birthday and sliced his tongue down the middle with a rusty knife. It was easy to believe – he did a lot of messed up things.
The yellow windows flashed and a low rumble went over the school. Fink wiped his nose on the back of his hand and leaned into Gordie’s ear. “Ay yo’, check it. My favorite dodgeball player.”
Heads turned at nearby tables and whispers swept through the cafeteria. Standing near the kitchen, Ms. Lazaretto glanced in our direction and placed her hand on her skinny waist before turning away. She wasn’t going to break up a fight even if she had an elite team of Special Forces backing her, and right now she was the only teacher in the cafeteria.
Fink eyed Gordie steadily, nodding slightly, daring him to move. He curled his upper lip and leaned closer. “Ever been in a real fight, Radford? One where you don’t just take a beating? One where you give some back?”
Gordie gave a strained, defiant smile, shooting for confident but only managing constipated. He wasn’t a fighter and Fink knew it. Skinny kids were good at reading books and playing videogames, not brawling with steel-toe boot wearing gorillas.
Fink laid his tray on the table. “You disrespectin’ me?”
Gordie’s gaze fell away. He’d put on a good show, but even fake balls crush if you squeeze hard enough.
Fink dug his hands into his pockets and pulled out two clenched fists. “Tell you what, if you guess what hand has the coin, I won’t break yo’ finger.”
This was all part of his game, but nothing ever came of it but lies and more beatings. I never understood why he didn’t just get on with it.
Gordie blinked long and slow, like he was having trouble focusing. A better friend might step in, but I wasn’t about to rush to make myself a target, not if there was a chance he’d dig his own way out.
“Choose quick, Dodgeball, or I’m gonna choose.”
Gordie’s brow creased like he was doing mental calculations. He raised a shaky finger and pointed at Fink’s left hand. One by one, the fingers of Fink’s left hand uncurled into an empty palm. He gave a sympathetic frown and patted Gordie’s shoulder. “Tell you what, bud, you can choose what finger.”
Gordie swallowed. It was decision-making time: stand up and fight, or take what comes next. I’d given up expecting teachers to step in, mostly they settled for not getting hurt. Zero tolerance my ass. We’d be safer dancing naked in the streets of Baghdad.
In a flash of movement, Fink snatched at Gordie’s fingers and missed. With his right hand still squeezed tight, he threw his left fist hard into Gordie’s temple. The sickening thock of knuckle against skull sent a lump into my throat even after hearing it a hundred times.
Gordie buckled and threw his face into his hands, gasping. When he straightened, his glasses hung crooked and tears leaked from his eyes. Four knuckle-shaped red blotches stained his cheek.
At the front of the cafeteria, Ms. Lazaretto glanced at us and checked her watch, tapping her fingers on her arm. I didn’t expect her to get involved, but it would’ve been decent of her to threaten to call the cops.
Across the table, Raj sat up straight in his chair and cleared his throat.
The fingers of Fink’s right hand spread to reveal an empty palm. No surprise there. The odds of him playing fair were about the same as the Lions winning the Super Bowl. His eyes narrowed to slits and he broke into a shrieky, grating laugh that would set off a car alarm. Like a circuit frying in his brain, his mouth snapped shut and his left hand clamped onto Gordie’s wrist. His other hand gripped Gordie’s index finger.
I’d spent my share of high school curled up on the ground trying to suck air into my lungs. I wasn’t scared to fight, mostly I did, but it hardly ever ended well. I’d learned to deal with it, but Gordie was the new kid, shy and quiet, an easy blusher, and he was about to have his finger broken in front of the entire cafeteria.
I pushed out my chair and stepped between them. “You hit him already. Leave him alone.”
The human race can be divided into those who appreciate advice and those who don’t. Fink leaned down and tilted his head. “What ya gonna do, Maddox?” He spat the words, flicking his snake tongue over his lips like his brain was stuck in a loop.
An uncomfortable heat rose up my neck. I wanted to do something, but hitting an oversized thug wasn’t the kind of plan that was going to keep my fingers unbroken. Having said that, Gordie was a friend and that came with responsibility. And the thing about fighting: when you know it’s gonna happen, you gotta get in first. I balled my fist and swung it hard at Fink’s face. He dodged, releasing Gordie’s wrist, and shoved his palms hard into my chest, throwing me ass first over my chair and sending me sliding into a table of sophomores. I climbed to my knees and gasped. The only thing worse than stepping into someone else’s fight was being shown the floor before you got started. Still, it was better than looking weak. You had to show you were prepared to fight, even when you couldn’t win. Gordie had a rep as a soft target and soon every gang in West Side would be after him.
Standing in the front of the cafeteria, Ms. Lazaretto stared wide-eyed at me and then at Fink. With a toss of her hair, she bent to lift her handbag and sashayed to the door. If you’re a teacher who puts self-preservation first, the best way to avoid trouble is to leave when it starts.
Raj rose from his chair, fists clenched. Fink glared at him, daring him to move. Raj wouldn’t think twice about stepping in for me, even when the odds were against him – I’d done the same for him since freshman year. But he wasn’t about to throw himself under this bus unless I was about to be ruined. Gradually, the color returned to his knuckles as he relaxed his fists.
Fink let out a shrill cackle and jabbed his finger into Raj’s forehead. “Didn’t think so.” He turned to Gordie and lowered his voice. “I’ll be back with some finger justice after lunch. If you’re not a wuss about it, I might only break one.” With a toothy grin, he lifted his tray and swaggered back to his table with the kind of smug that was part of the deal when you’re top of the food chain.
I climbed to my feet and wiped the dirt off my jeans and hoodie. A murmur of low voices filled the room, and Gordie lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
Raj slumped into his chair. “Where would you guys be without me looking out for you?”
“Right here,” Gordie said.
“Doing this,” I said, straightening my chair.
The clock on the wall was at 12:53pm. Seven minutes till the end-of-lunch bell. Other than trying to jump Fink, we only had two options: wait it out and act like nothing happened, or try to make an exit. Either way we’d draw the attention of him and his crew.
Two tables away, Fink counted cigarettes next to his buddy Kyle Swindon. Kyle lifted his feet onto the table and blew into his Zippo lighter, gazing at the dancing flame. This six-and-a-half-foot wall of muscle was pumped with enough steroids and protein shakes to turn a seven-year-old into a professional wrestler, and to make him the uncontested leader of his crew. Last year, Principal Grendelmeier discovered Kyle was cutting class to train in Muay Thai fighting at a gym downtown. Instead of suspending him, he called it an off-site learning program and gave Kyle course credit. Teachers didn’t want him at school any more than the rest of us; either that or his dirty-cop old man pulled all the right strings.
Kyle pulled his hoodie back over his shoulders, uncovering the scarification tattoo of a coffin on his neck. With his left hand, he rotated the four rings on his right-hand fingers, each one decked out with a jagged metal skull sharp enough to cut skin. In the seat next to him, his bleached-blonde girlfriend, Brittany Ryerson, thumbed at her phone, her lips almost glowing neon pink. She plucked a long strand of tangled hair from her scalp and dropped it on the floor. Someone once told me her behavioral problems were because of a difficult upbringing. It can’t have been easy being the offspring of a circus clown and a feral cat.
Fink’s voice sliced across the cafeteria like the screech of a velociraptor. “Hey, Dodgeball. Look after yo’ fingers.
I don’t want them getting broken before it’s my turn.”
Gordie folded his arms tight across his chest, his brow sweaty and his cheek swollen on one side. Waiting for a beating was almost as bad as the beating itself. Fink would be less of an asshole if he just got on with it.
Approaching from the aisle behind Gordie, a grizzly bear-like figure balanced a lunch tray on a sumo-sized gut. With the top of his head inches from the ceiling, and almost as fat as he was tall, Jeremiah Bundy was the biggest of Kyle’s crew, and the most unpredictable and scary human any of us had ever known. And he was headed in our direction.
2. Decafeteriainated
Bundy stopped halfway down the aisle and ran his free hand over his shaved head, glaring down at a table of juniors doing their best to not look up. With child-like curiosity, his eyes locked onto a kid cautiously sipping a bowl of steaming soup from his wheelchair.
Raj put his drink on the table. “No way. He wouldn’t… not Danny.”
The chatter of voices in the room softened, like someone turning down the volume on the cafeteria’s remote. Bundy was known for having no sense of right from wrong, but this was the first time he’d taken an unhealthy interest in the disabled kid.
Bundy placed his tray on the table and cupped his baseball-mitt sized hand around the back of Danny’s head. Before Danny