1

Fex O’Toole cased the hall, looking both ways as if he were preparing to cross a busy street. The coast was clear. It was recess and the school was empty except for him and the six or seven guys behind him, egging him on.

“How’d I get roped into this, anyway?” he asked, angrily and too late.

“Go on, Fex! Slip in there! Lay it on him!” The voices hissed in unison, sounding like air being let out of a bunch of tires. “Sock it to him, Fex baby!” He felt a hand in the middle of his back, urging him forward.

“Quit it,” he said, turning. “This is stupid. I don’t want to do it. What’s the point?”

“Hey.” Barney Barnes, the leader and, sad to say, the brains of the outfit, raised his eyebrows in astonishment. His long, flat face looked as if it had been pasted on top of his short neck, giving him the appearance of a badly made puppet. “He don’t want to do it. Whadya think about that?” All the faces assumed astonished looks. They’d never heard anything so amazing in all their lives.

Then a voice, gentler than the rest, said, “I double-dare you, O’Toole. I double-dare you,” it said a second time. For good measure. The words came out slowly, sweetly, like honey oozing from a jar. Without turning, Fex knew whose voice it was. It belonged to a girl he hated. She sat a couple of seats ahead of him in social studies. She had a pointy chin and a pointy nose and wore her white-blond hair in a pony tail. Every time Fex walked down the aisle to the blackboard or anyplace else, she stuck out her foot and tripped him. Her eyes were very pale blue, the palest eyes he’d ever seen.

This girl passed a lot of notes. She was an expert at passing notes without getting caught. Back and forth across the seats she passed her many-folded squares of paper to people she hardly knew. Once she’d sent a note to Fex. It said, “Fexy is sexy.”

As he opened it, he refused to look in her direction, although he could feel her watching him. He’d torn the note into many tiny pieces and made a big show of piling them up in a heap.

Was it true? Was he sexy?

Fex walked rapidly to the door of the principal’s office, tapped lightly, and waited. As he’d expected, there was no answer. He turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked. That meant Mr. Palinkas was out to lunch and his secretary was down in the teachers’ room getting coffee to drink with her yogurt. She’d be back any minute. The timing was right.

He opened the door and peered inside, hoping some stranger would ask, “May I help you?” In the principal’s office they said, “May I help you?” rather than “Can I help you?” A very small but important difference.

He could always make an excuse, say he was looking for Mr. Palinkas and he’d come back later. Sun lay in heavy bands on the floor. Three withered daffodils sat in a glass of water, breathing their last. The Venetian blinds were crooked, the windows needed washing. Mr. Palinkas’ desk was neat and tidy, the yellow pencils and the fat red erasers lined up like little soldiers. From the playground Fex could hear shouts and other sounds of enjoyment. He wished he were out there instead of in here.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the mob swelling up behind him, whispering and jostling one another, acting as if it were Saturday afternoon and they were standing in line to get into the movies.

Barney smiled at Fex, encouraging him. “You’re doing great,” he said.

Fex took the piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and laid it in the middle of the blotter where it couldn’t be missed. He kept his head turned because he didn’t want to look at the crude drawing of a large, ugly pink pig and the caption, which said, “Your a pig, Palinkas.” As an afterthought, the inspired artist had drawn a large hand, the middle finger extended, beside the pig’s nose.

“Jerks don’t even know how to spell,” Fex muttered. There was the sound of scuffling down the hall. Barney stuck his head around the corner.

“Way to go,” he cheered Fex on. Barney, by reason of being the biggest, strongest, oldest kid in the sixth grade, was the one who laid down the ground rules. He’d repeated kindergarten and first grade and was a natural bully.

“Why pull a stupid stunt like this anyway?” Fex had said. “Palinkas isn’t that bad.”

“Hey.” Barney’s eyebrows had shot up and out of sight underneath his hair. “Hey, he’s the principal, right?” as if that said it all.

Fex shuddered. Somebody just walked over my grave, he thought. He walked out of the office, past the milling throng, and, almost running, made the stairs just as Mrs. Timmons, the secretary, was coming up, clutching her paper cups of coffee and yogurt.

“Hello, Fex,” she said. “How come you’re inside on a beautiful day like this?” She liked him because last winter he’d helped her push her car out of a snowdrift.

He gave her a small salute with his hand. “I’m on my way out right now,” he said. “See you.”

He had time for one turn at bat and hit a perfect line drive. It was a beauty, so straight and fast that no one could’ve caught it. If the bell hadn’t rung right at the crucial moment, it would’ve been a home run for sure. On an ordinary day that would’ve made him feel great. But today wasn’t an ordinary day. He tramped back inside, keeping his head down.

There’s nothing worse than knowing you’ve been a fool and have no one to blame but yourself. That was the worst of it. When you know better and behave like an ass anyway.