Bystander (10 page)

“What about Officer Goldsworthy?” Eric wondered.

“No way I'd ever rat someone out,” Sinjay stated. “Especially not to a rent-a-cop.”

“Eric, listen to me, okay? You've got to lighten up,
dude,” Drew P. advised. “Why make a big deal out of it? Okay, a few little things have happened. There's always going to be some guys who take a pounding. That's life. What do they call it in science? Natural selection,” he pronounced.

Cody joined the group, stood close to Eric, practically breathing in his ear. Cody didn't say a word, but he listened hard, his body coiled, leaning in on the balls of his feet, like an unspoken threat.

Eric shook his head. “No, Droop. I don't think that's a fair—”

“Hey, guys! What are you talking about?” It was Griffin Connelly. His tone was cheerful, innocent. His eyes roved from one boy in the group to another, finally settling on Eric. “Huh, Eric?”

“Nothing, Griff,” Eric murmured.

“All right, then,” Griffin replied. He probed around the edges of his eye with a thumb, flicked away the offending dust particle. Everyone watched him, waiting uneasily. Griffin cupped his mouth with a hand and whispered to Eric, “Just be careful what you talk about,” he warned. “It's hard to keep secrets around here.”

Griffin winked at Eric. Then gave that big Hollywood smile, and swept the hair from his eyes.

The bell rang, the group began to disperse. Griffin tugged on Eric's shirt. “Hey, by the way, Eric, I listened to that CD of yours. I have to tell you, buddy, very weak. Those were some lame tunes. What is your father, a florist or something?”

Hearing it, a few boys laughed. Eric's face flushed.

“Oh no, I remember now,” Griffin said, gleefully wagging a finger. “He's a freak.”

For that moment, Eric's senses shut down. Instead of sight, the world went dark, like a curtain falling across his eyes. Instead of sound, he heard only the mad pounding of his heart, the soggy swoosh of blood running through his body.

Fists clenched, he wanted only to lash out, to hit something, to make it hurt.

“What are you going to do? Punch me?” Griffin taunted, grinning. “Don't you know that violence never gets you anywhere?”

Cody stepped in close.

Eric shook his head, the fury passed. They had attracted
the attention of Mrs. Diaz and another noon aide. “You're not worth it,” Eric declared.

Griffin, aware of his audience, held out open palms. “Dude, look at me. I'm just a guy who's standing here. You are the one who is all hot and bothered. The guy you really want to punch is your old man.”

“
Bwawk-bwawk
, chicken,” Sinjay clucked, still eager to see a fight.

“I'll be seeing you around, Eric,” Griffin said. His smile was like a pure beam of distilled sunlight. His long lashes blinked, his cheeks pinkened. He wore a perfect mask of kindness and light.

DAVID WAS WAITING AT ERIC
'
S LOCKER WHEN THE FINAL
bell rang. Hallenback seemed apprehensive. He bit his lip and looked from side to side, as if worried that someone might be watching. He was a boy who had grown used to being ambushed.

“What's up?” Eric asked.

“I've been thinking about what you said.”

“Yeah.”

“And I have to show you something,” Hallenback said.

“Okay. Show me.”

“I can't, not here,” Hallenback answered. There was anxiety in his voice. He seemed fidgety, nervous. “I need to bring you there.”

Eric frowned. He didn't have time for this. He had two dogs to walk when he got home, a mountain of math homework, plus an English paper to finish. “Can we make it fast?”

Hallenback chewed on his lip some more. He nodded sharply, not quite looking at Eric.

Eric sighed, dialed in his locker combination, grabbed his backpack, and they headed out the main door. Hallenback pointed toward the Final Rest Pet Cemetery. “In there,” he said. “I don't want anybody else to see.”

Eric started to complain. “This is dumb. Why do we have to . . . ?” But he stopped himself when he saw the expression on Hallenback's face. This was important to him. For the first time, battered and bullied David Hallenback was showing trust in somebody. Of all the people in Bellport Central Middle School, Hallenback reached out to Eric. Maybe that made sense,
since Eric was still the new kid in town. Eric had tried to be nice to David lately. In some ways, he was just as much an outsider as David.

As they walked, Eric wondered what it could be that Hallenback wanted to show him. Something he found? A note? A photograph? Then the thought struck him—a weapon of some sort? A knife? A gun? Isn't that what happens when kids get picked on too much? Sometimes they can't take it anymore. And they break.

No, that wasn't it. Not Hallenback. But try as he might, Eric couldn't completely push the thought away. When it came down to it, Eric didn't know much about David Hallenback. Except that he was a perfect target, picked on every day, and angry most of the time.

They hopped a short fence and entered the grounds.

“Where are we going, exactly?”

“It's back here. You'll see.”

Despite its proximity to the school, this was actually Eric's first time inside the cemetery grounds. It wasn't that creepy, the way a real cemetery—a
human
cemetery—could sometimes be. Eric couldn't get too worked up about a dead Siamese cat. Still, he marveled at the size of some of the headstones. There were a few
that were really huge. Most of the gravestones were modest in height, about thigh-high, but they were thick and looked heavy. They were light brown or gray, with a few shiny black ones sprinkled in. Each had the pet's name engraved into it, complete with year of birth and death, and the last name of the owner.

Eric thought it was kind of comical. It was a cemetery, and that's serious stuff, but the names on the tombstones were, like, Sparky and Mugsy and Luther and Bubbles.

A few had pictures of the (dead, buried, rotting) pet, and there were even little statues of dogs and cats at some of the grave sites. Eric noticed fresh flowers at a couple of sites and that gave him a chill, the thought of some lady weeping at a grave site over poor old Mr. Chuckles, the world's perkiest Yorkshire terrier.

He thought of Mrs. Rosen, the lunch aide whose dog died over the summer. When she had talked to Griffin that day, she seemed really heartbroken over it. Maybe her dog was buried in here somewhere. What was its name?
Daisy.
He remembered something his father said, back a few years ago when Eric was lobbying hard for a pet. Eric's dad replied, “Dogs are built-in
heartbreak. Ten good years, two bad years, some giant vet bills, then they die and break your heart. It's not worth it, believe me.”

That was sooo his father. Mr. Half Empty.

“I wish I had a dog,” Eric said.

Hallenback remained quiet, distant. He hadn't said a word since they'd entered the cemetery. Something on his mind, Eric surmised.

When they neared the far corner, Hallenback steered them to a low, granite tombstone. Several small American flags—the type that kids wave at Fourth of July parades—were planted in the ground at each side of the site. The tombstone read:
CHECKERS
, 1951–62,
NIXON
.

“Is this it? This is what you wanted to show me? Where President Nixon's dog is buried?”

Hallenback appeared distracted, not listening. He was looking off in the other direction. A group of five boys emerged from the far side of the cemetery.

Eric knew each one of them. They were led by Griffin, with Cody at his side. By the look on their faces, Eric could see they meant trouble.

Hallenback was going to get creamed.

“You'd better get out of here,” he said to David. “Maybe I can talk to them.”

But Hallenback snorted, a sound of disgust. He took a few steps closer to the approaching boys. “Hey, guys,” he said.

“David,” Eric warned. “Don't.”

Hallenback lifted his head and stared at Eric. The look on his face was pure, unabashed disgust. “You stupid idiot. You think he's after me, don't you?”

It took a moment for it to register. Eric looked from Hallenback to Griffin, to Cody's hatchet face. A hollowed-out feeling entered Eric's chest, like a balloon expanding. An electric current tingled through his fingers, his legs felt leaden.

Oh, crap.

CODY MOVED AGGRESSIVELY FORWARD. HE WAS ON EDGE
, hyper, dangerous. He stood directly in front of Eric, too close for comfort. The others drifted nearer, forming a loose semicircle that faced Eric. Drew P. was there, with Will, and Sinjay, too. His so-called friends, here for the show.

Hallenback crossed an imaginary line and now aligned himself with Griffin, who greeted him with a subtle nod. Eric understood that something significant had happened. David Hallenback—of all people—had
lured him off school grounds. It had been a trap. And it was here, Eric realized, where it was going to happen.

He looked at Hallenback. “Is this what you wanted to show me, David?”

“No, I've got something
I
want to show you!” Cody leaned in close. He put a hand on Eric's chest. “I heard what you said about me, Hayes.” There was fury in his voice.

Eric didn't understand. “What I said . . . ?”

“What you called me.” Cody tapped his knuckles on Eric's chest, not hard, but not soft, either.

Cody didn't want to say it out loud.

Not in front of everybody.

For the sliver of an instant, Eric wondered how Cody found out. He had said it out loud only once, and that was over a month ago, at the supermarket with Griffin.

Griffin. He was the one. Had to be. Griffin was the puppet master, pulling the strings without even lifting a finger. Griffin had arranged it all. Cody was just a tool, a weapon that Griffin used whenever he wanted.

Eric smirked. At that moment, he hated Cody's
face, hated his horse teeth, his ragged hair, everything about him. “What's the matter?” Eric said. “You don't want everyone to hear your new nickname?”

Eric paused, stared hard at Griffin, whispered it. “Weasel.”

Cody's eyes blazed and he hit Eric on the side of his face with a ferocious right hook.

Eric staggered back, but did not fall. “I don't want to fight you, Cody,” he said.

“I don't think you have a choice,” Griffin noted from the sidelines.

Eric turned to walk away. Isn't that what you were supposed to do? The easy advice they give you. Just walk away.

When Cody reached for him, grabbed him hard, a switch went off in Eric's head. He turned and swung wildly. Cody ducked the blow and danced out of the way.

“Fight!” someone cried.

“Do it, do it!”

The others moved in closer, like sharks circling a swimmer. Blood was in the water.

Whoever taught Cody how to fight deserved a lot
of credit. Those karate classes really paid off. After a rapid flurry of punches, he grabbed Eric in a headlock and twisted, twisted, twisted until Eric was on his knees, fearing that his neck might snap.

He clawed at Cody's fingers, desperately trying to pry them apart. It was getting hard to breathe.

That's when punches rained down upon Eric's face. All left hands, hard and true.

At a certain point, it became a blur.

The whole fight—if you could call it that—probably lasted less than three minutes.

Eric was on the ground, gasping heavily on his hands and knees, spitting blood.

“Okay, Cody. You're done,” Griffin said.

“Consider that a lesson,” Cody said.

The others murmured, disturbed and excited. It was a chilling display of pure animal violence.

And it thrilled them.

Eric had only wanted it to end. And now he regretted, more than anything, his one punch that hadn't landed. If only he could have had the pleasure of cracking Cody in the face, just once, to feel his fist crunch against Cody's cheekbone.

Griffin bent over and plucked something from the ground. It was a little American flag from Checkers's grave.

Eric understood the gesture: Griffin needed his souvenir.

The party was over. But no one told David Hallenback.

Two feet stepped close to Eric's head. “You think you are so much better than me, don't you?” Hallenback spat. There was anger in his voice. So much pain bubbling up to the surface.

“I don't—” Eric gasped.

“Now you know what it's like!” Hallenback screamed. “Now you know!”

Hallenback had worn hiking boots that day, Eric noted, not the sneakers he usually wore. Special occasion, Eric guessed. And now Eric watched the boot lift, swing forward, and drive into his stomach.

Eric absorbed the blow, crumpled like a paper cup. He felt the cool earth on his face. It was nice, like a damp towel. Eric tasted grass, and dirt, and a warm trickle of blood from his lips.

Hallenback kicked a few more furious times. He
wasn't practiced at it, though, and the kicks were only glancing blows. Eric covered up, hands wrapped tightly around his head, body in a ball. He refused to cry out. No sobbing, no pleas for mercy. He took it in silence. But—
ungh
—that last kick knocked something out of him. His body grunted, heaved, constricted in pain.

“That's enough,” Cody barked. “Leave him alone, Hallenback. He's down.”

Eric heard them walk away. And a sound came up from his throat and passed through his lips. Laughter, except it hurt his ribs. Still, it
was
funny, though, when he thought about it.

David Hallenback had found a way to belong.

He was one of the gang.

All it took was kicking Eric's ass.