Uchenna's Apples by Diane Duane Read Free Book Online Page B

as they turned up.”
    “Okay,” Uchenna said, “so what do you—”
    She stopped, staring across the street: from inside the school gates she could hear a noise that surprised her, this time of day. A lot of voices were shouting together, but in that curious repressed way that suggested people are trying not to shout too loudly, in case some adult in the area might notice. “What the feck?” Emer said, peering over that way.
    Some of the kids watching whatever was going on were starting to spill out of the school gates now, which to Uchenna suggested that the event wouldn’t last long: there would be teachers out there shortly to break up whatever was going on. “Come on,” she said.
    She and Emer ran across the street. They got up onto the opposite sidewalk just in time to see some of the school-uniformed kids inside the gate part a little, and at the center of them Uchenna could make out a smaller figure and a larger one, both male, both probably fourth-formers, whaling away at each other with their fists. “Who are they?”
    “I’m not sure,” Uchenna said, having to shout herself over the noise. The smaller of the two guys was thin and dark-haired, and his uniform didn’t fit him very well: the trousers were too long and the jacket bagged out on him. The larger boy, who was jabbing with one fist at the smaller one’s face and making him dance back, was blond-haired and had a broad, red, angry face. It was getting redder by the moment as the smaller kid kept dancing out of range, circling and laughing at the bigger kid. “Come on, hold still!” some of the kids crowded around were yelling, and “Go on, Brian, hit him a lash, can’t you reach?”
    “Brian Mayfield,” Emer said from behind Uchenna. “Four D.”
    “Guess he belongs in that class,” Uchenna said. “Fights like an idiot, anyway…” Brian took a big roundhouse swing at the kid he was fighting. It was just then that, almost too quickly to see it happening unless you were looking in exactly the right place, the smaller kid darted in and seemed to kick out somehow with one leg. Brian’s legs instantly went out from under him. Flailing his arms, he went down hard on the concrete just inside the schoolyard gate.
    A shout went up from the kids all around just as the doors at the top of the stairs flew open and about five teachers came out, including the Headmaster, Mr. Mallon. “Uh oh,” Uchenna said, and did what the others around her were starting to do: back away quickly as if they were nothing to do with what had been happening.
    Brian was picked up off the schoolyard paving and dusted off by Mrs. Leenane, the beefy blonde little PE teacher. There were several moments of confusion as the Headmaster and the other teachers looked around for the small skinny kid. Then Mr. Mallon, looking even more annoyed than he usually did, headed suddenly toward a group of students who were standing off to one side. They hastily parted left and right as he came at them, and there behind them was the skinny kid, heading hurriedly off toward the side of the school as if he intended to go around the back of the building and get into the school that way.
    In four swift strides Mr. Mallon had caught up with the skinny kid, and one of those big hands had clamped down on his shoulder. The skinny kid looked up at Mallon and visibly gulped. A second later Mr. Mallon marched him off the way he’d been going, toward the back of the school, which was also where the school office and the teacher’s and Headmaster’s offices were.
    The students who’d been watching the fight now gathered together again, as the teachers left, and an immediate postgame analysis began. But Uchenna wasn’t particularly interested. She was watching the skinny kid as Mallon marched him off around the side of the school and out of sight. “Who was that?”
    “A skanger,” said somebody behind Uchenna, and snickered.
    Uchenna frowned. “Jimmy Garrity,” said somebody else off to