I told Kurt what happened
on the walk home for lunch. He got that big-eyed, somber look, grabbed my hand,
and barely finished saying, "Come on," before he took off running. We
went right down the first street past the school instead of walking to the center
of town and turning right, to get to NCH. Just after we turned right, we caught
up with Clarice and her brother, Chuck. Kurt had me repeat what I had just told
him.
"Yeah, she told me,"
Chuck said. "That was pretty brave, Reesy, not letting a Grandstone order you
around."
"But Sylvia never
told Clarice to sit with her," I said. "And she never asked her. Sylvia
never talks to Clarice at all."
"Grandstones expect
people to read their minds and know what they want before they say what they want."
"Gotta have something
written there before you can read it," Kurt mumbled. He and Chuck did that
stupid boy thing, punching each other in the arm and snorting. "I figure they're
gonna come after you, as soon as Saliva tells Reggie." He grinned when Clarice
and I both giggled at how he warped Sylvia's name.
The plan was simple—walk
with Chuck and Clarice until they got home safely. We didn't really think about
the next day, or the day after that. We were just kids. We didn't hold grudges for
very long. What we didn't realize was that Sylvia and her rotten cousins weren't
"just kids." They were taught from the cradle to hold grudges and to wait
years, if they had to, for their revenge. In Grandstone mentality, that meant justice.
Fortunately for us, they
also had a very high pride level, and a short attention span.
Before we had gone another
block, Sylvia and Reggie caught up to us on their bikes. They rode circles around
us, but the sight of four of us against the two of them was enough to stop them
from inflicting punishment on Clarice. The four of us kept walking, which made Sylvia
and Reggie continually adjust the path of their bikes. On the third circle around
us, Sylvia hit the curb crooked and knocked her bike over and fell off. She let
out a shriek and Reggie fell off his bike.
"Did you?" Kurt
said as we kept walking. He was the only one who looked back. It took me a minute
to understand what he meant. I shook my head. "Too bad. That would have been
cool."
Sylvia didn't come to
school the next day. Her leg hurt too much. Clarice told me that Sylvia's uncle
came to the O’Donnells’ house that night, accusing them of beating up on her. Chuck
had experience with Grandstone lies, so he had already told his father what happened.
Mr. O’Donnell told Mr. Grandstone that nobody had touched Sylvia, and if he tried
to sue, he would counter-sue and slap a restraining order on Sylvia to keep her
away from Clarice.
Clarice actually giggled
when she told me that Mr. Grandstone got all weepy and his voice got high. He insisted
that Clarice was Sylvia's best friend and she was just so fragile without her parents
in the country, she needed her best friend to withstand the torments of the first
few weeks of school.
I had to explain what
fragile was.
"Daddy explained
to me that Sylvia thinks I'm her best friend because I'm too scared of her to argue,"
Clarice added.
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