Kathryn Magendie by Sweetie

to have weirdo schmeirdo’s fudge and Beatrice could have that other girl’s.” When Deidra said, “that other girl’s” she’d pointed to me and made a disgusted face.
    Beatrice said, “I don’t care about fudge. I have to watch my figure.”
    “Oh shut up, Beatrice,” Deidra said.
    T. J. said, “I’ll get that fudge. If I got to beat it outta them.”
    Sweetie held her hands together as she had the day she smashed her finger on Whale Back. Maybe just like the day she’d smashed her pinky, she was praying to Mountain Spirit to take away her pain. I didn’t have a mountain spirit to take away my pain and I didn’t want to think about what kinds of pain T. J. could dish out in his beating.
    T. J. splashed more water. “You can make this easy or you can make this hard.”
    “It’s not w-w-worth it, Sweetie. Let’s give him the f-f-fudge.” I reached into my satchel, but Sweetie grabbed my arm. She looked at me with her eyes flickering bright, fire leaping up, blazing. She shook her head No .
    “Yeah, guh guh guh give it.” T. J. turned to his friends and laughed a big fake laugh. He then stepped onto the first rock to cross over to us.
    With pleading eyes, I searched out Jeremy to send him a secret message to make T. J. go away. I held a secret love for Jeremy, with his brown eyes and shiny brown hair. He told me hello once, or he was about to when the bell rang and he had to run to class, and he kind of sort of smiled at me one day. In my diary on page fifty-three, I wrote how I would kiss him one day under a willow tree. I’d also drawn a picture of Jeremy’s eyes and mouth, put it next to the candy bars and bubble gum I hid from Mother in the secret hole in my mattress. Jeremy was staring at Beatrice, not me.
    T. J. had stepped onto the biggest rock jutting out from the water and was pin-wheeling his arms, pretending he couldn’t get his balance and was about to fall into the water, making his Posse and the girls laugh and giggle.
    Sweetie shook my shoulder. “Pay attention, Lissa.”
    I turned my eyes to her.
    “You let a boy like that get over on you, he won’t ever leave you be.” She looked at me deep and deeper, dove way down into my eyes, so far down I wondered what she saw there. Something strong and alive from her shot inside me and I grew taller and stronger and my breaths felt even, filling up my lungs and leaving my lungs, in and out, full and fuller, empty and emptier, then full again. It was as if she gave me her own breath; I took it right out of her body and into my own.
    T. J. stepped onto the last rock and balanced on one leg. “Look at me, whoop whoop !” He jumped onto the grass and stood three feet from us.
    Sweetie put down the paper sack she carried her school things in. “You better get on back where you come from. This is your last chance.”
    T. J. wiggled his hips. “Yew better git o-wen ba-ick where yew come from. This is yer last chaince.” He put his hands on either side of his cheeks and widened his eyes. “Ohh, I’m sooo scared.”
    The Posse hooted at T. J., but hadn’t followed him, so far.
    I said, “There’s more of them than us.”
    “Just got to take out T. J. here, the others will run off with tails between they legs.”
    T. J. took three steps, puffed out his cheeks and made more grunts. Then he jumped to me, grabbed my satchel, pulled, and the satchel flipped and fell onto the ground. Where the Wild Things Are , Peter’s book with his name scribbled in it, the one he’d given me when he outgrew it, the one I carried with me most all the time because I missed my big brother, tumbled down into the water. I ran to pick it up before the pages soaked. My rolls rolled as I bent over; I heard the snickering.
    Heat built up from the bottoms of my feet and made its way to the roots of my hair as though my head was going to blow right off my shoulders. My breath rushed in and out, fast and hard. I wiped my book on my shirt, and looked up at T. J. as if I