Angela took to wearing those boots all the time, not just at the cabin, which meant she wore them to school. The other girls made fun of her for wearing work boots rather than feminine shoes. Angela didn’t care what they said or what they thought of her. She wore them because she liked them. She thought that a short skirt went well with the boots.
They weren’t only good for wearing in the woods, they were good for walking home from school in bad weather. They became part of her the way her grandfather’s boots were part of him.
Besides the boots and not dressing like the other kids, Angela didn’t act like them. She didn’t think like them. She didn’t care about the childish things they cared about.
When she refused the drugs and alcohol the other kids were starting to get into, it made her the object of ridicule. Her mother had probably started out like them. Angela had seen firsthand how that had turned out and wanted no part of it.
She had more important things in her life. She had her grandparents and their cabin. She had woods trails to hike, and mountains to climb. She had lakes to fish. Sometimes there was nothing better than skipping rocks across a glassy lake.
The other girls at school often called her a freak, among other things. When it came right down to it, she couldn’t really argue with them. She was the offspring of freaks. She had been born a freak. She didn’t like being called names but she saw no point in getting into a fight over it. The other girls were even more annoyed when Angela didn’t respond to their taunts than Angela was at being called the names.
Because she was so obviously different in ways they couldn’t exactly put their finger on, the other kids were wary of her, so it rarely went beyond name calling. On a couple of occasions another girl, emboldened by her friends, would start a fight. If they pulled at her clothes, Angela smacked them. If they slapped her once, Angela punched them on the arm three times. If they pulled her hair, she knocked them down. But it never got to the point of anyone getting hurt, mostly because that was enough to stop them, and if they stopped, Angela stopped.
Such encounters only added to the word around school that you didn’t want to make Angela angry. The reason, though, that girls called her names and picked on her was more and more a matter of them being jealous of her looks and because the boys they liked were beginning to pay a lot of attention to Angela. She ignored the boys the same as she ignored the girls, but that didn’t stop them from being interested. In fact, it only seemed to make them more interested. At least they didn’t call her names.
One day when she was going home from school, three girls several grades above her stopped her in the parking lot of the liquor store she had to pass by on her way to the trailer park. These were not the ordinary girls she was used to dealing with, not her classmates who snickered at her, or whispered names, or even yanked her hair as they ran by.
These three were at least a head taller than Angela, and wider. She recognized them as the popular girls the jocks at school liked. They had perfect clothes and perfect hair and perfect nails. They laughed at Angela, called her trailer trash, and pointed at the work boots she was wearing. The boots that were like her grandfather’s.
Angela didn’t much care if they laughed at her—she was used to that—and she certainly didn’t want to get into a fight with girls who were so much bigger than her. She kept her head down and tried to get past by walking around them.
As she did, the tallest girl stepped in and slammed an unexpected punch into Angela’s gut.
It wasn’t the typical girl punch Angela was used to. It was a full-force hook by a strong older girl who meant to hurt her.
The blow staggered Angela back. She spiraled down to the grimy asphalt, doubled over in pain. Mouth open wide, she gasped for air but couldn’t get her breath. And then, holding herself up with one hand, as the world spun around her, she vomited. All the while they laughed at her and called her a freak.
Then the girl who had punched her kicked her in the side. She yelled out to the other two, “Mess her up good!”
Something inside snapped. Angela spun as she came up, whipping her leg around, and hard as she could landed a boot in the face of the girl who had hit her. She could feel bone break. Blood sprayed across the other two girls.
The big girl went down hard. She was out.
The other two bent down to the unconscious girl lying there on the crumbling asphalt, among the cigarette butts and trash. As they screamed and cried hysterically, Angela simply brushed herself off and went home.
ELEVEN
The next day at school Angela was pulled out of class, taken to the principal’s office, and made to sit in a chair in the waiting room. The principal, Mr. Ericsson, came out and said that her mother wasn’t answering her phone. Angela wasn’t surprised. Her mother usually didn’t answer her phone unless she was looking to score something. If she already had, Angela didn’t think her mother would even hear the phone.
Mr. Ericsson stood over her, hands on his hips, and asked who else he could call to come get her. Angela didn’t really want to get her grandparents involved, or have them see her in trouble, but she didn’t know anyone else, so she finally gave the principal their number. Angela waited alone outside Mr. Ericsson’s office until her grandfather showed up.
Before he could say anything to Angela, a sober-faced woman immediately ushered them both into the principal’s office and shut the door behind them. They sat in wooden chairs before the principal’s old wooden desk. Mr. Ericsson drummed his fingers on the desk as he scowled.
“You’re Mr. Constantine? Angela’s grandfather?”
“That’s right. What’s she done?”
Mr. Ericsson cast Angela a dirty look before turning his attention back to her grandfather.
“She put another girl in the hospital, that’s what she’s done. Broke bones in her face. She’s going to require surgery.”
Her grandfather turned toward Angela, looking at her without saying anything. He didn’t need to say anything. She knew what the look meant.
“On my way home, three older girls stopped me in the parking lot of the liquor store on Barlow Street,” she explained to her grandfather. “They called me names. I tried to walk away but the biggest one punched me in the stomach. It hurt so much it made me vomit. When I was down on the ground she kicked me hard in the side and I heard her tell the other two to mess me up good. I knew they were going to hurt me bad. I knew I couldn’t outrun them.
“So I came up and planted my boot hard as I could in the face of the girl who had hit me. She went down. There was a lot of confusion and screaming. I went home.”
Her grandfather gave her a nod, looking relieved by her answer. He turned back to the principal.
“What are we doing here? Have you called us in to file some kind of charges against these three girls?”
The principal’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Mr. Constantine, Angela hurt another girl badly enough to put her in the hospital. We’re expelling Angela from school.”
Her grandfather frowned. “Expelling her? Why? You just heard her. She was defending herself. Had she not put that girl down, then the three of them would probably have put Angela in the hospital, if not worse.”
“Mr. Constantine, we have a zero-tolerance policy against violence.”
“Violence? It wasn’t violence,” her grandfather said in a calm voice. “It was self-preservation.”
Mr. Ericsson sat back and laced his fingers together on top of his prominent belly. “Angela put another girl in the hospital. We can’t tolerate such violence. That’s why she is being expelled.”
“Are you expelling the other three girls?”
He looked confused. “No, of course not. Why would we? Don’t you understand? They were the ones Angela hurt. One of them, anyway.”
A dark look came over Vito’s face. “So you’re defending the violent girls who attacked Angela and you’re punishing her for being their victim.”
“Well, no, that’s not exactly—”
“Did you ever see someone’s head split open like a melon on concrete?”