The fight between Curly Bennett and Hickman Holmely was the talk of the school the next day.

“Did you see his face afterward? He probably won’t come back to classes at all after taking a pounding as severe as that one.”

“He beat him to a bloody pulp!”

“Wait,” someone asked, “you mean to say Curly Bennett beat Hickman Holmely?”

Bucky Baylis said, “No! Hickman delivered a great proper thumping to Curly!”

“No!”

Since Hickman and I were considered to be the most intelligent boys in the school, most people believed us to be both unwilling and incapable of fighting. Particularly fighting someone as tough as Curly Bennett.

Buster said, “It’s true; ask Red!”

All eyes fell on me.

“Yes,” I said, “it was as though Curly’s heart was not in the matter at all.”

“Why’d they fight?”

“Curly sneaked up behind Petey Demers and …”

“Wait. Oh, I see, it was Petey Demers who whipped Curly! That makes a whole lot more sense.”

“No!” the Baylis boys and I shouted at the same time.

“Then how was Petey Demers involved?”

“If you’d listen quietly, I could explain,” Buster said. “Curly punched Petey, and Petey just walked away, so Curly mentioned to Petey that Petey’s mother wasn’t good enough to get a white man to marry her and …”

“Oh, poppycock! Curly said that about Petey’s mother and we aren’t at Curly’s funeral today? Nonsense. There’s no way even someone as ill-bred as Curly Bennett would say that.”

The Baylis boys and I said, “He did!”

We were standing at the side of the school, waiting for the bell, when the whispering suddenly stopped and all eyes went to the bend in the road. Hickman Holmely and Curly Bennett were walking side by side. They were laughing and in such a cheery mood that they might as well have been holding hands!

No one said a word as the odd pair approached.

If one were to look beyond the laughing and high spirits, their physical appearance suggested they had been caught in the pounding surf at Lake Erie during a gale. Hickman’s right eye was swollen shut; a trail of four parallel scratches started on his right cheek and ran over to the left, interrupted only by his nostrils. A plum-sized lump protruded from the centre of his forehead as if he were attempting to become a unicorn.

But Curly had clearly been left with the short end of the stick.

Hickman’s fists had found all the same spots on Curly’s face that his father had, and several more as well. A tremendous cut on his chin had been stitched closed, but the effort was wasted; flaps of flesh were dangling from the split that had been carelessly joined by green pieces of thread. His chin looked as though a farsighted person had attempted to sew two thickly cut slices of bacon together in a dark room.

In spite of their injuries, Curly and Hickman behaved as if everything was normal, as if their bumps and bruises and cuts were regular features on their faces.

Hickman said, “Hey, fellas, what’s everyone talking about?”

We were all too thunderstruck to answer.

Curly said, “You act like you’ve seen a ghost. I’m sick at home for a week and everything comes apart at the seams?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the gash on his chin and think. Indeed, everything!

Bucky Baylis said, “This is quite peculiar. The last time we saw you, you were each vowing to never rest until the other was dead.”

Hickman and Curly looked at each other through their respective one eye that was open and laughed.

Curly said, “Shucks, friends always have disputes. I suppose none of you has ever had an argument with a pal. If you were older and smarter, you’d do like I did and apologize for my unkindness and shake hands and let bygones be bygones.”

Buster Baylis said, “Me and Bucky have disputes all the time, but they’ve never ended in attempted murder or mayhem.”

Hickman said, “If we aren’t worried about it, why should you be?”

The school bell rang and we lined up.

Buster whispered to me, “Maybe they want to act like there’s nothing wrong, but we’ll see what Miss Jacobs has to say about the matter.”

Miss Jacobs greeted us at the door. “Hello, Kimberly. Please leave Leonard alone and tie your shoe before you sit. Good morning, Leonard. Good morning, Jessica.”

Instead of saying anything to Hickman when he got to the door, she grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. Curly received the same treatment.

“You two. A word.”

When the last of us was in, Miss Jacobs put her head in the classroom and said, “Take your seats and no talking. I shan’t be long.”

Buster cupped his hand to his mouth and whispered what we all knew. “It’s a good thing they’ve become such chums; they’ll be duck-squatting in the cloakroom together until the dismissal bell is rung.”

Five minutes passed before the classroom door opened and Hickman and Curly walked in. Instead of going to their seats or the cloakroom, they walked to the front of the class and stood side by side. Curly’s head was slumped and Hickman stood in perfect speaker’s posture, as if he were in the Upper Ontario Forensics Competition again.

Miss Jacobs said, “Mr. Bennett.”

Curly said, “I said some unconsiderate and rude things to Mr. Holmely and I …”

If Curly thought this was going to be easy, Miss Jacobs had other plans.

She said, “Mr. Bennett, I have never seen a speaker approach his audience with his eyes so tightly clenched. I understand that the swelling has seen to it that your right eye is closed; please respect your audience by looking at them through the left one.”

Curly sighed and opened his good eye.

“I spoke with rudeness and unconsideration to Mr. Holmely and I sincerely apologize.”

Miss Jacobs said, “Well, I suppose your eye was open even though it was rolled all the way back in your head. You may be seated.

“Mr. Holmely?”

Hickman is by far Miss Jacobs’s favourite student. She teaches English, and he has won the Upper Ontario Forensics Competition two of the past three years and sees every chance to speak in public as an opportunity to show off his oratorical skills. He is so talented that it’s widely agreed he was cheated the one year he lost.

His face twitched as he tried mightily to open his left eye. He saw that it was too tightly closed, so he looked at each of us in the classroom with his right eye and said, “To my dear gathered fellow students whom are here all together on this special occasion of Mr. Bennett apologizing, I, being the humble and modest soul that all of you have learned to respect, must say that I too have fallen short and that to admit this to such a distinguished group leaves your lowly speaker humiliated and at a loss for words.”

Miss Jacobs said, “Hardly, Mr. Holmely. Please limit the verbiage and get to the point.”

“Thank you, Miss Jacobs; your most welcomed criticism is appreciated and warmly taken deeply into the deepest and darkest chambers of my heart.”

“Mr. Holmely, would you like me to walk you home after school?”

Hickman saw she was serious and finished quickly. “I apologize to Curly and my family for reacting to words that I should have ignored. Fighting and violence are traits of lower animals, not God-fearing human beings.”

“Take your seat. Open your science books, please.”

Curly and Hickman had obviously straightened out their difficulties. Somehow I didn’t think it was going to be so easy for Curly to get back into Petey Demers’s good graces.