to the bruise on his cheek. “I’d rather that than let them do this to me again.”
“A knife won’t scare him,” I said. “It’ll just give him a reason to get stabby with his knife – if he doesn’t stab you with your own knife that is.”
“Chris is right about needing to take them on,” Allie said, “but this isn’t about violence. We just need to scare them – something that will make him afraid to even look at you.”
Gordie stretched his legs. “My dad just started a new security job. Maybe we should ask him to shoot Kyle. Being
shot by my dad would be pretty scary.”
Raj opened his mouth to yawn and broke into laughter. “You’re so gangsta, Gordie.” He ran the tip of his finger along his knife blade. “Your old man with a gun – that is kinda scary.”
“Tell me about it,” Gordie said. “I’m already having nightmares.”
I tapped his arm. “Wait, this is good. Let’s think this through.”
His brow creased.
Allie raised her hands. “No! Guns are only good for getting people killed. Nobody’s getting killed over this.”
“We’d just borrow the gun and show it to Kyle,” I said. “It’d be enough to scare him, and no one gets shot.”
Raj lifted his finger from the blade and winced as a drop of blood appeared on his fingertip. “Either that or we learn Muay Thai and take him on Karate Kid style. I vote we shoot him – just a little.”
“Or a lot,” Gordie said. “That would scare him too.”
Allie raised her voice. “Over thirty thousand people die in America every year from guns. That’s enough to fill half of Ford Stadium. If we bring a gun into this, someone will get hurt – and it probably won’t be Kyle, Fink, or Bundy.”
“You’re right,” Gordie said. “This is bad enough already.”
Allie turned her stare back to me, and I shook my head. “I’m not crazy about guns either,” I said, “but how else are we gonna get out of this? We tried to ignore them, but they attacked us anyway. We tried to defend ourselves and made it worse. Then Bundy laid Raj out cold and we barely escaped. Every time they find us, it gets worse. What will they do to us later today? And tomorrow? And the day