He didn’t have the little in that I had with Principal Johnson. Good old Principal Johnson, not the brightest man to choke on chalk dust.
So I went to plan B. That day when Jed, who was dependable as C’s in math, sat down opposite me in the cafeteria and took my slice of pizza, I picked up my tray, dumped the food off of it, and whacked him hard in the side of the head with it.
It knocked him sideways, almost off the seat, but he caught himself with one hand on the table. His eyes were ice, his teeth bared, and violence shivered under his skin. “Who’s the bitch now?” I asked quietly. “You gonna roll over and take it? Or you gonna stand up and do something about it?” He’d been barely smart enough not to fight in school before, but this was a whole lot of different.
As plans went it wasn’t as idiotic as it seemed. There were teachers already moving towards us. They’d pull him off me before he got me too bad. And then out he’d go. Maybe it’d only be outside the school itself but that was something.
He shook with black anger, but as crazy as he was, he wasn’t as stupid as I thought. I might not get expelled if there was a fight, but he knew he would. And I had a feeling his daddy would be a whole lot more disappointed than mine. I had a feeling Jed was a chip off the old block.
He stood and hissed, “Dead. You’re dead.”
He left the cafeteria and I sighed. Another plan shot to hell. Glumly I sat back down and waited for a teacher to come drag me off to Principal Johnson for a few weeks of detention.
It was actually two months.
After a lot of clutching at his comb over of black hair and warnings on how he couldn’t cover up things like this—he simply couldn’t…he did. Like I knew he would. I was going to have to call Mom to go fetch Tessa from the bus stop and she wasn’t going to be happy at the reason why. Understanding maybe, but not happy.
The same day, after two hours of detention, as I slid through the woods, I heard Jed behind me. This time was the first time I actually heard him howling with fury as he chased me. I might’ve been chunky and short, but I was quick. I had hit that gym door running. Jed hadn’t been as fast.
“You son of a bitch! You son of a bitch! Where are you?” All that was followed by screams of rage. Incoherent animal sounds. Isaac was right. Jed did sound like a monster…a movie monster anyway. I slid under a thick overhang of dead blackberry vines and thought how I definitely hadn’t made things any better. Not to say whacking him with a tray hadn’t felt good, but it hadn’t gotten me out of the trouble I thought it would.
Although, it really, really had felt good.
Finally I climbed a tree, my brown jacket blending in with the bark and held still as he passed like a rabid Doberman beneath me. Swear to God, there was foam flying from his mouth as he screamed for me.
You skip a few Ritalin and things just go to hell.
Right. Like you could blame that kind of nuts on a little ADHD. I hugged the tree, rested my head against it and stayed there for an hour. It was cold, but I didn’t mind the cold. And it got dark, but I didn’t mind that either. As far as monsters went, Jed’s night vision must not have been too hot. He didn’t hang around. I heard his last howl nearly half mile away and then nothing again.
I finally climbed down and went home to face two things a lot worse than Jed: Mom and Dad. Dad ripped me a new one over detention. It didn’t matter why I got it. Skorazys didn’t make waves, didn’t get noticed. Our grandparents and their grandparents had learned that over in Russia. Keep your head down or lose it altogether.
After the yelling was over the worst came. Mom wanted me to help her and Tessa make Christmas cookies for Santa. When I wandered into the kitchen, Tess turned out to be making her Merry Christmas, Santa note in her room, all tongue and crooked crayon writing, as Mom roped me in. “You’ll have a good time, Nicky,” she said, smiling. She was a great mom, a pretty one too even with flour streaked across one cheek. Dark blond hair worn in braid just past her shoulders, violet eyes and a scar that bisected one eyebrow that only made her look curious all the time. I loved my mom. I know I was thirteen and not supposed to think things like that, but I did.
But she wanted me to make cookies for Santa? “You know there’s no Santa, Mom,” I grumped. “This whole Christmas thing,” I opened a bag of chocolate chips, “it’s a waste of time.”