by Paul Langan
“Nope,” Darrell replied. Though the two had been back at school for a few days, Harold had not asked Darrell what happened at the dance. Darrell figured Harold was waiting to see if he would mention it. He still did not want to.
“You picked a bad day to buy lunch. Look at that stuff,” Harold joked.
A server passed Darrell a plate full of meatloaf that looked like a brown sponge covered in chunky brown gravy. Next to the meatloaf was a mushy glob of mashed potatoes and some over-cooked peas and carrots. Both boys grabbed a large cup of soda, paid for their food and began making their way back towards their table.
Suddenly, Darrell saw Tyray walking towards him. Darrell’s heart raced. He had nowhere to go.
At first, Tyray looked as if he might pass right by Darrell, but as he got nearer he pretended to trip. In one swift motion, Tyray fell forward, reached an arm under Darrell’s tray, and flipped it.
The tray spilled onto Darrell’s body, dumping mashed potatoes, gravy, and vegetables all over his clothes and then falling into a large slippery mess at his feet. Soda and ice splashed all over his pants.
The tray hit the cafeteria floor with a loud crash. For a second, the usual murmur of the cafeteria hushed as students looked to see what happened. Everyone in the lunchroom turned towards the sound. They all stared at Darrell. Then, in a snap, the noise returned. Some students clapped in mock applause. Others, especially those at Tyray’s table, began laughing loudly. Darrell sensed people were watching him, eager to see what he would do next. The room grew charged, like the air before a bad storm.
“Whoops, sorry about that,” Tyray said with a grin and walked off towards his friends.
Darrell picked up the tray and walked over to his seat across from Harold. He grabbed some napkins and started wiping the food from his shirt. He saw Amberlynn watching him from her table. She looked concerned. Darrell hated that she had seen what happened. He wanted to talk to her and explain why he left her at the dance, that he was trying to protect her from Tyray. But he could not talk to her now, not with food dripping down his shirt.
Darrell was about to get a new tray of food when he saw Miss Bea, the nice old woman who worked in the lunchroom, coming out to clean up the spilled food. Darrell watched as she struggled to move a heavy yellow bucket filled with soapy water. He could see by the look on her face that she was in pain. He remembered how she said her back had been sore for months. Darrell watched as she slowly stooped over to pick up the larger pieces of food by hand. He could almost hear her old bones groaning. Anger started to bubble inside Darrell.
Darrell got up to help her. He was sick of what alwaappened at Bluford, at how everyone seemed to ignore how Tyray hurt others like Miss Bea, Amberlynn, or himself. Darrell thought of the time at the dance, the days in the locker room, and now in the lunchroom. Too many times, people look the other way when they should be doing something, Darrell thought. He remembered his uncle’s words. A man’s got to stand up when someone else is in trouble, even if it means he might get himself into trouble.
Darrell leaned over and scooped up a piece of the spilled meatloaf. As he threw away the greasy chunk, he glanced over at Tyray and his friends at their lunch table. They were laughing wildly and pointing at him. Rodney was almost rolling out of his chair with laughter.
“Look at that fool!” Tyray shouted. “Maybe that’s his poor momma. No wonder he ain’t got no money.” His friends erupted in laughter.
Miss Bea did not seem to notice what was being said. “Thanks for helping,” she said softly to Darrell.
Darrell felt as if his chest was about to explode. He never felt so furious, so frustrated. Brian’s words from Hatchet echoed deep inside him. Do something, they said. If you want a change, you’ve got to do something to get it.
“You better save that food, fool. ’Cause you ain’t buyin’ lunch again,” Tyray called out.
Darrell looked down into the mess of spilled soda and mashed potatoes. He saw his own reflection in the brown puddle. Nearby, Miss Bea strained to lift the waterfilled mop out of the bucket. Something inside Darrell snapped. He stared at Tyray.
“Just shut up, Tyray!” Darrell yelled.
Tyray turned his head towards Darrell. He looked stunned. His friends stopped laughing.
Kids at surrounding tables who had already forgotten about the spilled tray now looked again at Darrell.
“What you say, fool?” Tyray asked.
“I said shut your mouth.”
“Boy, are you high or somethin’? You better sit down, or I’m gonna come over there and hurt you,” Tyray said, standing up. Two of his friends stood up with him.
“Tyray, you ain’t nothing but a bully,” Darrell said, pausing for a moment. The rest of the cafeteria seemed to groan at Darrell’s words. “No one in this school likes you. They are just afraid of you. But you know what? I ain’t afraid of you no more. You don’t scare me.” Darrell’s pulse throbbed. He felt more alive than ever. He knew Tyray could beat him, but it did not matter. He was being more honest than he had ever been in his entire life. It felt exciting and powerful.
Nearby, students started chanting. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Miss Bea backed away. She had seen cafeteria fights before. Darrell knew the lunch monitors would arrive soon to break things up, but right now, he did not care what happened.
Tyray moved quickly over to Darrell. Rodney and two other friends were right behind him. The boys stood around the mess left by the spilled tray.
“You got a big mouth for such a little man. It’s a shame I’m gonna have to break it for you.” Tyray shoved Darrell. Tyray’s friends started to move on either side of Darrell, but suddenly they stopped. Darrell looked back to see Kevin, Luis, and Craig standing behind him.
“We got your back, Darrell,” Kevin said. Tyray’s friends did not challenge Kevin. From now on, the fight was between Darrell and Tyray. No one else was welcome.
“You gotta stop, Tyray. You been pushing people around for too long. It ain’t happnin’ no more. Now why don’t you apologize to Miss Bea and help clean up the mess you made,” Darrell said. A large group of students formed a circle around the two boys. Everyone was scrambling to get the best position to see what would happen next. Darrell felt like he was in the beginning of another wrestling match.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” The chants continued.
“So whatcha gonna do about it, little man?” Tyray scoffed, his eyes locked on Darrell’s face. Then his lip curled into a smirk.
Darrell gazed at him. Even if the lunch monitors were on their way, it would take them a few minutes to clear away all the students.
For a moment, the two boys stared at each other in silence. Then Tyray glanced to his side. The glance was slight, as fast as the blink of an eye. To the crowd of students surrounding them, the tiny twitch might have been invisible, but not to Darrell. He saw it and knew what it meant. His body trembled with excitement. He had not been stared down.
Tyray’s friends had backed away, and now he was alone facing Darrell with dozens of students watching. As the seconds passed, Darrell sensed something new in his eyes, something he recognized well. Beneath the cold smirk on Tyray’s face, Darrell saw fear. His heart raced.
Then Tyray shoved him. “Boy, get outta my face! I’ve had enough of you.”
The force of the shove threw Darrell back. He nearly lost his footing in the slippery mess. Tyray was definitely stronger than he was, but Darrell was stronger than he used to be. Two months ago, he would have fallen. Now, he was just pushed back. Darrell knew he could not beat Tyray physically. But somehow Darrell felt as if he had already beaten him.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
“Clean up the mess and apologize to Miss Bea. That’s all you gotta do,” Darrell demanded.
“Break it up! Break it up!” yelled a teacher’s voice from somewhere in the distance. Students reluctantly started moving away from the circle.
“You’re goin’ down, boy!” Tyray
screamed. He lunged at Darrell like a cornered animal.
Instinctively, Darrell dodged Tyray’s charge, using the speed he had gained through wrestling to move out of the larger boy’s way.
“I’m gonna kill you!” Tyray growled and threw several punches at Darrell’s face. Darrell avoided two of them, but the third one glanced off the side of his cheekbone. Over Tyray’s shoulder, Darrell could see teachers struggling to make their way into the center of the fight.
“You want some more, little man? You gonna get it,” Tyray said.
Tyray came at him again. This time, Darrell decided not to fight Tyray, but to wrestle him. As Tyray came in, Darrell charged at him as if he were an opponent in a wrestling match. He decided to use his favorite wrestling move, the double leg takedown. In one quick motion, Darrell darted underneath Tyray and locked his arms around Tyray’s legs.
“What are you doin’, fool?” Tyray yelled. The two were so close that Tyray had no room to punch him. Instead, he tried pounding on Darrell’s back.
Darrell felt Tyray’s fists slamming into his back, but the blows did not have much force. Ignoring them, Darrell quickly hoisted Tyray into the air.
“Let me go,” Tyray yelled, his feet off the ground.
“Okay,” said Darrell. Finishing the takedown, he tossed Tyray to his side and sent the bully crashing down into the cafeteria floor. Just as he let Tyray go, Darrell saw him put his hand down to cushion his fall. Then he heard a lo, wet snap and a scream.
Tyray was on the ground, squirming and rolling in the spilled food. He was holding his wrist. “It’s broke. It’s broke,” he cried. Soda and mashed potatoes covered his face, and meatloaf was smeared all over his pants. A few bits of vegetables were caught in his hair. “It’s broke,” he whimpered. “You broke it!”
“Break it up,” a teacher yelled, seizing Darrell. Three other teachers moved the crowd of students back. Mr. Mitchell was one of them. Quickly, he glanced at Darrell and then went to help Tyray. Rodney and the rest of Tyray’s friends were silent. They looked stunned. All of them were sent to the principal’s office. Darrell knew he would probably be suspended, but he did not care. For the first time at Bluford, Darrell felt free.
He had toppled the bully.
In the principal’s office, with Mr.Mitchell and Coach Lewis behind him, Darrell told the truth about what had happened since he arrived at Bluford. He explained that he had been teased and tormented for weeks and admitted that he had been giving his lunch money to Tyray. He told everyone about the crushed oranges, the events in the locker room, and the time he was tossed into a trash can. He then described how Tyray knocked his lunch to the floor and how he could not allow Miss Bea to clean it up by herself. As he spoke, the tears came. They rolled freely down his face as he recounted all that had happened during his short time at the high school. They were tears of shame, anger, relief, and joy all mixed together, and he let them fall.
After a long closed-door meeting with Mr. Mitchell, Coach Lewis, and, for a short time, Miss Bea, the principal chose not to suspend Darrell. She informed him that she was suspending Tyray for three days and that she planned to have a meeting with both boys and their parents. Before she dismissed him, she made Darrell promise to tell her if anyone picked on him again. She also warned Darrell that if he got into another fight, she would be forced to suspend him. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
Darrell appreciated that she was not suspending him, but he wondered if she knew how silly the threat of a suspension sounded. After what he had been through, no punishment the principal could give would be worse than the treatment he had already received from students. Holding onto this thought, he thanked the principal. She smiled warmly and dismissed him.
It was the end of the school day when Darrell finally left the principal’s office. The main hallway was filling with students rushing to get to their lockers and go home. Darrell shouldered his way into the crowded corridor and headed towards his own locker on the other side of the school. Looking at the students around him, Darrell felt as if he were walking through a strange dream. Everything seemed familiar to him but somehow different.
Although he was physically tired, he was also strangely alert and calm at the same time. He also felt bigger, not just in relation to everyone else, but as if there were more of him, as if he had somehow added something to himself. It was as if the whole world had shrunk a bit during the time he had been in the principal’s office.
Instead of rushing through the hallway as he normally did—with his head down—Darrell decided to slow down, to look at the people around him.
Something has definitely changed, Darrell thought as he made his way through the corridor. He could feel it in his bones, in every cell of his body. He was not the person who stepped off the bus from Philadelphia a few months ago. Bluford’s once threatening hallways no longer frightened him. And Tyray, the bully who had tortured him for months, had diminished too.
Darrell knew he would face Tyray again. The meeting the principal had scheduled for the two boys and their parents would take place early next week. Besides that meeting, there were still months of shared English and gym classes ahead of them. There was also lunch. But now Darrell was not bothered by the thought of seeing Tyray. More powerful than the painful memories was a new memory—the look on Tyray’s face when he cowered before Darrell on the cafeteria floor, clutching his shattered wrist. In that instant, Tyray’s power over Darrell had been broken.
Darrell walked past the hallway where Tyray and Rodney once shoved him. He wondered what Tyray and his friends would do in the weeks to come. Would they seek revenge? Would someone else try to fill Tyray’s shoes? Probably. It seemed no matter where he looked—in Philadelphia, at Bluford, on the news, or in his own family—there were always bullies and victims. But even if they came after him, it did not matter. Darrell would not remain quiet or give them money if they threatened him. He would not run away from them anymore.
Things are gonna be different around here, Darrell thought, leaving the old hallway behind him. And he was certain Tyray knew it, even as he sat in a nearby hospital having a cast made for his broken hand.
The crowds in the hallways were thinning as Darrell rounded the corner and went to his locker. Bending to grab his books, he heard some students gathering quietly beside him. He turned to face Amberlynn, Harold, and Kevin. The anxious looks on their faces showed that they cared about him.
“Hey guys,” Darrell said. A smile spread across his face.
Amberlynn threw her arms around his shoulders and gave Darrell a warm hug. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her.
Kevin slapped his back affectionately. “Nice takedown, Darrell,” he said with a grin.
“Darrell Mercer, you’re the man!” Harold yelled excitedly. “Everybody’s saying that!”
Darrell was grateful for them. They were his friends, his new friends. Because of them, he would never again be alone at Bluford.
“Thanks for waiting for me,” he said. He thought they deserved to know all that had happened over the past few months, and he wanted to tell them. But he knew if the words came, the tears would fall again. He could barely hold them back even as he thanked them. He decided he would tell them everything another day. “I mean it, guys. Thank you.”
“You’re the man!” Harold yelled again even louder than before. And Kevin slapped Darrell’s back again.
“C’mon, let’s get outta here,” Amberlynn said, tugging Darrell by his shirt.
Looking at the three of them, Darrell knew the long nightmare that began when he left Philadelphia had finally ended, and a new day filled with hope and possibility had begun.
Together with his friends, he walked down the hall and out the front doors of Bluford High.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
&nbs
p; Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
