Lunch arrived, and then passed. Crispy Tacos, with ground meat that left a metallic aftertaste. Presently, Emeral sat at her desk, as she had done all morning, staring at the back of Ket's head. It was all she could do to keep from falling asleep.
So strange, it felt: that he was just a few feet in front of her, and yet it was like they were a world apart. Maybe she should pass notes? No, that would be dumb and easy. She had to take the hard route, catch him and talk to him face-to-face. But first she had to endure Social Studies.
Ms. Hupp was gone today, and in her place was a sub. Emeral hated subs...well, not the subs themselves, but just the quagmire atmosphere that came with the whole situation: Ritzer could get away with more, the other kids just talked and ignored everything. Not to mention the format for each subject was always the same: popcorn reading, followed by busy-work.
Oh look, it was her turn.
"The American Revolutionary War had begun with the Shot-Heard-Round-The-World in Concord, Massachusetts..." What was the point? No one was listening, they just read aloud to appease the old fart of a teacher for a few grueling paragraphs and then sat back down to ignore everyone else. "...After the King ignored the Petition of Grievances, influential figures such as Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin met in secrecy to hold the Second Coniton... Contident... uh..."
She bit her lower lip. Great; why did teachers always give her the difficult paragraphs? Why did she have to have dyslexia?
"Con-ti-nen-tal," a voice spoke, just loud enough for her to hear.
"Continental Cong... eress." Her rear plopped back down into her seat as fast as it could.
"Very good," the scottish terrier nodded, and waved his hand, "Next?"
Ritzer began moaning and protesting.
"Mr. Piadus please just read the next three paragraphs..."
"This's dumb, I done it three times a'reddy!"
Emeral looked up from her book, and caught Ket turning his head back forward. She knew he was the one who pronounced the word for her. It certainly wasn't Mr. Pea-a-duss whining next to her. She giggled, Ritzer's last name was silly—what was Ket's?
Ugh... She massaged her scalp. I'm so pathetic.
Recess was approaching in just a few short minutes. She could find time to talk to him then, and also replace his band-aids. She slipped her hand into her jeans-pocket, counting the contents to four. She had gone to the store with mom the night before, and got boyish ones. Thank goodness mom was too tired to notice them.
Emeral had also done everything to keep the afternoon a secret of sorts. She did the laundry early to wash her blood-specked shirt. She even went as far as to dispose of the bloodied cotton balls so she didn't have to explain them. What excuse could she possibly use? That she started? No, that's too embarrassing. That she cut her finger—
Emeral jolted upright as someone clapped the back of her neck.
"Rezess, hot-stuff." Ritzer said, licking his lips.
"Sorry," she countered, standing up and pushing him away, "I don't talk to runts."
He slammed his hand onto the desk as he leaned inward to her. "Well da'ss jus' fine," he leered, pressing a finger to her chest. "Tha' mean' I gets ya, All. To. My. Se—ow-ow, 'ey!" He hissed as his finger was snagged in some sort of judo-hold. "Da 'ell woman? Leggo-it!"
She sighed with contempt and released him, then brushed by and headed toward the door. Out in the hall the recess-mob began to form already. She completely lost Ket and the bell had only just rung. She knew he had already run off somewhere—probably to hide from Ritzer. She wondered where he went; maybe she could look for him...
"Hey Emmy, wait up!"
...Or not. "Hey, Lyza," she said, turning and swaying as kids passed by.
"We better hurry or the swings'll be taken up!"
Her wrist was yanked and she was pulled against her will as her best friend dragged her down the hall. Just like all rabbits, Lyza was always in a hurry for everything—especially the swings.
Next chance I get, I swear; the tigress promised herself.
Out on the playground, the swings were sadly taken. "Aw shoot." Lyza grumbled, stamping her foot into the ground with fists by her sides, ears in at an agitated swivel.
"The other girls are over there, in the sand," Emeral pointed, "We can hang out with them."
"Ugh, but that's Rini's group." She pulled on her ears nervously. "You know how much Rini hates me."
"It'll be fine if you're with me, she won't say anything."
"Maybe not to you," she said lowly as she followed, "no one can say anything bad about you."
It was kind of true, though Emeral hated to admit it. But it was just because she was bold and stubborn. Usually that would garner a following, but in her case she didn't allow the other girls to hang on her much. Really, they did say some things about her. No one would dare admit it, but she had been called tomboy once or twice in hushed voices.
"Hello Emeral," Rini spoke as they approached, "Did you and..Lee-ooser-ah...come here to draw in the sand?"
"Yeah," she replied, choosing to ignore the jibe at her best friend to keep things quiet, "The swings got taken."
Lyza knelt down quietly, retrieving a short and fat stick. One of the girls whispered that the stick resembled her brain pretty well, but she ignored it.
Strike two.
"What are you drawing, Rini?" Emeral asked.
"My wedding dress," said the rat, backing away to admire the crude, dark trenches in the pale sand, "For when Goren finally admits he likes me!"
Goren was a wolf-boy in another class. Not as big a hot-shot as Ritzer, but definitely the beta of the bully-pack.
"Why don't you just tell him you like him?" Lyza asked.
"Because that's not how it works." She explained, brushing sand off of her knees. "If a boy likes you, you have to get him to admit it."
"I don't see why you need to do it that way," Emeral said tracing a tic-tac-toe board with her finger.
"It's absolutely necessary. Getting them to do what you want is the whole reason they exist in the first place." The rat took a few casual steps forward—right over Lyza's drawing of a five-pointed flower.
"Hey!"
"Oops, I didn't see you."
Strike three.
But, Emeral's hand fell on her shoulder and she held her tongue. Besides, she would end up stuttering on a word and get laughed at anyway.
"Hey," Kelly-Elly, the least abraisive of Rini's group, spoke up, "Look over at the monkey bars."
Following the poodle's finger, Emeral saw a group of boys gathered at the end of the playset. The monkey bars were a fairly new addition to the new-playground, only put in last year. They were bright red. On the really sunny days, they could burn a patch of skin off of an unfortunate climber's palm if they weren't careful.
"What are they doing?" Questioned Tabitha.
"Looks like a chin-up competition," Her twin sister, Tabetha, observed.
Boys were crowding around by the moment, watching as the strongest ones—"oddly" all the bullies—performed one of the rituals of man-hood. The chin-up competition: where a few times each year the boy who holds the current record is respected and feared. Mostly feared. The current record holder? Ritzer, of course.
"Hey! That's Goren!" Rini exclaimed; "Go Goren!"
One...two...three...four... four-and-a-half... Four-and-a-half. The wolf pup dropped down onto his hands and knees, a little out of breath.
Another boy walked up like he was the stuff. Rule number one: you have to jump up, you can't walk the bars. He jumped. Missed. Jumped again. Missed. He tried for third but as he did, Virgil, one of Ritzer's gang and the school's de-facto star athlete, stepped in and pushed him in mid-air. He fell back onto his rear. The boys all laughed.
"Ouch, poor kid," Rini said, "Looks like Ritzer is coming to take the record already."
"I wish someone would show him up, just once." Emeral growled.
"Why?" Lyza asked. "I'd think you'd like him for being the strongest. He really likes you."
"Yeah well I don't like him."
"Why don't you show him up with your Judo or whatever," Rini commented. "He's at four...five..."
"It's Ju-Jitsu, and I'm not strong enough to take him on, he's like three years older than me."
"Six...seven...wasn't his last record six?"
"I think so," Angela, the quieter girl of Rini's clique, replied. "I guess he was just going to break his own record by one, he dropped."
Emeral closed her eyes and sighed. "Great. So seven is now the new Ritzer-standard." From across the play-yard they could hear Ritzer's gang hooting and hollering as they punched each other. Emeral massaged her forehead, a nervous habit.
"Hey," Lyza spoke up, "What's Ket doing out there?"
Emeral's eyes shot open.
Ket was hardly ever out on the playground, especially with Ritzer on the prowl. But there he was...and walking toward the fray.
Emeral bit her lower lip. A dozen scenarios raced through her mind. This was bad; really, really bad.
* * *
Ket approached the crowd around the monkey bars.
"'Ey!" Ritzer stepped up to him. "Thought'ah smellsed fart around 'ere. Here I was thinkin' about lettin' ya hide d'day, bu' since yer 'ere..." The bully raised his hands and placed them on Ket's shoulders. Their difference in age was only a couple years, but that was a dramatic difference. The lion applied pressure to his hold.
"What's the record?" Ket asked, apparently apathetic that the most hostile kid in the whole school had his paws within inches of every vulnerable spot on his body.
"I deci'ed to make it ten," he gloated, "Coulda gone more bu'figure, why bodder tire m'self out eh?" He squeezed, giving a fanged smile. "Af'fer all, hafta have a'nuff energy to play with you, right?"
"How many could you do?" Ket asked.
At this Ritzer was a little perturbed. He nestled his lips into a tiny 'o' at the corner of his mouth. "I dunno, what you shink Gor?"
The wolf pup swished his tail. "I'd say...fifteen. Conservative estimate."
The lion smiled again. "Yer not thinkin'a try'n' do a few pull-ups are ya?"
Ket shrugged. "It's open to anyone isn't it?"
Ritzer tilted his head, and then returned to that fanged smile for a third time. "Yeah, I s'pose. But y'know d'rules, ya gotta jump'p. Ya can't climb the bars. Naw 'fense," he patted the younger tiger rather harshly, "but aren't ya little...uh...sh'rt?"
Ket responded with silence.
"Well, a'ight d'en. Hop'n up if ya think ya can, an' do a few. We'll ooo 'n' aaah like we givadamn. If ya make i'ta three I might le’chya eat'cher lunch in peace tomorrow."
A complete lie, but it didn't matter. The other boys took a step back as Ritzer released his hands and backed away with them raised in mock fear.
The tiger stepped forward, underneath the bars. Without so much as grunt, he squatted just a little and made a surprisingly nimble jump. The bar sang into his grasp.
* * *
"Oh wow," Angela said with a hand over her mouth. "Ket's actually gonna try?"
"The poor soul," Bitty commented; her sister finished, "He won't make it past—"
The girls became silent as the young tiger began the ritual. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight... He was like a machine; he didn't even wiggle his legs to cheat some lift. It was straight up-and-down, at super-speed, and he did chest-ups rather than chin-ups. Only after ten did he start to slow down. Eleven..twelve... Thirt-teen... Fourt-teen... Fif-tee-een...
"Holy cow!"
"Did he just—?"
"Why's he stopping?"
"He must have serious abs." Rini said breathlessly. Boys with muscle really caught her attention.
"Rini chin-ups don't get you abs," Emeral chimed, "they give you biceps and triceps," Even though she should have expected this kind of display from the boy who practically walked up the tree to get Buttons, this was as much a surprise to her as to the others.
"Well then Mrs. Science-pants," the rat said with a glare, "What does get a boy abs?"
"Look, he's doing something weird!"
Ket changed position, and the boys around him began to get anxious.
Emeral smiled. "Something like that."
* * *
"Uh... R-Ritzer, he's at fifteen."
"I know that moron," the lion said, the back of his fist smacking the chihuahua on the arm. "I'g'n count t'a mill'n!" Ritzer glared up at the puny tiger cub. "A'ight, ya' made yer point. Yer a big toughie like me. Now be a good little runt'n drop'own. Yer arms mus' b'tire'."
"They kinda are..." Ket agreed, his feet swaying. "The sun's making this hard."
"Good. S'I'll let'cha off wi'da warnin'n maybe—'Ey... d'hey-el you doin'?"
Ket turned around on the bar in his grasp and swung his feet up onto the bar in front of him. Securely locked into the crook of his knees, he let his hands go and hung down for a moment, catching his shirt and tucking it in. He stared at Ritzer for a second, upside-down, and then crossed his arms over his chest. He slowly lifted his head up, touched his forehead to the bars and then uncurled, repeating it again after a brief pause. It was much slower than his pull-ups, but then again it looked much more difficult.
"Hey! Those arn't pull-ups!"
"What are those...do they even have a name?"
"It looks like the crunches we do in P.E. but...man those must be hard!"
"Theyn't hard," Ritzer snapped, "Anyone can do 'em!"
"I can't. You can Ritzer?"
"Sure! But I'on't need to, this's a pull-up competition not a...a...whatever-ya-call-it competition!"
"He's done five..."
"Thassa'nuff then!" Ritzer went around behind Ket and grabbed at the cub's legs, pulling downward.
The tiger was at the mercy of gravity as he fell onto his side with an oof! He groaned, clutching his arm as he rolled onto his back.
"Yer disqualified." Ritzer said, kicking him the side, exposing his belly. "Next time I see you out here ya'better..." The lion paused as he peered at his prey's exposed side. "Holy shit ar'those butterflies?"
Ket felt Ritzer's arms hook under his shoulders and lift him up.
"Goren, lift up his shirt. Loog everyone, he gots butterfly band-aids!" The boys around began laughing hysterically, pointing at the two they could see. "Take 'im Goren, I wanna see what boo-boos 'e gots."
Goren caught the cub and pulled him in, wrapping his arm around the kid's neck and squeezing a little. The kid tried to struggle but Goren was stronger—or the kid was tired. Nah, he was stronger.
Ritzer slowly peeled one of the band-aids off, to ensure it hurt as worse as possible, but Ket didn't satisfy a sound. "Pah," the bully laughed, "Yer sudge'a pussy, man. Tha'cut's not worth butterfly band-aid." Ritzer pulled up a clump of wet sand. "'Ere, this is lots better for ya."
Ket finally grunted in pain as the sand was ground into his side.
"Oh calm down ya big baby," the bully said, dusting his paws. "Well, I shink I done m'good deed fer da'day. Let 'em go for now Goren, otherwise the teach's might see us. Recess's over anyways, I think I hear'd'bell a seggon ago."
And so they dispersed, clump by clump, while Ket took his time to get to his feet. Once he was upright, leaning against the end-pole of the monkey bars. His eyes panned over to the girls heading toward the building. There was one who stayed behind, looking at him, but with his head still spinning he couldn't really tell who. She turned almost as soon as he spotted her, and ran across the sidewalk back toward the building.
