the voice of conscience in the Hill Gang and everyone was sick of listening to him. “She says that you shouldn’t take God’s name in vain or you’ll go directly to hell.”
Flannery, loaded with ammunition, moved out of the hills.
“Come on!” Marcus cried then added, “Don’t get captured.”
Everyone followed, charging toward the trench that surrounded the school. A moment later, reaching their goal, the Hill Gang unloaded their handfuls of clay. There were a lot of kids in the trench and surely not all of them could be members of the Trench Gang. The Trench Gang had no weapons that David could perceive. Certainly they had no mounts of clay and even the pieces of clay that were hurled at them shattered into dust on contact, and were of no use. David unloaded his handful of clay, then fled back to the hills.
Not all the Hill Gang returned. Little Jimmy Higgins was taken prisoner. He was jabbed with Popsicle sticks that had been sharpened on the cement walls of the school. When little Jimmy Higgins finally escaped his arms looked like he’d been bitten by a swarm of bees.
“Pricks!” Jimmy swore.
“You don’t want to see what his butt looks like,” Marcus said with a smile.
“I ain’t going to forget today,” Jimmy added, shaking his fist toward the opposite end of the schoolyard. Jimmy was the smallest of the Hill Gang. He was also the most truculent. To Jimmy, no insult was so minor that it wasn’t worth fighting over.
“What’s the war about?” David asked Marcus when he had a quiet moment.
“It ain’t about nothing.”
“Something must have started it,” David insisted. “I thought Flannery and Cormier were friends. Did they have a fight over something?”
Marcus looked at David and shook his head.
“You really don’t know nothing, do you? Things just get started,” he explained. “There ain’t no reason. You ask too many questions.”
One afternoon at the lunch recess the Hill Gang rested behind the hills, trying to decide what sort of plan they should come up with for that day’s battle. Joe wanted to try a pincer movement.
“What the heck is a pincer movement?” Marcus laughed. “You made that up.”
“Did not,” Joe insisted. “I saw it on the television. Armies always use pincer movements. It’s their stock and trade. It’s a way of surrounding your enemy.”
“How do you spell pincer?” Brady asked.
“You’re supposed to be on guard,” Flannery reminded Brady.
“Just asked a question. When has it become a crime to ask a question?”
“What difference does it make how you spell it?” Penny cried out. “You’re not going to be tested on it.”
The other boys laughed. Brady lowered his head and turned back to his job as a lookout. David looked at Penny who glared back at him. There was a mean streak in Penny. David had seen it in kids in his old school, kids who were always looking for any excuse to fight. David felt sure that sooner or later he and Penny would fight.
The boys discussed the idea of a pincer movement. It was discarded as being too complicated.
“I gotta a real bad feeling,” Flannery declared. “Cormier was smiling at me all the way to school. He’s got a plan.”
Brady cried out, “They’re coming!”
The boys turned and scrambled up the hill.
“They ain’t never attacked us before!” Marcus said in amazement.
There was a panic to collect chunks of dirt, but before a defense could be mounted, the Trench Gang was upon them. The Hill Gang was badly outnumbered. Three boys had jumped Joe and held him on the ground. Two boys including Cormier were wrestling with Flannery. David fought off Big Al but was losing the fight. Everyone was being jabbed by the sharp points of their sticks. Screams of pain and anger went up from every corner. And then there was a deadly silence.
A terrible animal cry went up, a blood curdling scream like a dog’s pitiful whaling when struck by a car. All the boys were frozen in that moment, all except for Penny, squirming around on the ground, hands over his face, blood leaking out through his fingers. Mr. Wickenhauser, who appeared to come out of nowhere, raced across the school grounds. Lifting Penny up into his arms, he ran back toward the school. Some boys ran with him. The other boys looked at each other in shock wondering what had gone wrong. Brady started crying.
“We done it now! We done it now!” he kept repeating.
Punishment was swift and decisive. Three boys, Cormier, Flannery and Brady, were chosen and declared to be the ringleaders from the ‘war’. They were dragged around to each classroom like circus bears and exhibited before their fellow students. No one knew why Brady had been chosen. At first he took his inclusion as a badge of honour, but as it became clear what the rewards were for his this newly appointed position, Brady’s enthusiasm waned. What had he really done? His only sin seemed to be an overwhelming urge to be liked. (Brady wanted to be a friend to everyone so much that he was constantly being swindled out of his valuables. David had managed to trade some trifles for a couple dozen comic books before David’s father intervened and forced his son to return them to Brady.) Brady was no hoodlum, no delinquent, just a boy with bad timing. And though all the boys felt that punishing Brady was a miscarriage of justice, none felt an overwhelming urge to replace him.
In each class Mr. Wickenhauser listed the boys’ crimes. He gave a short speech about setting an example for other children and threatened that future reprisals would make the present punishment pale in comparison. And then they were punished, five swats of the leather strap on each hand.
The leather strap resembled the long strip of leather that a barber used to sharpen the straight blade he used to shave customers. The strap was black, about ten inches long, four inches wide, flat, as thick as the blade of a hockey stick, and stiff. Every teacher was provided with a strap that they kept in the top drawer of their desk. Mr. Wickenhauser liked to carry his strap on him, dangling out of his trouser pocket like a six-gun.
While the tour went on, Miss Ponick had taken over David’s class. Marcus kept winking at her.
“Is something wrong with your eye?” she asked.
“No mam. I’ve got a twitch,” he said.
The class laughed. Miss Ponick glared at the room.
“This is not the day to be funny,” she said. The class was silent.
Poor Brady didn’t manage to get through the first class without tears streaming down his face. It had gone beyond humiliation for Brady. His pleas for mercy could be heard down the school halls, dampening everyone’s enthusiasm for math that morning. As they moved from class to class, the boys’ screams could be heard throughout the school. Everyone sat in their seats in eager anticipation of their arrival. Some of the girls whispered amongst themselves. Little Jimmy Higgins couldn’t stop snickering.
“Have you heard Cormier scream yet?” he whispered. “Flannery’s been broken. I’m sure of that.”
By the time they reached David’s class, Mr. Wickenhauser looked beaten. His tie was undone, the top two buttons of his white shirt were unbuttoned, he was no longer wearing a jacket, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. The three boys stood at the front of the room by the blackboard like suspects in a police line-up. Flannery and Cormier stood erect and composed like boys preparing to compete in a public speaking contest. Brady leaned against the blackboard, rubbing his hands, his face flushed red like the first spring sunburn.
Brady was the first one up.
“Why don’t they put the poor bastard out of his misery?” Marcus whispered from behind David. “He ain’t going to make it through the day.”
There was silence in the classroom as Mr. Wickenhauser’s gaze moved across the class like a spotlight from a tower on a prison wall.
“You know why these boys are being punished,” Mr. Wickenhauser bellowed out his well rehearsed speech. As he spoke his Adams’ apple bobbed up and down in his throat. If he’d had a hanger he could of hung his jacket on it. His jaw was clenched like a
prize fighter, his cheek bones shining, sweat dripping from his eyelids. As he babbled on for several minutes about good and evil, right and wrong, setting examples, David could hear the mocking mumblings of Marcus behind him. Then the great man took the black leather strap out of his trouser pocket and waved it threateningly at the three boys.
“Dunn!” he barked and turned on the small boy beside him.
Stepping forward, Brady whimpered, clutching his hands to his side, his head receding between his frail trembling shoulders. Mr. Wickenhauser reached for Brady but Dunn retreated to the blackboard, and began sobbing.
A couple of girls giggled nervously.
Mr. Wickenhauser turned on the class, spotting the girls.
They gasped.
“What’s your name?” he asked one of the girls.
“Mary Alice Deverell,” one of the girls said, her voice shaking.
“You want to take Mr. Dunn’s place, Mary Alice?”
The girl shook her head.
The tall menacingly handsome teacher grabbed one of Dunn’s hands, wrenched it from his side, and brought the strap down twice on Brady’s fist.
“Palms!” he cried.
Reluctantly Brady opened his hand. Lightning fast, the strap fell slapping the tips of Brady’s fingers. Brady fell to the floor weeping and crying, begging incoherently.
“Open your hands, Mr. Dunn,” the teacher growled once more, still holding onto Brady’s hand.
Brady opened his hand again. Three times the Gattling Gun strap fell on Brady’s palms