They smiled. Not Welcome Wagon smiles. These were the smiles of wolves checking out a sheep who has wandered into a trap.
I began to back down the hall, away from them.
“Not so fast,” the biggest one said. “Look behind you.”
“Nice trick,” I said. “Like I'm going to fall for that?”
“No trick, loser,” a voice behind me said. “It's time to teach you a lesson.”
I turned my head quickly.
Two more guys. Big. Leather vests. Ragged jeans. Black rose tattoos on their left biceps. They were blocking my way back to the main hallway. They too were walking toward me, moving slowly, smiles on their faces.
One of them had a cell phone. The other waved a switchblade.
“I don't get it,” I said. “How do you guys get weapons into the school?”
“Easy,” he said, kissing the blade with mock sweetness. “Someone tossed this one to me from outside. All I had to do was wait at the window we'd agreed on. Then I just hid it in my locker until I needed it.”
“Good to know,” I said, trying to sound brave.
The other guy spoke into his cell phone.
“We've got him here in the
A
wing,” he said. “We'll bring him down the back stairs. Meet us there.”
There were others?
My face must have shown my surprise.
“We have guys all over the school,” the one with the knife said, answering my silent question. “Call it a network. A secret network. You can't get away from us.”
This is what I knew from a self-defense course: The best time to resist is right away. If someone comes up to you in a parking lot and tries to force you into a car, the first thirty seconds are crucial. Once someone gets you into a car, you're in more trouble. Once that person gets you out of the city, you're in even bigger trouble. And so on. Resist loudly and publicly, and nine times out of ten, the bad guy will run away.
So I screamed as loud as I could.
Nobody ran away.
“Security guard's at the other end of the school,” the guy with the cell phone said.
“Someone is watching him and will call me if he gets too close.”
Oh.
So I did the next best thing.
I ran.
They thought there was nowhere for me to go. But there was one place they hadn't covered: the open door to a classroom right beside me.
I slammed the door shut. A desk was nearby.
In one motion I pulled it toward the door. I tilted it and wedged it under the handle just as they reached the door.
Through the door's window, I saw them laughing.
They weren't worried that I'd get away.
I heard the guy on the cell phone tell someone where I was.
One of the others rattled the handle. The door was stuck. He pushed hard and the door gave a little. I could see that the legs of the desk would probably slip on the waxed floor. I guessed I had less than thirty seconds to do something.
I ran to the desk at the front of the classroom. There was a telephone that I hoped was connected to the office. And I hoped the gum-snapping secretary was still there.
I picked it up.
It dialed automatically.
It rang.
No answer.
Three rings. Four. Five...
The desk slipped, and the door opened slightly as all four guys pushed.
I dropped the phone and ran to the window.
The school grounds were nearly empty. This wasn't the type of place kids hung around if they didn't have to.
I looked down. I didn't like what I saw. Two long stories down to the bushes that grew along the building.
But more banging at the door made me act.
I opened a window.
I stuck my head out and looked to the right.
A drainpipe!
The rusted drainpipe was easily within my reach. Even if I only had time to crawl halfway down, I could get close enough to the ground to jump safely.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They almost had the door open wide enough to get in.
I couldn't wait. I stretched out to reach the drainpipe, hoping it would hold my weight. I got my hands on it and let my body slide out the window.
It held! So far, so good.
I began to lower myself, scraping my knees and elbows against the rough sandstone wall.
Five seconds later, I heard voices above me.
I expected someone to reach out to try and shake the drainpipe. I was still too far off the ground to jump. All I needed was five more seconds.
Then I heard the guy on the cell phone.
“Call them in from all points,” he said calmly from above me. “Get them to the back of the school. He's climbing down the
wall. You should be able to trap him on the ground.”
All points? How many were there?
I found out seconds later.
Halfway down the drainpipe, I looked around. The once-empty grounds outside the school were no longer empty.
At least a dozen guys were jogging toward me from different corners of the school.
I didn't have much choice. I had to get to the ground as quickly as possible. I scooted down the drainpipe a few more feet.
I checked the ground.
I was right above a bush.
As I pushed off the drainpipe, I caught the edge of the bush and rolled onto the grass. Then I scrambled to my hands and knees.
It didn't feel like I had broken any bones. That was the good news.
The bad news was that three guys were
already so close I didn't have a chance. I couldn't possibly get up and run before they caught me.
Then there was the other bad news. It was a smell I wished I didn't recognize. I looked down.
Sure enough, my nose had not lied. Half of it was still on the grass beneath me. The other half was smeared on my shirt.
What was it with Florida dogs? Were they all huge and able to eat like elephants? And do other stuff like elephants?
I raised my head again. Two guys stood right in front of me.
I knew a third one was behind me. That wasn't hard to figure out after I felt him kick me.
“Get up,” one of them said. “It's time for a talk.”
Farther away, I could see that the others had slowed down. After all, now that I was trapped there was no reason to run.
The guy behind me kicked me again. I didn't really think they wanted to talk.
I could think of only one thing to do.
I really didn't want to do it. I mean, if I'd had any luck, I would have landed in a place where I could scoop sand or dirt in my hands and throw it in their faces to give me a chance to get away.
But, of course, there was no sand or dirt. I was on grass.
That left me only one thing to throw in their faces.
I brought my hands together as I got ready to stand. My head and shoulders hid what my hands were doing. I grabbed the weapon that the big dog had left me. A scoop in each hand.
I stood up.
And I threw with all my might at the two guys in front of me.
It splattered in their faces, covering their eyes and noses.
While they were blinded, I took my chance. I bolted forward, hoping to leave them in the dust shouting about what had hit them in the face.
But the guy behind me managed to get a hand on my shirt. He spun me around and
grabbed my shoulders. I stood face-to-face with a wide-shouldered kid with dark hair and angry eyes.
I reached out, wiping both of my hands across his face, catching mainly his mouth and chin.
He dropped his hands from my shoulders, gagging and spitting, which gave me some open space.
I took it.
My feet still hurt a bit from where the tacks had poked through my shoes, but I hardly felt the pain. I ran at full speed, aiming for a gap that was quickly closing as the others moved to cut me off.
They didn't have a chance.
They weren't running for their livesâI was.
The closest any of them came to me was five yards. Then I was past them all, out in the open field. It became a foot race, with me leading about eight or nine guys.
I headed for the far corner of the grounds, about two hundred yards away. I had seen an opening someone had cut in the chain-link
fence. By the time I reached it, my lead had increased to fifty yards.
I burst through the opening. I had two choices. Right or left. Up the street or down. Up the street toward houses and trees and yards and parked cars. Or down the street toward stores and parking lots and restaurants.
I decided to head up the street. I hoped the guy with the cell phone didn't have other people hiding up there.
I pushed hard, pounding along the sidewalk. The more I ran, the less my feet hurt.
It was so good to be free, I didn't even care about the smell that filled my nostrils with every deep breath I took.
Now all I had to do was find a safe place to hide. And a place to wash my hands.
As I ran, I wondered if I should call the police. The guys behind me were falling farther and farther back. In a few minutes, I would be far enough away to cut into a yard, come out the other side somewhere and disappear. That would give me time to find a telephone.
But all I'd be able to tell the police was that some guys had been chasing me. “To do what?” the police would ask. “I don't know,” I'd have to say. “I didn't let them catch me.”
“So what do you expect us to do?” the police would ask.
“I don't know,” I'd have to say. “Can you ask them to leave me alone?” And the police would laugh at me like I was a little cry-baby.
I reached a corner and turned hard. I'd settled into a fast jog, and my lungs and legs were getting into a good rhythm. I wasn't worried about running out of energy anytime soon. I was more worried about Monday, when I returned to school. After all, how often could I escape from these guys? And for that matter, what had I done wrong? And what was this network thing about? Spies everywhere in the school? Connected by cell phones?
I turned another corner, cut through a yard and jumped a low hedge. It took me into another yard. I saw a hose stretched into a flower bed with the water running.
I stopped. My chest was heaving for air, but I wasn't in pain.
I reached out for the water, scrubbing my hands together, cleaning them as quickly as I could.
I looked back but saw no signs of anyone. I hoped they had given up, but I wasn't going to take a chance.
I put my thumb over the end of the hose to shoot water at the front of my shirt. The water was cold and made me gasp. But I kept spraying, trying to drive off as much of the stuff as I could. I was sure I'd have to throw the shirt away, like I had the other one. But at least I wouldn't have the stuff clinging to me as I went home.
Still no sign of anyone. I began jogging again, slipping out the back of the yard and onto a different street.
As I ran, I passed an old rusting Cadillac parked by the curb. The back window was smashed out. The rear bumper was totally crunched. I remembered it from the night before, when Dad and I had gone to Carlos's house.
I had found Carlos's neighborhood again.
Still running hard, I looked more closely at the houses on each side of the street. With the sun shining bright in a cloudless sky, the
street looked very different from the way it had the night before. I recognized some of the houses. A half block later, I stood in front of the big old house where Carlos and his family lived.
I stared at the huge house with its broken windows. Clothes hung from balconies to dry in the breeze.
I told myself this had all started with Carlos. If he was the problem, then he might also be the solution.
I ran up the front walk. I pushed the door open, smelling the same scent of garlic and grease from the night before, hearing the same loud television from somewhere on the main floor. As I walked up the stairs, I heard babies crying somewhere above me. I walked down the hallway and passed the same doors with the same chipped and peeling paint.
I stopped in front of the door that led to Carlos's family's two-room apartment.
I knocked and waited.
Carlos opened the door. He didn't say a thing.
He looked up and down the hallway. Ignoring my soaking-wet T-shirt, he pulled me inside and bolted the door behind me.
“You must be crazy,” he said. “What you doing here? Man, people see us together, I'm dead.”
His brothers and sisters wandered out of the small bedroom at the back of the apartment. They stared at me. They spoke to one
another in Spanish. Probably talking about my wet T-shirt.
His father and mother weren't here. Or if they were, they stayed in the other room.
“I'm here because I don't want to have to worry about getting knifed at school,” I said. “The people you hang with aren't too nice. And for some reason, they don't like me.”
“They don't like you because you put your nose where it don't belong. Just like now.” He sniffed the air. “Man, speaking about noses...”
He sniffed again. “Is that what I think it is?”
“How's your little sister?” I asked. I didn't want to answer his question.
“Better,” he said. He sniffed again. “What do you do? Look for that stuff and roll in it? Are you some kind of sick?”
“Some kind of unlucky. And again, it's your fault.”
“Me? I don't push you into it. I don'tâ”
“You looked me up in the school computer, didn't you?” I looked squarely into his face. “When you saw my dad was a doctor,
you decided to visit because Juanita was sick.”
“It wasn't me,” he said. “It was them. I just overheard them talking about you and your family and where you lived.”
“âThem'?” I asked. “Who is âthem'?”
He didn't answer.
“They changed my grades too, didn't they? Who are they? And how do they get into the system?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “I can't tell you anything.”