friends had him completely blocked. Maybe with more headroom, he could have jumped over their heads, but what if they grabbed his feet?
“Bet you wished you minded your own business now, snot hair,” Billy taunted.
Zachary’s stomach was so tight it hurt. He considered racing back down to the gym, but Coach Winton always locked those doors between classes. No, it was going to take more than jumping or running to get him out of this. Maybe there was another way.
His voice quavering, Zachary said, “You too scared to fight me alone, Billy?”
Billy’s gaze settled on Zachary’s bruised cheek and lip, and he gave a cruel smile.
“I already beat you pretty good yesterday, snot top. Today, I think I’ll share. Why should I be the only one to have fun?”
Zachary forced breath in and out of his leaden lungs and shifted his gaze to the tallest boy. He lifted his arms and made two awkward fists.
“Come on, Jason. Just you and me then.”
“Good try, grass head,” Billy said, “but now we’re all mad.”
In unison, all four boys moved down one step.
Zachary backed down one.
Jason Kelly was punching one hand with the other, surely not a sign of someone who intended to hang back from the fight. The two skinny boys didn’t look quite as ready, but even if they only held Zachary down, it would be bad. To lose a fight against one person would hurt. To lose a fight against two people would probably hurt twice as much. But, Zachary figured, losing against four people might cripple him for life. The brave voice in his head had long since disappeared. Given half a chance, he would happily have bolted for safety.
He backed down three more steps and grabbed the railing with both hands.
The wall of boys descended one stair closer.
He waited. They descended another stair.
One more, he told himself.
The bullies took another step down, and just as they did Zachary leapt over the railing. Sailing down, he landed painfully on the concrete floor. Nothing seemed broken so he stood and sprinted toward the doors to the gym.
Just as he had feared, they wouldn’t budge.
3) No Way Out
Coach Winton had started locking the gym doors a couple of months before because someone had spray-painted “YOUR BALLS ARE GETTING OLD” all across the basketball court floor. Zachary pulled at the doors again, but neither of them would budge. He was trapped.
“You’re not getting away, Pill!” Billy hollered.
He rushed down the stairs, careened around the lower landing and lunged his heavy body straight at Zachary. Zachary dodged to one side and managed to knock the bigger boy’s first punch with his elbow. Not surprisingly, Jason also rushed down to join the battle. The blond boy tried to grab his shirt, but Zachary had a new plan. He took three huge steps and jumped as hard as he could. As though there were springs under his shoes, he flew twice his height into the air and grabbed the steel railing halfway up the stairway.
“See that!” someone hollered, “he really is a freak!”
Seeing both Billy and Jason grasping for his legs below, Zachary swung his feet up over the railing. Unfortunately, one of the skinny boys was already there, and even though bangs covered both his eyes he didn’t have any problem seeing Zachary’s feet and shoving them back out into the open air. At the same time, the other skinny boy began prying Zachary’s fingers from the railing.
Zachary gritted his teeth and held on for as long as he could, but his grip finally failed.
Four voices laughed as he fell downward.
Twisting to land facing his adversaries, Zachary accidentally kneed Jason in the face on the way down. The tall blond boy screamed, but Zachary had no attention to spare for him because as he hit the floor, Billy’s large boot arced straight for his chest. He scrambled backwards and barely avoided getting his ribs broken. Billy tried to kick him a second time, but Zachary was better prepared and managed to dodge to the side. He looked up, hoping to get past the two high level guards, but one of the skinny boys had already moved to the top of the stairway while the other stayed in the middle. He was trapped.
“Get down here, you cowards,” Billy called up to two boys on the stairs, but neither of them moved.
Damn!
Zachary dodged another of Billy’s awkward kicks but wasn’t quite able to duck the follow-up punch. The bigger boy’s knuckles slammed into the side of his nose.
White hot pain exploded behind his eyes!
Trying to imitate his Uncle Ned, Zackary took a ragged breath and attempted to shake off the pain. No single punch would ever have stopped his uncle; it would only have made him angrier. Zachary made two fists and ducked another of Billy’s jabs, one aimed at the side of his head. Though Zachary didn’t know the first thing about karate, he did know how to kick. Ignoring the blood running from his nose down into his mouth, Zachary leapt up on one foot and kicked out with the other. His sneaker caught Billy solidly in the chest. Like air from a bottle rocket, the breath whooshed from Billy’s lungs as the heavyset boy tumbled backward into the concrete wall.
The big boy recovered quickly, though, and charged. Zachary fended him off with a standing kick, but this time the Billy managed to get hold of his sneaker before it drove into his chest. Billy shoved upward just as Jason stooped down behind Zachary. The combined tag-team move sent Zachary pitching backwards. He tried to brace his arms behind him for the fall, which might have worked if Billy hadn’t chosen that exact moment to jump on top of him. The added weight drove against the already awkward angle of Zachary’s left arm. Pain and arm bones exploded simultaneously as Zachary’s head smashed against the concrete floor. The resulting crack echoed like a gunshot through his head.
Dazed, he felt Jason crawl out from under him. He wanted to cry out as the movement jarred his shattered arm, but he refused to scream. He held it in! He would never give Billy the satisfaction. Never!
He had trouble breathing and tried to roll Billy off from him, but the larger boy was like a train lying across his chest. The pain in his crushed arm was unbelievable and getting worse by the second. Red and white dots swam across his vision. He coughed and felt blood backing up from his nose into his throat. Gagging, he sensed consciousness slipping away.
Is this how it feels to die?
As Billy Timkin rolled to his feet, Zachary’s broken bones grated together like two branches in a storm. New waves of pain brought him back to full consciousness. He drew several gasping breaths and blinked tears away as Jason rushed up the stairs, blood raining from his nose. Billy stood wobbling at the foot of the stairs.
“See you next time, snot hair,” he said. Then he rubbed the back of his head, and limped to join his three friends. In moments, all four disappeared from Zachary’s view. He could hear them hobbling through the hallway somewhere above him.
As quickly as that, the fight was over.
Zachary braced himself with his good right arm and tried to sit up. White hot agony shot from his broken arm straight to his throbbing skull. Gasping, he tried to imagine that his mother would meet him at the nurse’s office if only he could get to his feet. But not even the sheer agony of his injuries could wash away the cruel fact: it had been two years.
She was never coming back.
Feeling like the butt of a cruel and terrible joke, Zachary slumped to the floor. Broken bones ground together as great wracking sobs reverberated off the concrete walls of the stairwell. Zachary Pill the Coward had just become…the World’s Biggest Crybaby.
4) Broken Bones and Panic
The class bell had already rung by the time Zachary Pill made his aching way through the empty halls to Nurse Jacobs’ office. Alarmed, she wiped the blood from his nose and put his arm in a temporary sling. When asked what happened, Zach told her that he was protecting another student from bullies when he was beat up. He knew from experience that naming Billy Timkin and his gang would only lead to the school siding with the other kids. After checking the throbbing lum
p at the back of his head, she picked up the phone.
“You need to come to my office right away,” she said to whoever was on the other end of the line. “It’s the Pill boy.”
Zachary knew he was in trouble when, two minutes later, Vice Principal Galloway entered the room. Large and imposing, he was dressed in a white shirt & blue tie.
“You look like you’ve had a rough morning,” he said.
Zachary chose to stare at the floor rather than answer. He knew nothing he said would satisfy the Vice Principal, and his arm and head hurt too much to argue.
The big man had a brief whispered conversation with Nurse Jacobs, during which his foot tapped impatiently. His eyes dripped with disappointment as his size thirteen feet crossed the room to where he picked up the phone and dialed a number from a file he held in his thick, clamp-like hand.
“Mr. Pill?” he said, his voice firm and commanding.
Zachary couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation.
“This is Peter Galloway, Vice Principal of East Boston Junior High School. Yes, Zachary has gotten into a bit of trouble again. This time his arm has been broken, and Nurse Jacobs fears he may have a concussion. It’s her opinion that we should get him over to Mass General’s Emergency Room right awa—”
Mr. Galloway paused for a moment then glanced toward Zachary.
“I’m not sure you understand, Mr. Pill. It’s not just his broken arm.” He turned away and lowered his voice, but Zachary could still