“Get ready for a beat down, fat boy!” were the exact words out of Dante’s mouth the next time they met.

This was at 7:30 the next morning, right after Cody stepped off the school bus at York Middle. There might have been more to his cheery greeting, but it was hard to tell because the thug had him in a headlock now and was dragging him around in a circle and squeezing his ears, like WWE wrestlers do before they ram their opponent’s head into the turnbuckle.

“I’m sick of your big ugly mug!” Dante snarled, digging his elbows into Cody’s face. “Time to rearrange it!”

It had all happened so fast. One minute Cody was making his way to the school’s side entrance with all the other kids; the next minute someone grabbed him from behind.

For an instant, Cody got a whiff of incredibly bad breath—had the guy eaten sardines and pepperoni for breakfast?—before Dante spun him around and got him in the headlock.

By now a crowd of students had gathered to watch, apparently assuming a butt-whipping would be more interesting than, say, first-period Algebra or English.

“Isn’t it a little early for this?” Cody managed to gasp before Dante tightened his grip even more.

Cody knew that none of the kids forming a circle around them would be jumping in to help him. No, he was still the new kid after all these weeks.

Oh, sure, his social status at York Middle had improved slightly in the last month. For one thing, he had finally graduated from the nerd/misfit table at lunch and now sat with Willie and Connor and Jordy, who were considered three of the coolest kids in eighth grade. But none of his new buddies was around now. And Cody knew he still wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular with the rest of the student body.

Besides, even if someone was brave enough—or foolish enough—to intervene, that would be only the beginning of the kid’s problems. Because not only would he have to deal with Dante, he’d also eventually have to deal with the infamous Rottweiler Twins.

As Dante snarled and squeezed and whirled him around, Cody quickly considered his options. They seemed limited at best.

He could hope one of the teachers on bus duty would spot the knot of whooping kids and come over and break it up. But with all the buses already here—Cody’s was usually the last to arrive—most of the teachers had already gone inside to their homerooms.

Or he could hope the sky would crack open and a large lightning bolt would land at Dante’s feet, creating an enormous fissure in the ground that would swallow him. The way it was looking now, the odds of that happening were actually better than the odds of a teacher saving him.

“How’s the air down there, fat boy?” Dante was saying now. “Getting hard to breathe?”

It sure was. Whatever you do, Cody told himself, don’t let them see you cry. That would be disastrous. By lunchtime it would be all over the school. Did you see that fat kid blubbering when Dante whupped him this morning? The little baby couldn’t stop crying! Oh, that would be all he needed.

But the tears were coming—he could feel it. His face was hot and sweaty, and he thought his head was going to pop like a grape any minute. Not to mention that he was getting really dizzy from all this whirling around. Now it felt like he was going to hurl too.

Great. He’d be a crying, puking mess—what a nice image that would be.

“Can we…talk?” Cody croaked. But Dante just squeezed harder. Apparently that was his way of saying no.

Suddenly, the grip around Cody’s head loosened. He heard the big guy cry out, “Owww! Hey, that hurt!”

And now another voice cut through the din, a familiar voice shouting, “Let him go, you big goon! Or I’ll kick you again!”

Shaking free of Dante, Cody looked up, rubbing his eyes. It was Jessica. She was in a karate stance now, her right leg coiled to deliver another looping blow. She wore a red sweatshirt with the hood up, strands of blond hair cascading down each shoulder.

Between his dizziness and his blurred vision, Cody wondered for an instant if he was dreaming. Or maybe Jessica really was some kind of secret modern-day superhero. Mild-mannered, crab-picking eighth grader one moment, avenging crusader for truth and justice the next.

She was definitely in the avenging mode now. Her eyes were narrow slits, her face an angry mask. Cody couldn’t believe it was the same happy-go-lucky girl he had shot hoops with the day before.

“Guess we should all be getting along to class,” Jessica said evenly.

Dante seemed as stunned to see this blond, hooded vigilante as Cody was. He stared at her slack-jawed, rubbing his sore arm as he considered his next move. But Cody could see something else in his expression now too.

Was it fear? Humiliation? Or a combination of the two? Cody wasn’t sure, but he had seen that look on his face once before—on that first day of practice, after Dante had missed the first two ground balls Coach had hit his way.

For several seconds, Dante said nothing. Then his shoulders sagged, and he picked his backpack off the ground.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered, shoving Cody aside. “We’ll pick this up later, fat boy.”

Dante began pushing his way through the knot of kids. Then he turned, shot one last look at Cody, and sneered. “You won’t always have a girl around to protect you.”

As the rest of the kids wandered off to class—did they seem disappointed not to see someone get pounded?—Cody slumped against the wall to catch his breath.

He wasn’t sure what bothered him most now: how scared he’d been of Dante, or how relieved he’d been when Jessica came to his aid like some pint-sized Wonder Woman.

Where did she learn all that karate stuff? As he was being smothered in a headlock, he hadn’t seen the kick she’d landed on Dante. It must have been a beauty. The guy would probably be rubbing his bruise all day.

Just then, Jessica walked over and smiled and put an arm on his shoulder.

“Wisconsin Boy,” she said softly, “what in the world have you gotten yourself into?”