Five minutes later I crouched beside Victor. He sat knees to chin, arms around knees, head bowed.
I tapped his shoulder, and he lifted his head. “Leave me alone.”
He was blubbering, a mix of tears, snot and blood dribbling onto his upper lip.
It hadn’t been a gut shot like I thought it would be, but a good pop to the nose. Just a single punch. I had decided I would step in if the other two joined in or if the smaller kid kept punching, but that had not been necessary.
Victor had reacted to the punch by dropping to the ground and flailing around like a turtle on its back. Except turtles don’t bawl like a baby pulled away from mommy. I’d seen the contempt on the faces of all three kids before they’d walked away.
When I didn’t move, he said it again, with more attitude. “Leave me alone.”
“Can’t,” I said. “You sent for me.”
I had parted my hair neatly on the left side and slicked the bulk of it sideways with heavy-duty gel. I wore a pair of nerd glasses. I had a pen protector in the chest pocket of my shirt. My blue corduroy pants were too tight and an inch too short, showing off thick wool work socks. It was so over the top that nobody in the world should have seen it as anything more than a terrible Halloween costume.
Victor studied me and lifted a lip in scorn.
“Geek like you?” He sniffed, finding composure in a chance to belittle me. “Hardly. I don’t need my computer repaired.”
I had discovered that when I dressed like this, I was invisible. I’d even conducted an experiment at Starbucks. Three in the afternoon, things slow, I ordered an Americano and gave the name Bill. Girl behind the counter smiled at me, letting the smile linger. While the coffee was being made I went into the restroom, slicked my hair back and quickly changed into geek mode. With the first coffee on the counter waiting for Bill to pick up, I ordered a hot chocolate from the same girl, watching her eyes to see if she’d recognize me. Nothing. No lingering smile either. Geeks might rule the world, but good luck on the dance floor.
Victor, nose still dripping, lifted his cell phone, waited for his thumbprint to register, then tapped a number. Without looking up, he said, “Go. Away.”
I took the phone from his hand and touched the screen to stop the call. I glanced at the contact information. It had been stored in Favorites.
“Think running to your principal for the fifth time this month is going to solve this for you?” I asked. “She did nothing for you the other times.”
“My next call is the police,” Victor said, holding out his hand for the phone. “Then a lawyer. Punching me was the stupidest thing he could have done. Don’t they know that anti-bullying is a hot buzzword? The trouble those three just got into is—”
Victor stopped. “Wait a minute. You said fifth time this month. How did you know?”
Took him long enough.
“You sent for me,” I repeated. “The message said nobody was helping you and that your life was miserable.”
It took him another moment.
“You?” He snorted with disbelief. “Part of the so-called shadowy legend? As in When those in power have turned on you, you can turn to us for help? Sorry, man, didn’t realize you were actually Team Joke, not Team Retribution. I thought it was a boxer and a hacker and a climber babe and a pickpocket artist who could be a supermodel.”
My brother Bentley was the hacker. Raven climbed buildings. Jo often disguised herself as a boy. Pickpocketing was a strength but it was in forgery that she really excelled. And I punched people.
“What, I don’t look like a hacker?” I said. I had an infinity tattoo on my right shoulder. A team symbol. But I didn’t really like to think of us as a team. More like independent contractors who traded favors. Reluctantly.
“Hacker would always be behind a computer or carrying a laptop,” he said. “So if you are a hacker, you’re not a good one, and I’m not interested. What I want is someone with some muscle.”
He pulled a tissue from his pocket. And he thought I was the geek? Who in eighth grade walked around with tissues? Really.
He blew his nose and tossed the tissue to the ground.
“Not a fan of litter,” I said. I took two pens from my pocket protector and used them like chopsticks to pick up the tissue and shove it into the pocket protector. The pens I put in my back pants pocket.
“If I throw a stick,” Victor said, “will you chase it and leave?”
Some forms of bullying were not physical. Victor, I’d learned, was an expert.
“Victor,” I said, “we get a lot of messages. When we show up to help, you shouldn’t take it lightly.”
The rumors about a hidden forum on the Internet were true. Brother Bentley handled the incoming pleas for help.
“You were five minutes too late,” Victor said. “What I need is a team of full-time bodyguards, not a pencil neck like you who bounced off every branch of the ugly tree on the way down.”
“That’s not how it works,” I told him. “If you really want help, you might want to listen instead of practicing your insults. Although clearly you need the practice. Ugly tree? Not original. Or funny.”
Truth was, his problem didn’t qualify at all for help from the Retribution crew. I'd kept this mission to myself. To learn what I'd learned about Victor, I’d had to lie to my brother.
“I fart in your general direction,” Victor said. “Your mother was a hamster, and your father—”
“Smelled of elderberries,” I finished for him. “Not original either. From Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And last Tuesday you used it to make a boy in third grade cry. ”
“I’m trying to picture you with duct tape across your mouth,” Victor said. “It’s a pleasant daydream. Now give me my phone.”
My own phone vibrated. Bat Cave. One hour.
It was a message from Bentley. With traffic, it would take me a half hour to get there. Maybe longer. I’d want time to clean up first, so factor in a shower too.
This conversation was over anyway. I handed Victor his phone and walked away.
I really did not like this guy. But while things hadn’t gone as expected, I wasn’t walking away without something for my efforts.
Proof of whether I would be forever stuck with him as a brother was crumpled up in my plastic pocket protector.