When I got home from the party, I saw the same moving van parked across the street. Our former neighbors had moved to a warmer climate several weeks earlier and the house had been empty since.

“Oh, look,” Mom said, as she pulled the car into our driveway, “someone finally bought that house. I wonder who they are.”

From that comment, I knew that Mom would play detective and that soon she would have all kinds of information about our new neighbors. Of course, she’d feel obligated to share the information with me.

“Their name is Williams,” I told Jeff when he came over the next day. “The mother, Carolyn, is divorced and works as an administrative assistant. She has two daughters, Katrina and Lilly. I don’t know which is which. Her husband left her for a younger woman--gasp! Mom had more information, but that’s when I stopped listening.”

Thee colleges had mailed Jeff early acceptance letters. It almost made me feel bad that I hadn’t applied anywhere yet. As I talked, Jeff, per usual, was multi-tasking: perusing college brochures and listening to my story. In the back of his mind, I’m sure he was trying to solve some equation too. “And the girl, have you seen her again?”

“They had some guys come over to move the bigger pieces of furniture. She was laughing it up with them while they were moving stuff. I couldn’t get a good look at her, though; she kept moving. She has that room on the first floor with the funky orange curtains.”

Jeff peeked out the window. “Ooh, see-through curtains.”

“Yeah, but, from this angle, you can’t see anything unless someone’s standing right at the window. She must stay up late, ‘cause her light is on at all hours of the night.”

“We know she’s not working on homework yet. Speaking of which, can you believe we go back to school tomorrow?”

“I know!” I whined. “This vacation flew by!”

I went back to school the next morning and life had returned to normal with a jolt. There was still the sense that I should decide what to do with my life, but I preferred to concentrate on other, more interesting, things like hanging out with Jeff, reading comic books and watching movies.

The day was filled with the usual boring lectures. After my fifth period class, I had a conversation with my language teacher. The bell rang and students started gathering their books.

“Okay, folks,” Mr. Thomas said as everyone got up and started to leave the classroom, “have a good day. Remember, your mid-term theses are due on Friday. Hey, Scott!”

I stopped and turned to him.

“Scott, what are doing Tuesday and Thursday nights for the next month?”

I started to respond, “Well...”

“Because we need some more warm bodies for the spring play.”

I laughed. “A play? Me? I don’t know. I’ve never done any acting before.” That was a little bit of a lie. Jeff and I used to make movies of our favorite comic book heroes, the ridiculously-named Mister Wonderful, a half-alien prince with an array of super abilities, and his colleague, Doctor Life, who manipulated time and space with his mystical walking stick, the Staff of Life. Our movies were cheesy and had terrible homemade special effects. I wasn’t going to reveal that embarrassment to Mr. Thomas.

“It’s just for the Chorus,” he continued. We’re doing ‘Arresta.’”

“Isn’t that one of those ancient tragedies? One of those plays where...”

We said in unison, “everyone dies in the end.”

Mr. Thomas chuckled. “Yes, but, you won’t be alone on stage. You’d be part of the Chorus and you’d all be saying the same lines. So, you’d be able to fudge some of the lines, some of the time, if you can’t remember them. When I talked to your mom at our last parent-teacher meeting, she told me you’re into artistic things. So, what do you say?”

I was uncertain, but Mr. Thomas persisted. “Look, just come by the gym tonight at seven and see what we’re doing, okay?”

The second bell rang, telling me that I should already be in my next class. I realized at that point that different students had filed in and were already seated. They watched our conversation as if it were a form of entertainment.

“I’ve got a class and you do too,” he said, handing me a pink permission slip. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Luckily, I already had my trigonometry book in my backpack. I ran out into the hallway and froze. There, standing near the door to my trig class, was my childhood nemesis, Mark Manners. Being that he was the class bully, his name was ironic. He looked the part too: vacant expression, brow ridge, protruding jaw.

I had always been the tallest in my class up until ninth grade. By then, I was about 175 centimeters tall and stopped growing. I was still scrawny, though. That year, all the other guys in the class suddenly sprouted up and grew muscles. Now, I wasn’t the shortest in the class, but I was no longer the tallest. Mark Manners, who then towered over me, decided it had become his job to harass Jeff and me for the rest of our lives. Why did he have to pick on us? I was nice to everyone, even when I was taller.

“Get the geek with the glasses!” was Mark’s battle cry. Mark and his jock friends would then descend on Jeff. “... and his scrawny geek friend!” was my cue to run, but I never got far before they caught me too. Occasionally, Jeff would stall for time by trying to explain that

Once they caught us, Mark and his accomplices would seize our books and drop them in a toilet, grab my hand and slap Jeff with it or push us in the girls’ locker room. Often, they’d do a combination of the three.

After Jeff’s accident, it was a different story: Jeff was in a wheelchair and I always helped him. The teachers looked out for us. Eventually, Mark’s and the jocks’ interest in us waned. They still labeled us as geeks.

There I was, though, all by myself and no teachers around. The moment was too perfect for Mark to pass on the opportunity to harass me.

As I considered making a break for the bathroom, Mark turned and our eyes met. A wide grin spread across his face. Damn it! He saw me!

“Well, look who it is,” he said, in a loud whisper. “What’s happening, Davis?”

What should I do? My options were limited. Some kind of confrontation was inevitable. Mark certainly wasn’t going to back down. I couldn’t just ignore him and walk into class. He would block my way for sure. Screaming for help would make me a laughing stock for the rest of high school. Of course, high school was almost over. Something like that would follow me for years, I bet. I’d keep that as Plan B. The best thing was to stand up to him. What could happen? I could become his punching bag. The old saying, “his bark is worse than his bite” kept repeating in my mind. Hopefully, that was true. I inhaled, summoned all my courage and walked towards him and the door, trying to be as Mister Wonderful-like as possible. Could I do this without opening my big mouth and provoking him with one of my trademark comments?

Just then, the fire alarm rang. Ha! Saved by the bell, sucker! I caught a quick glimpse of Mark’s sneer as I headed outside. Surely, he was already planning his next strategy. As I exited the door at the end of the hallway, I saw that the lever on the fire alarm had been pulled. Someone must have pulled it while Mark and I stood there. How did I miss that? Was I so scared during my showdown with Mark that I missed seeing another person in the hall?

Outside, the class did our usual fire drill routine. The class grouped together. The trig teacher, Mr. Newton, counted us. Everyone was accounted for. Word spread that someone pulled the alarm. I had to wonder if someone saw Mark and me in the hallway. Was someone looking out for me?

Later that day, though, during my World History class, I got called into the principal’s office. History always bored me, so I didn’t mind leaving the class. I was comfortable talking to the principal, Mr. Hanson.

“Scott, a student thinks she saw you and another boy in the hallway when the fire alarm went off. Do you know anything about it?”

“Honestly, sir, I have no idea how that happened.”

“Why were you in the hallway?”

“I was on my way to my trig class,” I said. “Oh,” I added, “Mr. Thomas gave me a late slip.”

He scribbled something on a little, pink pad, but I couldn’t read it. “Mr. Thomas. I’ll check with him. And, the other boy: who was he?”

“Mark Manners,” I said. “I don’t what he was doing there.”

Mr. Hanson looked up and seemed to scan into my soul. A look of understanding crossed his face. Mark had a reputation as a troublemaker going way back. “Did he pull the alarm?” he asked gravely, folding his hands in front of him.

“No, sir. He couldn’t have. I would have seen him.”

“You’re not covering for him, are you?”

I suppressed a laugh. “No, sir, I’m not. I’ve got no reason to defend him.”

“You didn’t see anyone else in the hallway?”

“No, I didn’t. I was just about to walk into my class and the alarm went off.”

“I see,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Thank you, Scott. You can go back your class.”

That’s the end of that, I thought.

After school, Jeff and I left the building and were discussing what we’d be doing later that night, most likely involving movies or video games or websites. As we turned a corner, there was Mark Manners waiting by the parking lot near the entrance to the football field. Damn! He knew we’d be going that way, didn’t he?

“Hey, Davis!” he growled menacingly approaching us, “did you tell Hanson I pulled that alarm? He said he’s gonna send a letter to my grandma. I’m gonna get suspended again.”

My response was something like, “I… um… er… I… uh…”

Jeff was more eloquent. “Actually, the principal to required to give your guardian 24-hour notice before you’re suspended and you have the right to an informal conference, which I suggest you pursue.” Mark glared at him. “I’m not helping.”

Other students, sensing that a fight was brewing, began to crowd around us.

“Mark,” I said, “he asked me, but, I swear, I told him you didn’t do it.”

“Right!” he spit. “You’d like me to get kicked out of school, wouldn’t you?”

“Well…” Pausing was not a good idea. Mark’s face turned beet red and I saw him raise his arm.

Bam! His fist hit me just below my left eye. Man, that hurt! As I went to touch it, I saw that he was massaging his hand.

“Scott!” Jeff yelled, as he threw me a 2x4 from a nearby trash pile. I actually caught it.

The previous weekend, Jeff and I played a motion control game in which the hero single-handedly defeated a gang of thugs using only a 2x4. It was laughable, but I’d remembered one move that might be useful.

“Teachers!” somebody yelled. Students started scrambling.

While Mark was distracted, I whacked him in the back of his ankles with the 2x4 and he fell over onto his butt.

“Ha! Just like that game, Jeff!”

“Let’s get out of here!” Jeff yelled.

I got behind his wheelchair and pushed, running as fast as I could all the way to Jeff’s house. We rushed in and went straight to Jeff’s room, just off from the kitchen.

“Hi, Mom!” Jeff yelled into the living room. “We’ll be right in here!” We quickly closed the door behind us.

“Okay, kids…”

I put my hand to my eye. “Ouch! Still hurts and it’s warm, for some reason. That’s weird. How does it look?”

“Yeah, that’s going to bruise really good,” Jeff said. “What are you going to tell your mom?”

“That I ran into something or fell down onto my face.” I was, after all, a bit of a klutz.

“Right,” Jeff said, nodding, “it wouldn’t be the first time. I’ll go to the kitchen to get some cold drinks for us as an excuse to grab some ice. Maybe holding ice to your face for a while will prevent swelling.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Aw, man!”

“What?”

“I just remembered I told Mr. Thomas I’d go to the play rehearsal tonight.”

Next Chapter: Chapter Three