“I’ve seen it,” I say. “It’s a big one. It looks like it could do some damage.”
James’s face grows more serious.
“I’ve heard plenty about those guys,” he says. “I heard about them even before they moved into our school. They think they can scare people. They think they can take over. Well, we’re going to show them they can’t.”
Everyone nods.
“What if he doesn’t show up?” John says. He’s trying to sound as tough as James, but I can hear in his voice that he’s nervous. When a bunch of guys with baseball bats and maybe chains and rocks meets another bunch of guys, and one of them has a knife, who knows what will happen? Who knows who will get hurt?
“If he doesn’t show up, he’s chicken,” James said. “And we win.”
And there it is, the look on John’s face that tells me what he’s hoping for—he’s hoping that Marcus and the rest of them won’t show up.
We hang around for most of the day. Guys come and go. James orders a couple of pizzas. Everyone gets mellow and I think maybe nothing will happen after all. Maybe everyone will chill out and forget all about Marcus. But as soon as that thought comes into my head, so does a picture—a picture of Marcus and Asia, their arms around each other’s waists. I get mad.
It gets late and we’re still at James’s place, waiting for James to give us the word. It’s a hot Saturday night. Guys are drinking sodas. Some guys are drinking other stuff. The sun gets lower and lower. Finally James says, “Let’s go.”
We walk the ten blocks from James’s house to the court behind the school. We’re all spread out and we’re trying to look casual, like James told us. The guys who have baseball bats are carrying them like they’re on their way to a game. Stephen has one. Every now and then he swings it and mimics a home run and lets out a whoop.
The guys who have lengths of chain or rocks they’ve picked up are more careful. No way guys with chains and rocks look like they’re off to a field somewhere to play pick-up ball.
The sun is almost at the horizon by the time we round the corner and catch sight of the court.
No one is there.
I glance at John. He looks relieved. He starts to smile. Then his smile freezes and I turn my head to look where he is looking. Here comes Marcus and he’s got a lot of guys with him. A lot.
“Come on,” James says. He heads for the other side of the court, where Marcus and his friends are.
John catches him by the arm. “Are you crazy?” he says. “We’re outnumbered.”
I look around, trying to count how many of us there are and how many of them. Just as I’m almost done, more of us come around the corner. Now it’s Marcus’s guys who look nervous.
James starts to circle around the fence so he can get to where Marcus is. Guys follow him. They’re moving fast, like they can’t wait to get there. John hangs back, uncertain. Stephen glances at him, and I guess that’s when John makes up his mind. He speeds up so he can join the rest of them. He has a rock—a good-sized one—in his hand and he tosses it up and catches it while he walks. I’m pretty sure he’s doing it because his nerves are jangling, but if I didn’t know him, I would think he was itching for a fight.
I guess that’s what Marcus’s guys think too, because someone throws something. John lets out a scream and sinks to the ground, clutching his eye. After that, things get crazy.
People start running. Our guys rush toward Marcus’s guys. Marcus’s guys rush toward our guys. Guys are trying to hurt other guys. I mean, really hurt them. And all I can think is what happened last year when I beat up Shane and he ended up in the hospital.
I hang back and I don’t care who knows it. I hang back and wait for it to be over. But everything changes when all of a sudden James goes down. Some of our guys run to help him. A few of them look really freaked out when they see that he’s bleeding. It looks like someone cut him on the cheek. Maybe someone with a knife. While the guys who are helping James have their backs turned, Marcus’s guys rush them. And that’s when our guys run.
I turn and see Marcus smiling as half of our guys, maybe more, take off. James is still bleeding, but he yells at them to come back, come back. Marcus stops smiling. More than anything, he looks disappointed. I realize that he doesn’t want to fight any more than I do. But James is telling our guys not to run. He’s telling them, Look what they did to me, look what they did to John. He’s yelling, “Are you going to let them get away with that?” And everything changes again.
Now our guys are rushing Marcus’s guys. Our guys with the baseball bats have them held high, our guys with the chains are swinging them, our guys with the rocks are throwing them. More people get hurt. And it turns out, even with how many we have, that it’s mostly our guys who get hurt. And they start to run again. They run because when you get hurt like that, with a length of chain or a rock, it isn’t exciting like it is in the movies or on TV. You don’t just take a blow and then get up and land one on the other guy. You feel it. You really feel it. And you get scared. Is something broken? Am I bleeding? Am I going to die? And if you can, you run. Even James runs. And I think, This isn’t turning out how he expected.
Then I see where James is running. He’s running into our neighborhood. He’s running toward his own street, where all the people are more or less the same, where there are no people like Marcus. That’s just the way it is.
Once they’re on home turf, our guys start to scatter. They know the houses and the neighbors. People are outside on their porches, and they look alarmed to see their kids and their neighbors’ kids being chased up the street by Marcus and a bunch of guys who look just like him. I guess one of them calls the cops, because a car pulls up and two cops get out. I see that it’s Dunlop and his partner.
Chapter Twelve
Everyone scatters, and all of a sudden there’s just Marcus on the street. Marcus with a rock in his hand, which he is getting ready to throw.
Dunlop’s partner says, “Drop the rock.” He says, “Drop it now.” I see him pull out his gun. He says, “Drop it now and get on the ground, facedown. Now.”
Marcus stares at the two cops and I remember what Asia told me. I look hard at him and I see it. Yeah, he must be scared. He’s been here before, with Dunlop and his partner, and now he’s probably thinking, Shit.
“Drop the rock,” Dunlop’s partner says.
This time Marcus lets go of it. The rock clatters to the pavement.
“Get down,” Dunlop’s partner says. “Now.”
Marcus is staring at Dunlop’s partner and at the gun he’s holding. Me, I’m looking around at James and the rest of them, and at all the people on their porches and front lawns. Only a few of Marcus’s guys have stuck around. Who can blame them? The ones who haven’t run or who aren’t hiding are standing way back, ready to take off if they have to. But they don’t want to leave until they’re sure that Marcus is okay.
“Get down,” Dunlop’s partner says again.
Marcus lowers himself slowly to the pavement. He’s looking around at all the faces on the street, and you can tell he doesn’t want to have to lie down on the ground in front of all these people, no way. And you know what? I don’t blame him.
But he’s down there on the ground anyway. He’s got his neck craned up so he can see what’s happening. Then something changes. He sees Dunlop. I think he’s noticing him for the first time. I think before that, all his attention was focused on the gun that Dunlop’s partner was holding on him.
But now he sees Dunlop and suddenly he doesn’t want to be lying down there anymore, letting himself get handcuffed by Dunlop’s partner and then put into the back of a police car. No way.
I remember what Asia told me.
I know that Marcus and Dunlop know each other and that Dunlop is going to be tough on Marcus.
Dunlop’s partner has one knee on Marcus’s back. He’s pulling one of Marcus’s hands around behind Marcus so that he can cuff him. But Marcus isn’t lying there taking it anymore
. Marcus is trying to get up. He’s fighting to get up. I’m standing close enough that I hear him say one word: lawyer. I see something glint in his hand, the one that Dunlop’s partner hasn’t got hold of yet. I know what Marcus is doing. I know what’s in his hand.
I see Dunlop turn around. I see him look at Marcus struggling. I hear him say, “What the—”
Marcus’s hand, the one that’s still free, comes up and around. That’s when I yell, “He’s got a knife!”
Marcus’s hand, the one that’s holding something, hits Dunlop’s partner on the shoulder. Dunlop yells at his partner, “Down!” Then he shoots, bam, bam, bam—three times. Marcus isn’t moving anymore. The cell phone drops from his hand.
It’s quiet. Everywhere it’s quiet, even though, when I look around, I see that an even bigger crowd has gathered. There are all kinds of people now—people from the neighborhood and people from outside the neighborhood.
I see Asia.
She’s looking right at me, right through me, right into my heart, and I can see that she knows what I’ve done. She stares at me. I see the disappointment in her eyes. And the hatred. It rips into my heart. I want to go to her. I want to explain. I want to lie—I thought I saw a knife. Then I want to tell the truth. But I do neither. Instead I watch Asia walk over to the cops—not Dunlop and his partner, but the ones who have just arrived. I watch her talk to two of them. I see her turn and point at me.
The next time I see Asia is maybe six months later, after the inquiry that clears Dunlop of the shooting. I told them there that I knew Marcus had a knife. I told them I thought he was reaching for it, I was sure I saw it. I told them it was an honest mistake. James and Stephen and John back me up—they say they knew that Marcus had a knife. James even says he was pretty sure he saw it. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I know they asked Asia too. And Asia had to tell them he had a knife. She had to tell them it was true that she worried about him because of the knife.
After the inquiry is over, I come out of school one day and there Asia is, standing down on the sidewalk. My heart races. She walks up to me and I can see that under her coat she is wearing a school uniform. I smile at her. She doesn’t smile back. Then I say what I always wanted to say. I say, “I didn’t read your letters.” I tell her exactly why I didn’t and that I’m sorry. I say, “I thought it was over, because of your parents.”
“I wrote to tell you that I love you,” she says. “I wrote to tell you that no matter what my parents think, I love you.”
I want to wrap my arms around her. I want to kiss her.
But she steps away from me. “I came to tell you, Remy, that I know. I know what you did. I know you lied at the inquiry. I can’t prove it, but I know.”
Her eyes don’t remind me of warm, sweet chocolate anymore. She stares at me, and then she turns and walks away.
I watch her until she is gone.
I want to turn back time. I want to correct all my mistakes. I want everything to be different. But it’s too late.
Norah McClintock has written a number of titles in the Orca Soundings series including the best-selling Tell and Snitch. Norah lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Orca Soundings
Bang
Norah McClintock
Battle of the Bands
K.L. Denman
Blue Moon
Marilyn Halvorson
Breathless
Pam Withers
Bull Rider
Marilyn Halvorson
Bull’s Eye
Sarah N. Harvey
Charmed
Carrie Mac
Chill
Colin Frizzell
Crush
Carrie Mac
The Darwin Expedition
Diane Tullson
Dead-End Job
Vicki Grant
Death Wind
William Bell
Down
Norah McClintock
Exit Point
Laura Langston
Exposure
Patricia Murdoch
Fastback Beach
Shirlee Smith Matheson
Grind
Eric Walters
The Hemingway Tradition
Kristin Butcher
Hit Squad
James Heneghan
Home Invasion
Monique Polak
House Party
Eric Walters
I.D.
Vicki Grant
Juice
Eric Walters
Kicked Out
Beth Goobie
My Time as Caz Hazard
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
No More Pranks
Monique Polak
No Problem
Dayle Campbell Gaetz
One More Step
Sheree Fitch
Overdrive
Eric Walters
Refuge Cove
Lesley Choyce
Responsible
Darlene Ryan
Saving Grace
Darlene Ryan
Snitch
Norah McClintock
Something Girl
Beth Goobie
Sticks and Stones
Beth Goobie
Stuffed
Eric Walters
Tell
Norah McClintock
Thunderbowl
Lesley Choyce
Tough Trails
Irene Morck
The Trouble with Liberty
Kristin Butcher
Truth
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Wave Warrior
Lesley Choyce
Who Owns Kelly Paddik?
Beth Goobie
Yellow Line
Sylvia Olsen
Zee’s Way
Kristin Butcher
Visit www.orcabook.com for all Orca titles.
Orca Currents
Camp Wild
Pam Withers
Chat Room
Kristin Butcher
Cracked
Michele Martin Bossley
Crossbow
Dayle Campbell Gaetz
Daredevil Club
Pam Withers
Dog Walker
Karen Spafford-Fitz
Finding Elmo
Monique Polak
Flower Power
Ann Walsh
Horse Power
Ann Walsh
Hypnotized
Don Trembath
Laggan Lard Butts
Eric Walters
Manga Touch
Jacqueline Pearce
Mirror Image
K.L. Denman
Pigboy
Vicki Grant
Queen of the Toilet Bowl
Frieda Wishinsky
Rebel’s Tag
K.L. Denman
See No Evil
Diane Young
Sewer Rats
Sigmund Brouwer
Spoiled Rotten
Dayle Campbell Gaetz
Sudden Impact
Lesley Choyce
Swiped
Michele Martin Bossley
Wired
Sigmund Brouwer
Visit www.orcabook.com for all Orca titles.
Orca Sports
All-Star Pride
Sigmund Brouwer
Blazer Drive
Sigmund Brouwer
Cobra Strike
Sigmund Brouwer
Hitmen Triumph
Sigmund Brouwer
Hurricane Power
Sigmund Brouwer
Jumper
Michele Martin Bossley
Kicker
Michele Martin Bossley
Rebel Glory
Sigmund Brouwer
Tiger Threat
Sigmund Brouwer
Titan Clash
Sigmund Brouwer
Two Foot Punch
Anita Daher
Winter Hawk Star
Sigmund Brouwer
Visit www.orcabook.com for all Orca titles.