Eddie pushed through the school door as the school bus pulled up to the wooden sidewalk. Near the bus stop people were gathered around the marble pitch.
Why didn’t they rush inside the bus as usual to find the best seats? Eddie walked over to find out.
Lewis was obviously winning, by his bulging pockets, but his opponent made Eddie stop and stare. It was Rodney Bell, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth in concentration on his next shot. Something bad was about to happen.
Rodney’s steely fell short of the hole just as the bus doors opened and students began filing in. Now it was Lewis’s turn. Eddie watched nervously. He hoped Lewis would miss the hole, lose a few marbles, and Rodney would go away happy. Lewis tossed his cob, and it bounced and rolled straight into the pot. As Lewis stepped forward to collect his winnings, Rodney grabbed him by the coat collar and threw him to the ground. Rodney and the other boys filled their pockets with his brother’s marbles.
Eddie dropped his books on the ground and ran. “Hey!”
Rodney barely had time to drop the marbles in his hand before Eddie crashed into him. They flipped over and rolled to a stop against the rear tire of the school bus, locked in a bear hug. A crowd quickly gathered. Rodney pushed Eddie away and pulled his arm back to strike. Eddie made a grab at his sleeve and missed but ducked his head away just as Rodney’s fist went past his face. Eddie waved his arms in front of him, trying to block Rodney’s punches. He managed to grab Rodney’s jacket, but it wasn’t a good grip, and he could feel it slipping out of his fingers.
Then two strong hands pulled them apart and lifted them to their feet. It was the bus driver, Willy Krebbs. Rodney kicked at Eddie. Eddie kicked back.
“Stop it. Both of you,” Mr. Krebbs said.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with large, strong hands. When he tightened his grip, Eddie felt his jacket stretch across his back. Willy’s knuckles banged against Eddie’s chest as he swung the two boys back and forth.
“What’s going on here?” It was the principal, Mr. Latimer. “I should have known. You can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can you, Bell? The two of you are lucky it’s Friday and Toma has a bus to catch. But I want to see you both in my office Monday morning sharp, all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Send them on their way, Mr. Krebbs. And keep a close watch on Toma.”
The principal walked back up the sidewalk toward the school entrance.
“Get out of here,” Willy said to Rodney, pushing him away. Then he motioned to three girls sitting in the front seat to move. “This boy gets to sit up here with me for a while.”
Someone handed Eddie his books. The bus driver watched in the mirror as the door clapped shut and the bus pulled away from the sidewalk. There was a thumping sound on the side of the bus. Eddie saw Rodney motioning to open his window. He slid down the glass.
“You and me behind the gym Monday after school,” Rodney said. Then he jumped up and down and bobbed his head in a mock Indian dance. Someone in the bus laughed. Reflected in the bus mirror Eddie saw Lewis in the seat behind him, watching to see if he reacted, looking disappointed when he sat still. A tingling heat spread across Eddie’s neck and scalp.
Behind Rodney, egging him on, were Sid Mullen and his brother Sam, who followed Rodney around the schoolyard. On their own they weren’t so tough. Sam Mullen especially always made sure there were people around before he called Eddie names and ran away. He was always too fast for Eddie to catch.
One day while Eddie was sitting out in the hall for talking during class he saw Sam coming out of the classroom. Eddie slipped unnoticed into the boy’s washroom, went into a stall, and stood on the toilet seat to wait. Sam huddled close to the urinal. Even though he thought he was all alone, he still covered up his privates with both hands. A sudden push from behind caused him to wet on his pants. Eddie remembered the surprise in Sam’s eyes when he turned around. Eddie punched him just once in the stomach, but it was enough.
Sam doubled over as Eddie pushed him out into the hallway. Wiping away the tears with the back of his hand, Sam opened the door to go back inside the classroom. Just before he stepped inside, he turned to Eddie and said, “Squaw man.”
Now, protected by Rodney and the bus walls, the Mullen brothers shouted out insulting names as fast as they could think them up. Eddie turned away, slumping in his seat. He looked in the mirror and saw Lewis watching him as if he expected him to do something. Eddie knew better. He’d seen what happened to a person who tried to fight back against so many people.
Eddie didn’t mind going to school. Usually life would go along so smoothly that he forgot about the bad parts. He even tried letting the names roll off his back as Joshua had done, and most of the time it worked. Sometimes the name caller would move on to something else, except for one person: Rodney Bell. Eddie couldn’t understand why Rodney hated him so much. He always stayed out of his way, and whenever he had no choice but to fight, he ended up on the bottom taking a beating.
The last time they had a fight, the last week of school before summer holidays, Eddie had been the one that started it.
Eddie and Rodney were playing soccer on opposite teams, and both ended up going for the ball. Eddie didn’t back away this time. They kicked the ball at the same time, sending it straight up in the air. Before the ball hit the ground, Eddie and Rodney were rolling on the grass, hitting each other until some older boys pulled them apart. Rodney was so angry that he kicked one of the boys between the legs.
In the fall when school resumed, Eddie readied himself for the moment when the bus pulled up to the school sidewalk and Rodney was there waiting for him.
Over the summer he’d taken on all the hard work given to him so he could build up his body. He cut down trees below the house with an axe to widen the clearing, ran to the range and back many times a day without stopping, and piled rocks in the river to make the swimming hole deeper. Any job that needed heavy lifting, he’d jumped at the chance to do it. When Grace said that he’d grown two inches and put on weight, he felt confident and ready for anything Rodney had up his sleeve.
But Rodney had taken so long to make his move that Eddie wasn’t so sure of himself anymore.
Leaning his head against the window, Eddie looked out at the leafless trees along the road. They looked dead in the cold air of fall. The front yards of the houses were covered with dry grass and weeds. Pieces of rusty tin plugged holes where shingles had completely rotted away on a sagging roof. Blistered, peeling paint that exposed the nails to the elements now wept in a pencil lead gray down the clapboards. A dog waiting at the corner began chasing a car and suddenly squatted and dropped one, two, three black steaming turds on the ground.
As the bus stopped next to a house, Eddie saw an old man staring out through the dirty windows. His eyes looked vacant, like the eyes of a fish that has been out of water too long. Inhaling on a hand-rolled cigarette until his cheeks caved in, he squinted to keep the smoke from getting into his eyes. The bus jerked forward. The old man didn’t notice; he exhaled the smoke through his nose. The bus sped away, leaving Falkland behind.