Parts & Labor (5 page)

"It
means he can't protect you against your prior run-ins with the bullies, only
your future ones."

"Well,
that sucks."

"Dee, ask him to give us a group rate."

"That
is his group rate."

"We
can't afford that."

"Survival
doesn't come cheap."

"Maybe
we could buy the bullies off cheaper."

"We're
gonna pay Vic to leave us alone?" Sunny said. "That's what my
parents had to do in Seoul, pay the street gangs so they could keep their
business open. That's why we moved to America."

Eddie
shrugged. "It's a global economy."

We
ate our lunch and brainstormed other ways to ensure our survival that school
year, but nothing sounded promising. I glanced around. The noisy cafeteria looked
like an Apple store. Kids were listening to music on their iPods and playing
games on their iTouches and texting and talking on their iPhones—in English,
Spanish, Swahili, Croatian, Australian—twenty-seven different languages were
spoken at our elementary school.

"Place
sounds like the General Assembly at the U.N.," Sunny said.

She
had actually been to the United Nations.

"You
gonna eat the rest of your muffin?" I asked Dee.

He
tossed the muffin to me. We finished our lunches and got up right before the
other students became rambunctious, as they always did by this time at lunch.
Half-eaten apples and banana peels and empty milk cartons suddenly flew through
the air from one side of the cafeteria; retaliation from the other side was
swift—someone yelled, "Fire the artillery!"—and wadded-up lunch bags,
a barrage of grapes, and muffins rained down on the aggressors. Sunny shook
her head.

"Public
school in America."

While
Mrs. Nelson and the other teacher tried to restore order to the cafeteria, we carefully
maneuvered along the wall to avoid becoming collateral damage as well as being
spotted by the bullies. We were almost to the door when Vic swiveled around in
his chair. He was grinning.

"See
you in PE, Max."

Four
balls hit me simultaneously, one right on the side of my head. I went down to
the gym floor.

"Medic!"

Man,
I really hated dodge ball. For three reasons: A, all the girls got picked for
the teams before I did—even Sunny, and she couldn't throw the ball worth a
darn. Two, Coach Slimes—his real name was Grimes, but we called him Slimes—was
a big fat jerk who'd had a mad on since first grade when he got stuck teaching
PE at the elementary school when all he wanted to do was coach football at the
middle school where he was an assistant coach. Consequently, he enjoyed seeing
pain inflicted on us by his future stars, Vic and his posse. C, I always got
creamed. And D, I was always the first player to get out. Oh, that was four
reasons I hated dodge ball. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Vic's
cackling voice and saw him and his boys standing just over the centerline.

"Come
on, Max, get up so we can knock you down again."

Do
I look stupid?
(Don't answer that.)

Fortunately,
I was wearing my rec specs so I could find my way to the sideline. I crawled
on my belly like a soldier in a live-fire drill at boot camp—balls whistling
past overhead like bullets, pained screams rising above the squeaking of
sneakers on the wood floor, kids getting nailed and falling to the floor—but I
was safe down here—it was against the rules to hit a downed player. Coach
Slimes was sitting on his big butt and grinning like a goober when I crawled to
the sideline. I wanted to tell him that stretch knit coach's shorts on a
chubby guy wasn't a good look, but I decided against it. He might send me back
into the game.

"
'Medic'—that's funny, Max. Not as funny as my boys nailing you with four balls
at once—see, now that's teamwork—but funny."

"Oh,
glad you enjoyed it, Coach."

See?
I told you he was a big fat jerk. Dee soon crawled over and joined me along
the wall, followed by Eddie.

"Whazzup,
amigos?
" Eddie said.

We
high-fived each other. We had survived another day of dodge ball. On the way
out of the gym after PE, Vic gave me a wicked grin and said, "After
school, Max, you're dead."

Only
if they caught me.

It
was three-thirty and I was running again. The same route, the same chase, the
same game. All four were chasing me on their scooters. Any hope that Vic and
his gang would get bored with bullying me and find another victim had ended
when I puked on their Legends. Now they wanted their six hundred dollars,
which I didn't have and would never have. Which meant I would soon be dead.
But maybe not today. I had a good lead on them when I rounded Mrs. Baker's
hedgerow—only two more blocks to go—and I was feeling pretty confident that I
could beat them around my hedgerow so I wasn't too worried when—

My
left leg tightened up.

Aw,
man, I'm gonna pull a hammy.

Then
my right foot almost slipped out of my sneaker.

Dang,
the laces had come untied.

I
couldn't stop and tie the laces, so it was like trying to run in flip-flops. I
crossed Third Street and prayed they'd stop to admire Mrs. Cushing's garden—she
was bent over in her short-shorts—"Hi, Max!" she yelled between her
legs. But they didn't. They zipped right past her house. Then—

"Whoa!"

I
hit the downhill slope. My speed increased, but my feet didn't—
the dang
shoe kept slipping!
My body was now tipping forward too much and the heavy
backpack pressed against my back and the buzzing noise was almost on top of me
but I was almost to the hedgerow when—

I
ran out of my shoe.

Not
good
.

The
backpack bounced then hit me hard which tipped my upper body forward even more
but my one-shoed feet stayed back which caused me to lean forward even farther
… too far … and I—

Uh-oh.

—
tripped and hit the concrete and tumbled down the
sidewalk. When I stopped rolling and looked up, I realized that I had ended up
at exactly the same spot as the day before, right in front of the neighbors'
house. And Vic and his crew again surrounded me like a pack of hyenas about to
pounce on a fat juicy baby antelope like on that PBS show. Except I was the
prey today.

"You're
dead, Max," Vic said.

They
jumped off their scooters and crowded around me. Vic snatched my backpack.

"Unless
you got six hundred bucks in here."

I
didn't. I had snack money. Which Vic found.

"Two
dollars?" Vic said. "That's all your mother gives you? Oh, yeah,
you're poor now 'cause your dad got himself—"

"Shut
up, Vic!"

I
jumped up and swung at Vic, but he dodged my fist then punched me hard in the
stomach. I doubled over, and they all started pounding me harder than they
ever had before. Every time before I had cried. But today I didn't cry.
Today I got mad. Really mad. All the anger that had been building inside me
the last five months … all my anger at these bullies shooting spitballs at
me during English class and rubber bands during Math and blasting me in dodge ball
during PE and pounding my iPod into pieces and bullying me every day before
school and during school and after school … at five months of crying myself
to sleep and missing my dad and trying to be the man of the house and failing because
I was only ten years old … at not being big enough to fix the house or mow
the grass … at seeing Mom cry because she couldn't pay our bills … at
that stupid therapist acting like he knew how I felt … at the Army and the
government and those mean Taliban people in Afghanistan … all that anger
now energized my entire body and made my hands ball up into tight fists and the
heat built inside me like a ticking time bomb and then I finally—

EXPLODED.

I
screamed louder than I had ever screamed in my entire life—"NOOOO!"—and
my fists shot out at them and—

—they
flew down the sidewalk as if they had been shot from a cannon.

The
world froze.

I
stood there, my body shaking with anger, my arms still extended in midair, as if
I were that soldier in the Civil War monument on the State Capitol grounds.
Vic and Biff lay sprawled on the sidewalk twenty feet one way and Bud and Rod
twenty feet the other way. They stared at me with stunned expressions—the same
expression I knew was on my face. After a long moment, Bud broke the silence.

"How'd
he do that?"

I
looked at my fists.

"How'd
I do that?"

I
could tell from his confused expression that Vic's dull mind was trying to answer
the same question. All I had done was throw my fists out at them. I didn't
remember even hitting them. But I must've hit them. Hard.

"Vic,"
Biff said, "look at our scooters."

Their
scooters lay further down the sidewalk. They got up and walked over and lifted
them. The metal frames were twisted like pretzels.

"How'd
he do that?" Rod said.

Vic's
dark eyes darted from me to his scooter and back to me.

"That
scooter cost five hundred bucks, Max."

"Wow,
bullying is getting expensive for you, Vic."

"This
ain't over, Max."

But
it was over for that day. Vic dragged his scooter down the sidewalk toward Second Street.

"Vic,"
Rod said, "Let's go this way. Mrs. Cushing's outside."

Vic
didn't turn back. He just said, "Shut up."

Rod
shrugged then followed Vic. He pulled his scooter like a kid with a broken toy.
Biff and Bud trailed behind with their scooters. They gave me dirty looks as
they passed by, but they also gave me space. I looked at my fists again.

"How'd
I do that?"

I
looked up from my fists to the second-story window of the neighbors' house and
saw the same pale face.

"S-T-R-A-N-G-E,"
I said. I put down my letters on the Scrabble board. "Eight points plus a
fifty-point bonus for using all seven letters."

We
were playing Scrabble and eating dinner. Whole wheat spaghetti and organic tomato
sauce with meatballs made from leftover bison. Which Maddy had put on her
head.

"Good
word, Max," Mom said.

"Thanks."
I sniffed the air. "Something's burning."

"Oh,
no, the rolls!"

Mom jumped up and yanked open the oven door. Smoke billowed out. She waved at the smoke then pulled
the tray out of the oven and set it on the counter. The rolls looked like
little black charcoals. Mom tried to open the window above the sink, but it
was stuck. Again. She dropped her head and closed her eyes like she was about
to lose it, but she took a few deep breaths and calmed herself.

"Sorry,
guys, no rolls."

"That's
okay, Mom," I said.

She
sat back down and poured another glass from another long bottle.

"Max,
did those boys bully you today?"

"They
tried. But you won't believe what happened," I said while stuffing long
strands of spaghetti into my mouth. "Vic and his posse chased me home on
their scooters again, and I was almost to the hedgerow by our house but my
shoelace came untied, and I ran out of my shoe and tripped right in front of
the house next door. They surrounded me and grabbed my backpack and stole my snack
money and then they said something about Dad, and I tried to punch Vic but he
punched me in the gut instead, and they started pounding me, and I got really mad,
and I threw my fists out at them like this"—I demonstrated—"and they just
went flying way down the sidewalk. Their scooters were all bent up and ruined.
I think I'm like the Hulk."

"The
Hulk?"

"Yeah,
he's a nice guy until he gets mad, then he turns into the Hulk with superpowers."

"You
beat up four bigger boys?"

"Yep."

I
swallowed and looked up. Mom and Scarlett were staring at me.

"You're
right, Max," Scarlett said.

"That
I have superpowers like the Hulk?"

"That
we don't believe you."

"It's
the truth."

"Liar."

"I'm
not a liar!"

"No.
That's my word." She put down four letters. "L-I-A-R. Four
points."

Mom looked real concerned. "Max, the therapist said if you didn't talk about the anger,
you could explode. That's not good for you."

"It
was good for me today. Mom, beating up the bullies, that was way better than
seeing that therapist."

"Max,
violence never solves anything."

She
had never been bullied.

"It
solved a big problem today. Besides, Dad told me he had fights growing
up."

Mom smiled. "He was an Irish boy trying to survive South Boston."

"I'm
trying to survive fourth grade."

Scarlett
won again, and we finished dinner. I put my dishes in the sink then headed
upstairs but turned back to tell Mom that I was just going to the bathroom and
would be back down to wash the dishes. I was almost to the kitchen door when I
heard Mom and Scarlett whispering like they always did now whenever they were
talking about me or Maddy. So I listened at the door like the time Mom talked to Scarlett about the facts of life, which grossed me out so much I could only listen
for an hour.

"He
sleeps with his teddy bear," Scarlett said.

Dang,
she ratted me out.

"I
know," Mom said.

She
knew? Is there anything moms don't know?

"The
therapist said his world's been turned upside down, that he needs a sense of
security, something that makes him feel safe."

"He's
sleeping with his teddy, and Maddy's sleeping with you."

"And
what about you, Scarlett?"

"I
don't sleep."