She wandered outside at recess and stood in the shadow of one of the oak trees at the edge of the school grounds. The day was warm, and an impromptu touch football game was underway on the grass on the eastern side of the building. Other children were clustered around the rows of picnic tables alongside the school’s brick wall, watching the game, laughing as they squinted against the sun, talking with each other. Livia felt apart from all of it, as though some secret pollution had made its way inside her, a pollution the other children must have sensed even if they couldn’t really know.
She noticed a boy come through the doors at the back of the building—the new boy, Sean something, an eighth grader like her who the teacher had introduced in homeroom. Sean’s father had been hired for an important job in Mr. Lone’s ammunition factory, the teacher had explained, and that’s why Sean had transferred to Llewellyn in the middle of the school year. The teacher had invited Sean up to the whiteboard to say a few words about himself. Livia had watched him, small for his age, walk slowly to the front as though agonized by each step, and she realized he was shy, maybe even more shy than she was. He had caramel-colored skin peppered with freckles, almond-shaped eyes, and dark, kinky hair. It looked like one of his parents was black, and the other Asian. Maybe it made him feel awkward, because almost all the other students at the school were pasty white. If so, she understood how he felt.
But when he tried to speak, Livia realized his shyness was something else. Sean stuttered. Only a little at first, but the moment it happened, the other children started laughing, and then the stuttering got worse. The teacher tried to stop them, but succeeded only in converting outright guffaws into suppressed sniggers. Sean managed to stammer out a few more words, then returned to his seat, his eyes downcast, his caramel-colored cheeks inflamed. Livia felt sorry for him, and wanted to yell at the other children to stop, but she knew all that would accomplish would be to make them laugh at her, as well.
He paused now at the corner of the building and looked over at the football game, at the children sitting at the picnic tables. Holding his books in one hand, he placed the other against the brick wall as though seeking reassurance, then stood there for a moment, his head poking past the corner, his body behind it. He didn’t notice Livia, and no one else seemed to notice him. Then he turned and started walking back toward the entrance.
The doors opened again, and Eric, the ninth grader who liked to taunt her about her accent, strode out, his two bully friends behind him. Livia instinctively tightened her hold on her books.
“Hey,” Eric said loudly. “It’s Stutter Boy.”
Sean stopped and looked at Eric and the other two, his expression worried.
Eric came closer. He smiled. “Say something, S-S-S-Stutter Boy.”
Sean shook his head and took a step back.
Livia felt paralyzed. She wanted to help. She knew she should. And in her life before, before everything that had been done to her and Nason, before she’d been brought to this horrible place, before Mr. Lone had made her feel so poisoned and alone and helpless . . . she would have.
At the same time, she was relieved that Eric and the other two were bullying someone else. And even as she realized it, she was engulfed by a wave of shame.
Help him, she thought. But she felt so weak. So useless. So afraid.
Eric took a step closer. His smile faded. “Say something, Stutter Boy. Or I’ll make you say something.”
Again, Sean’s only response was a shake of his head. It was the oddest thing—his face was frightened, but there was something in his posture that seemed . . . prepared, somehow. He had turned his body slightly so that his left side was facing Eric, and with one hand he was holding his books close to his chin, almost like a shield, while his other hand was up and open in a gesture Livia thought was meant to look placating, but that also looked . . . practiced, somehow. Deliberate.
Eric shot out a hand and knocked Sean’s books out of his arm. They hit the ground, but Sean didn’t look away. He kept his hands up, palms forward, elbows close to his body.
One of Eric’s bully friends laughed and said, “I g-g-guess you’re going to have to make him, Eric.”
Eric grunted a laugh, then reached for Sean. What happened next went so fast that Livia wasn’t sure what she had seen.
Sean grabbed Eric’s incoming wrist and pulled it hard. At the same instant, he planted a foot on Eric’s thigh and launched himself into the air in some kind of somersault. He caught Eric’s arm between his legs, and for a moment just hung like that, suspended upside down from Eric’s body, supported only by his grip on the wrist and his legs clamped on the arm. Eric was pulled into a crouch by Sean’s weight. He staggered once as he tried to keep his balance, then fell to the ground with a surprised yelp. Sean hung on to the arm, his ankles crossed over Eric’s chest, his back arched. Eric’s friends watched bug eyed, apparently too shocked to intervene.
“You g-going to bother me anymore?” Sean said.
Eric kicked and struggled. Sean arched his back more, and Eric yelped again, louder this time.
“You going to bother me anymore?” Sean said. Livia noticed that this time, he didn’t stutter.
Eric thrashed harder. “Let me go, you little fucking—”