“Oh shit,” Mayra muttered under her breath.
“What?” I asked.
“Half the football team is over there,” she said. “Look at them. They all have to know what happened.”
When I took a quick look toward the school, I could see they were all watching our approach. Mayra turned into me and started to try to push me backwards.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “It’s almost time for first bell. We have to be at my locker before first bell, or I’ll never get to class on time.”
“Matthew, they know!” she cried out a little louder. “Those are all Justin’s friends! His teammates! I have no idea what they might be planning!”
I grabbed her arms and pulled her in front of me. I met her eyes and stared into them as hard as I could.
“I will never let anyone hurt you.”
“What if they want you?” she whispered.
I glanced over my shoulder, and six big guys stood near the entrance—all football players. There were at least three dozen other kids standing around as well, and I really didn’t think they’d try anything with that big of an audience.
“We’ll be fine,” I told her. “They aren’t going to do anything right in front of the school. They’d get expelled.”
I turned her around, put my arm across her shoulders to keep her near me, ducked my head down, and started for the doors. As we neared the entrance, they all stood up a little straighter, and some of them took a slight step forward.
My body tensed. Despite what I said, I wasn’t sure what I would do with six of them. I could handle two at a time, assuming they weren’t more skilled than me, but I couldn’t really take on more than that. If my assessment was wrong—if they were going to try something—I didn’t really stand a chance.
I tightened my arm around Mayra’s shoulders and considered turning and running with her. When I glanced up, I saw Scott O’Malley, who was also on the team. He was looking right at me as he brought up his hands.
That’s when the applause began.
Every football player, every student, and even a couple of teachers just stood there in the common area outside the school and applauded as we walked toward the doors, slowing in bewilderment. Mayra looked from me to the clapping students and back again and then smiled.
I couldn’t figure out what that was all about, so I just kept Mayra close to me as we walked through the crowd.
After that day, school just got weird.
All these people who never even acknowledged my existence before started coming up and trying to talk to me. Everyone wanted a detailed, eyewitness account of what happened. The thing was, neither Mayra nor I really cared to go over it again. She was pretty good about just saying we got jumped, and I beat them off, but everyone wanted more. I would tense up, not wanting to say anything to the people who never said anything to me before but also wanting to protect Mayra so she wasn’t being harassed about it. By the end of the first day, Mayra had broken down and cried twice when people were asking questions, and Aimee Schultz—contrary to her usual, compassionate demeanor—completely went off on Carmen Klug and told her to leave Mayra alone.
I was quite grateful.
I actually did pretty well, all things considered. I only freaked out a couple of times when a bunch of people came up to me at once, and Mayra wasn’t there.
At the end of English, a couple of the football players kept asking me how I managed to beat up four guys. They seemed somewhat skeptical, and I could barely even get much more than an “um” out of my mouth when Joe stepped up.
“Matthew’s been kickboxing for years,” he told them. “I saw him in a tournament once when my older brother was competing. Matthew kicked ass, won every trophy, and he was competing with guys older than him, too. He does kickboxing, Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, and warshoes. ”
“Wushu,” I said, correcting him quietly.
“Yeah, that. Anyway, he kicks ass and always has. Sent two of them to the hospital, and you can read that in the fucking paper.”
They left after that, and Joe just kept looking at me sideways as we made our way to the next classroom. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What?” I finally asked.
Joe laughed and shook his head.
“I always knew you could,” he said, “but I really never would have guessed you had it in you.”
The weirdest bit was when I was doing some research in the library, and I overheard some of the girls on the soccer team talking. I was at one of the desks with the high sides on them, so they must not have seen me from where they were standing between shelves full of biographies.