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  “No need to apologize. It’s all recessive traits.”

  Toby grinned and walked upstairs to get washed up for dinner, forcing himself to keep the limp to a minimum.

  Toby hadn’t broken his ankle, but the next day it was abundantly clear that another trek into the woods anytime soon was out of the question. He’d be lucky to make it to school.

  “Hey, Cripple, how’s it going?” asked Larry. Toby had been lost in thought as he took books out of his locker, and the bully’s sudden appearance startled him so much that his history book fell to the floor. Larry laughed louder than merited by the humor of the situation as Toby reached down to retrieve it.

  “Fine,” said Toby, hoping he would just go away.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said fine.”

  “What’s that? You said you were looking for somebody to kick your ass?”

  This wasn’t typical Larry behavior. He usually saved his intimidation attempts for more private settings. It wasn’t his style to harass somebody right in the middle of the hallway—Toby’s injured foot must have been boosting his courage.

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “No, that’s not what I said.”

  “Then what did you say?”

  “I said fine.”

  “That’s not what I heard. I heard that you want me to beat the shit out of you.”

  Toby sighed. Someday he’d like to get Owen on a leash, bring him to school, and turn him loose on jerks like Larry. He wouldn’t be cruel—he’d pull Owen away before his jaws and talons got down to the bone.

  Larry smacked him on the shoulder. Not too hard, but hard enough to jostle him a bit. “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Hey!” It was Sam Conley. He wasn’t captain of the football team, but he was one of the more popular players. Toby didn’t know what position he played.

  Larry glared at him. “What?”

  “What are you doing picking on a kid with a hurt foot? Pick on somebody who can fight back, you chickenshit.”

  “Screw you.”

  Toby glanced around. At least fifteen other kids were watching the altercation.

  “You wanna start something with me?” Sam asked. “Because I’ll be more than happy to finish it.”

  Larry stood there for a moment, trying unsuccessfully to stare him down. Then he shrugged. “Forget this. I’ve got better things to do.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  Larry gave Toby a “you’re dead” look and then walked away.

  Toby’s face felt as if a fly landing on it would burst into flame. It was almost more embarrassing to be rescued with everybody watching than to be bullied. Still, it couldn’t hurt to have a football player on his side. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  Sam regarded him with disgust. “Stick up for yourself, man. That’s just pathetic.”

  Toby immediately imagined himself delivering a lengthy, profanity-laden monologue where he verbally reduced Sam to a pool of sizzling goo. Then he imagined the goo reconfiguring into the normal Sam, whom Toby proceeded to punch in the face repeatedly, accompanied by loud cheers and whistles from his classmates.

  Instead, he said: “Whatever.”

  News of Toby’s upcoming beating apparently reached 85 percent of the Orange Leaf High students before word made it to Toby himself. Reportedly, Larry and Nick planned to “meet” him right after school and administer a severe pounding as retribution for Larry’s mild humiliation.

  “I didn’t do anything to them!” Toby protested, when a girl named Helen informed him of the afternoon schedule.

  “They’re still planning to get you,” Helen said, in a tone that suggested “This is kind of worrisome and not nearly as funny as the idea of you having your head dunked in the toilet” but also “I plan to get good seats.”

  What was he supposed to do? Too many people were aware of the situation for him to sneak past the bullies after school, and getting a teacher involved wasn’t an option. Unless Sam offered to do battle for him, which was unlikely, he was in serious trouble.

  The rest of the day passed very, very slowly.

  It wasn’t as if there was a huge crowd gathered outside to witness his destruction, but there were certainly more kids lingering in the schoolyard than usual.

  C’mon, Toby thought, somebody had to have alerted a teacher to this. Sure, given the choice most kids would opt to see a fight, but wasn’t there even one peer who said something to an authority figure? Or were the teachers fully aware of what was happening and placing bets back in the teachers’ lounge? He figured the odds against him were 1,500,000 to 1, but that would be one hell of a payout if he threw a lucky punch.

  Toby kept his head up high and limped toward the sidewalk. Almost any other day, he gave thanks for the fact that he didn’t have to take the bus. Today, he’d be more than happy to sit up front and be pelted with spitballs and boogers the entire ride.

  As he walked off school grounds, he sensed that somebody was quickly coming up behind him. The amused reactions of the onlookers contributed to this perception. He didn’t look back, just kept walking at his normal—that is, normal with a sprained ankle—pace, resisting the urge to run for it.

  “Hey!” said Larry behind him.

  Toby stopped walking and turned around. Nick was also with him. “What?”

  “I didn’t forget about what happened today.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “I think you did.”

  There had to be at least twenty kids watching, most of them the regulars who smoked just outside of school grounds. Normally, Larry had a look of sadistic pleasure on his face—now he just looked angry. Even a little twitchy. He clearly wasn’t leaving before a punch was thrown.

  Knowing that the violence was inevitable was strangely liberating for Toby. If he couldn’t talk his way out of his problem, why not just say what he really felt? Yeah, it might increase the velocity and quantity of the punches, but did it really matter at this point?

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Toby, speaking slowly and clearly. “I was at my locker, minding my own business. You walked over there and tried to intimidate me. When Sam came over, you chickened out and ran away. If you want to blame somebody for your cowardice, blame Sam, he’s the one who scared you.”

  Toby inwardly cringed and braced himself for a punch.

  Larry’s look of anger deepened. “That’s not how it happened.”

  “There were witnesses.”

  “Yeah, well, there are witnesses now who are gonna see me kick your ass into the ground.”

  “Uh-huh. They’ll be really impressed. How come you have Nick with you? I weigh sixteen pounds. You should be able to handle me without a bodyguard.”

  “Are you trying to get hurt?” Larry asked.

  “You’ve already made your decision. Your decision is to beat up somebody like me, because the only other way you’d win a fight is to start beating up girls.” This sentence came out with a bit more of a self-insult than Toby had intended, but that was okay. He sensed some admiration from the spectators. Granted, there were fewer looks of admiration than looks of astonishment that he was digging his own grave in this manner.

  “You weren’t so brave when we dunked your head in the shitter,” Larry said.

  “I was trying not to laugh. When Nick was peeing, I almost lost it. I didn’t know penises even came that small. It looked like one of those coffee stirrers.”

  Toby sensed that a very serious line had been crossed. He kind of wished he hadn’t added the coffee stirrer part.

  Both Larry and Nick drew back their fists at the same time.

  Toby was aware of the phenomenon where time seemed to slow down at moments like these, but he’d never personally experienced such a thing. Yet time did indeed seem to slow down, and Toby imagined how this could be a turning point in his entire life.

  Just before Larry’s fist struck his chin, he’d block the punch
with his palm. The color would drain from Larry’s face as Toby wrapped his fingers around his fist. He’d catch Nick’s fist in the same way. Both bullies would gape at him with their pale white faces and let out a simultaneous whimper.

  “Please do not crush our hands!” Larry would beg.

  But the time for pleading would have long since passed. Toby would wink at the audience of students, and then squeeze with but a mere fraction of his strength. Their hands would ooze through his fingers like Silly Putty. Nick would pass out from the excruciating pain, but Larry would hang on, eyes bugging out of his head.

  “Have mercy,” he’d whisper. “Please, Toby, show mercy to your inferiors.”

  And there would be mercy. But not for a few more minutes.

  Toby’s fantasy came to an abrupt end as his perception of the world—still moving in slow motion—narrowed to include only the sight of Larry’s fist speeding toward his cheek.

  The slow motion ended.

  The punch felt like it split open the entire right side of Toby’s face. He fell to the ground and instantly knew that any dignity he’d salvaged from this situation would soon be history, because there was going to be some crying involved. He couldn’t even conceive of a punch to the face hurting this badly without brass knuckles involved. At least he’d only felt one punch—Nick had clearly missed.

  The two bullies hovered over him. “Do you give up?” Larry asked.

  Of course he gave up! Toby nodded.

  Nick crouched down, grabbed Toby’s arms, and pulled him to his feet. Then he wrenched Toby’s arms behind him, holding him in front of Larry.

  “Mess him up!” Nick urged.

  Larry punched Toby in the stomach, so hard that he thought he was going to puke up his peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich from lunch. Instead, he dryretched and tried unsuccessfully to find enough breath to beg Larry not to hit him again.

  The next punch was to the left side of his face. There were a couple of audible gasps.

  Another punch to the face. It felt like bone cracked.

  Larry no longer looked simply angry. The expression on his face was wild, crazed, closer to insanity than fury. He punched Toby in the stomach again, and Toby realized that he genuinely meant to hospitalize him. Or kill him.

  His protest was cut off by the blow to the jaw. Tears streamed down his cheeks, mixing with blood.

  Yet another punch, and an actual scream from one of the girls watching. Spittle dangled from Larry’s lower lip. He drew back his fist for another blow.

  “Stop it!” Helen shouted. “This is way out of control!”

  With the next punch, Toby felt consciousness starting to slip away.

  “I said stop it! You’ll kill him!”

  “Yeah, this is too much,” said Nick, releasing Toby’s arms. Toby felt as if he were floating in space for a moment, and then his face struck the ground. He just wanted to sleep.

  “Fine, whatever,” said Larry. He lifted his foot as if to stomp on Toby’s skull, then apparently changed his mind and lowered it again. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The bullies walked away. Toby lay on the ground, bleeding and crying and not really caring who judged him. He was vaguely aware of some classmates helping him up, and he may even have spoken to them as they helped him get home, but he couldn’t be completely sure.

  Toby didn’t tell his parents or the school principal who beat him up. He didn’t need to. There were plenty of witnesses, and somebody (Toby hoped it was Helen, but he had no idea who it actually was) ratted about exactly who was involved.

  Nick was suspended for a week. Larry was set to be expelled, but Larry and his parents made the case that Toby had instigated the conflict with his insults, so Larry’s punishment was reduced to the same suspension that Nick received. He was also removed from the two classes that he shared with Toby. Toby was also out for a week—despite the sensation that his face had been mashed to frothy pulp, no bones were broken and there was nothing preventing him from returning to school except his grotesque swollen appearance. He’d tried to convince his parents that he needed another week of recovery time, but Dad thought it was best if things returned to normal as quickly as possible.

  The morning that Toby returned to school, Dad took him aside.

  “If you’re in a fair fight, I expect you to fight fair,” he said. “But if you’re ever in a mess like that again, you kick that son of a bitch in the nuts so hard that they burst. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Toby went to school, not telling anybody that he was carrying a knife for protection.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Oddly enough, getting beaten almost to the point of disfigurement had a positive effect on his popularity. He would’ve thought that you needed to win a fight to gain social status from it, but apparently the Orange Leaf High student body felt that he’d sufficiently proven himself against two much stronger opponents. He wondered what would happen to him if he’d actually thrown and landed a punch. Class president?

  After a couple of days, his newfound popularity faded a bit, and the number of students willing to talk to him dropped. But still, he no longer needed to leave the empty chair between himself and the people who shared his table at lunch, and J.D. stopped being such a jackass.

  Two weeks after his pummeling, he felt well enough to bring some food to Owen.

  He’d filled his backpack with a variety of items, everything from a pork chop to a hard mint. He returned to his former vantage point outside of the cave and got the shotgun ready. “Hello, Owen!” he called out.

  Nothing.

  “Hello, Owen, Owen, Owen! It’s me, Toby! Come on out! I’ve got some treats for you!”

  Toby hoped he wasn’t shouting at an empty cave. If Owen had moved on, that would be a serious bummer.

  He called Owen’s name a few more times, then moved on to Plan B. Instead of throwing rocks, he’d throw processed meat.

  As he dug the package of bologna out of his backpack, Owen stepped out of the cave. The monster looked right at him, and its face seemed to light up, like Toby’s grandmother when they’d visit her in the nursing home, before she died a couple of years ago. It moved forward, then stopped suddenly, as if realizing that its behavior was too intimidating. Toby kept the shotgun very much in mind, but didn’t reach for it.

  “Remember me?” he asked. Owen seemed to recognize him, but Toby was still pretty bruised up. Most likely that wouldn’t matter—an animal like this would probably recognize him by smell. “It’s your best friend, Toby. Sorry I haven’t been around, but for a while there, I was almost as ugly as you are.”

  He held up the package of bologna. “This is called baloney. It’s made from parts of every animal you can think of. You’ll like it.” He peeled off the top slice and held it up. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to Frisbee this over to you, but we’ll see.” Toby decided that he probably should have tested its aerodynamic properties beforehand, so that it didn’t splat onto the ground two feet in front of him and cause the monster to rush over. Fortunately, the light wind was at his back and he figured he should be able to throw it far enough to keep himself in the safety zone.

  He flung the meat disk at Owen. It sailed through the air with much more accuracy than Toby would have expected, landing just a few feet in front of its target. Owen pounced upon it, impaled the bologna upon the talon of his index finger, then scooped it into his mouth.

  It looked back at Toby. The message was clear: “More, please.”

  He threw the other slices of bologna at Owen, one after the other, with Owen stuffing them into his mouth as quickly as they landed. Toby was proud of himself—he was pretty good at the throw, and none of the slices hit trees.

  When the last piece was consumed, Owen looked at Toby again. The message was even clearer this time: “More, now.”

  Toby threw the pork chop at it. “It’s got a bone,” he warned.

  Owen chomped down on the pork chop, bone and all. He swallowed an
d looked at Toby expectantly.

  Okay, the bologna and pork chop had been pretty safe bets. Now the real testing began. Toby took out a candy bar, unwrapped the foil, and held it up. “This is chocolate,” he explained. “It’s bad for dogs but I’m sure it’s okay for you.”

  He tossed the chocolate at it. Owen devoured it with as much enthusiasm as he’d shown the meat, but then seemed to grimace.

  “Not a fan of chocolate?” Toby asked. “It’s good stuff.”

  Next up: an apple. A nice green Granny Smith one. Toby tossed it underhand to Owen, and let out a small yelp of amazement when the monster caught it. Owen held it between his fingers, inspecting it for about half a second, then popped the entire thing into its mouth. One crunch and a swallow later the apple was gone.

  Owen enjoyed the other few pieces of food that Toby brought, particularly the raw bacon, which elicited what Toby took to be a smile. Owen gulped down the mint without chewing it. Toby took out his second-to-last item, a red-hot fireball candy, rolled it around in his palm for a moment, then decided not to push his luck and shoved it back into his pocket. He ended with a sure thing and tossed Owen a raw hamburger patty.

  “That’s all,” he said, holding up his empty hand.

  Owen let out a low growl. Toby wished he’d packed a little more food.

  “I need to go,” Toby told him. “I’ll be back, though. I won’t be able to bring as much stuff next time, but I’ll definitely bring you a treat or two. Sound good?”

  Owen continued to growl, and then licked his lips.

  Toby waved. “Good-bye, Owen.” He continued waving in a slow, exaggerated motion, hoping the monster would mimic him. After a few moments he decided that it wasn’t going to happen and lowered his hand.

  He turned and began to walk away. Then he heard shuffling behind him and knew that Owen was following him. He’d figured that this might be a risk, but hadn’t quite determined how he was going to handle the situation if it happened. Worst-case scenario, he could point the shotgun at the monster again, though he’d avoid that if at all possible.