Friday came all too quickly and the long cold windows of the old hall frowned disapprovingly at me as I dragged my feet along the path after last period.
I could hear laughter and chatter from inside the hall, and all around me kids were hurrying along.
News of the big fight had spread far and wide, and it seemed like the whole school was coming along to see Blocker bash the living crap out of the freak. Me.
I was sort of hoping that one of the teachers might have heard about it and would shut it down. But that would only postpone it, or worse, lead to a beating on the way home after school. And in any case, the kids kept things like this pretty quiet.
Ben was walking next to me, not saying anything, but instinctively supporting me anyway. That helped. At least I didn’t feel quite so alone.
My only hope was to use my power to somehow control Blocker during the fight. Maybe I could convince him that I was a martial arts expert and make him nervous. Or maybe I could … well, actually, I didn’t really hold out much hope. Still I had to try.
Blocker was in his gym gear already, bouncing around in the ring, shadow boxing some imaginary opponent.
‘Hope you brought your undertaker with you!’ he jeered as I entered. The crowd was swelling around the ring. I acted confident and brave, as if I expected to win the fight. But I think the crowd saw through that in a second.
I got changed quickly. No sense in getting my uniform torn. Mum couldn’t afford to buy me another one.
Blocker was wearing cool Nike shorts and a sleeveless tank-top with a silver fern on it. My gym gear was just an old white pair of shorts and t-shirt.
Blocker smirked as I climbed under the ropes into the ring.
‘Two rounds, three minutes each,’ Phil Domane called importantly, acting as the ringmaster. There was no referee. No need I suppose. There were no rules. ‘In the blue shorts, our reigning champion, Blocker! And in the funny white pants …’ the crowd roared with laughter, ‘… our challenger …’
Phil turned and sneered at me. ‘What’s your nickname, Freak?’
I stared him down while I thought about it. I was no ordinary freak. I had a superpower! The name just came to me out of nowhere. ‘Call me Super Freak.’
That threw him for a moment. I guess it wasn’t so much fun calling me a freak if I called myself that too. Somehow I felt I had gained a small victory. He repeated the name to the crowd, and there was more laughter, but mixed in with it was a smattering of applause.
Well, they rang the bell and all hell broke loose. Blocker jumped up out of his corner and rushed at me, I didn’t even have time to formulate a thought of my own, let alone try and influence Blocker. I ducked as best as I could beneath his outstretched arm but, even so, it caught me a glancing blow across the top of my head. It knocked me over backwards and made me see stars.
I tried to scramble to my feet, but Blocker was already on me, dive-bombing me before I could even move, a giant body-slam right across my stomach that knocked all the air out of my lungs.
Blocker rolled away, and, somehow, I got back to my feet, winded and gasping for breath, leaning on the ropes for support.
He grinned at me from the other side of the ring, but made the mistake of trying the same thing again.
I wasn’t much of a fighter but I wasn’t stupid.
This time as he rushed at me, I stuck my hands up as if to fight him but, really, only to distract him and, just at the last moment, I stepped to one side and stuck out my foot.
He tripped and went skidding across the ring, banging his head good and proper on the corner post.
When he got up, there was a trickle of blood running down his forehead and the look in his eyes had turned from one of amusement to one of rage.
I focused on his brain and thought furiously, the Freak knows karate, he’s going to beat you, he knows karate, he’s going to beat you.
I guess I was trying to put him off, and there was a momentary hesitation and a look of uncertainty on Blocker’s face. But only for a second and then it was gone and Blocker was on me once again, grabbing me around the waist and pile-driving me into the canvas floor of the ring.
I came up spitting blood and fearing for my life.
He knows karate, he’s going to beat you, he knows …
It had no effect on the enraged bull that was Blocker. He slammed me on to my back on the canvas and dropped on top of me again, driving an elbow into my ribs.
I though I heard something crack and a ferocious pain stabbed across my chest.
I had barely got back to my feet when a vicious arm that I never even saw coming smashed into my face, and, this time when I got up blood was pouring from my nose.
In the midst of it all, the only good thing running through my brain was that at least I wasn’t crying.
Blocker came in once again, circling for the kill but, somehow, I was ready for him, and darted to one side. I charlied him in the thigh and Blocker went down for the second time. This time when he got up, limping, there was murder in his eyes.
I backed away into the side of the ring as he approached, slowly this time, and suddenly found myself flat on my back on the canvas again as he swept my legs out from underneath me with his foot.
I coughed, splattering the front of his expensive gym shirt with blood, and he drew his fist back and smashed it into my face.
Now, I was crying, and couldn’t help myself, but something told me that this was only the start.
There was a strange murmuring in the crowd but I couldn’t see what was happening.
I wondered if a teacher might have walked in and would stop it. But another voice in my brain said, if that did happen, somehow it would be Jacob the troublemaker who ended up in trouble, and not Blocker, the school hero.
Blocker drew his fist back once again and struck, but this time the punch didn’t connect. I had instinctively closed my eyes and opened them to see Blocker’s arm caught in a vice.
A vice that was the hand of a boy named Tupai White.
I couldn’t make sense of it at first. In fact, I didn’t make sense of it till later, but I suppose my brain was a little addled at the time.
Blocker stood up and turned to face Tupai, his wrist still jammed in the steel-mesh grip of Tupai’s hand.
‘It’s not your fight,’ he snarled, but, even as he said it, he punched hard and straight at Tupai’s stomach. The punch never made it. It stopped halfway there, his other wrist snared in Tupai’s free hand.
Blocker clenched and muscled up, trying to break Tupai’s grip. Tupai hardly even seemed to be trying. Slowly, he lifted Blocker’s wrists into the air above his head. It was a terrific feat of strength. He twisted Blocker around and pulled the wrists down again behind Blocker’s back, pinning him.
‘Leave him alone,’ Tupai said and repeated it. ‘Leave him alone. Here, at school, after school, if you touch him again, you’ll be talking to me.’
I saw Erica McDonald standing at the side of the ring, looking on, and even that didn’t connect for quite a while afterwards.
‘He challenged me!’ Blocker protested, but Tupai was not having any of that.
‘Touch him again, and you are mincemeat. Am I clear?’
Blocker looked around, trying to summon some courage. He might have been big and tough but, compared to Tupai, he was a snowflake. Tupai, at thirteen, was probably the toughest kid in the whole school, and not even the year twelves or thirteens were game to take him on.
Not that Tupai went looking for fights. Quite the opposite. But they sometimes found him and, when they did, the other party always ended up sorry for it.
But just why he would jump in the ring and stick up for me made no sense. I looked at Erica, and she gave me a kind of a half smile, but then turned quickly and was gone. Tupai went with her. Ben jumped in the ring and helped me to my feet, wiping away blood from my face with his own shirt, never minding the mess.
Blocker half moved towards me, but his eyes were on Tupai’s retreating back, and there was genuine fear there. I suspected that, like most bullies, underneath he was a coward.
It was finally over. I cleaned myself up in the showers as best as I could and changed back into my uniform. One of my eyes was so swollen I could hardly see out of it, but at least my nose had stopped bleeding.
On the way home I finally put it all together. Tupai White and Jason Kirk were best mates, along with Daniel the league player and another guy called Fizzy, or Fizzer, something like that.
Erica had seen what I had done for Jason at the tuckshop and she must have told Tupai what was going on.
Tupai had stood up for me because I had stood up for his mate. It shook me a little, when I realised. The trails of their friendship ran deep.
However, I wasn’t sure if he had really done me a favour. If he hadn’t stepped in, then at least it would have been all over and done with in the boxing ring.
Now, even under the protective wing of Tupai, I felt that Blocker would not just give up and go away.
Whatever was churning inside him would be growing more malignant by the hour.