The Pretty Ones by Ania Ahlborn Page B

ruler?”
    â€œThat in the Karma Sutra ?” the third boy asked. Despite his laughter, Nell could sense his genuine curiosity.
    â€œYeah,” the first one said. “It’s in the fat-girl section, filed under ‘Jesus Freak.’ Get on your knees and pray to my bicho , baby.”
    Nell’s legs stopped working.
    Her feet refused to take another step.
    She glared down at a sidewalk that was black with grime, small tar-like circles of chewing gum pockmarking the concrete like freckles among the filth. She clamped her teeth together, felt her nostrils flare. Somewhere, in the not-so-far-off distance, she could hear Italian opera filtering into the street from someone’s open apartment window. All at once, the heat that Nell had become accustomed to beneath the bulk of her unseasonable sweater hit her head-on, threatening to burn her up from the inside out. Spontaneous combustion. Flash paper. Atom bomb.
    She snapped her head to the side.
    Shot a steely look at the group of boys on their childish bikes.
    Let her upper lip curl away from her teeth.
    â€œOh damn , dude,” said one. “Here we go. Rabid like a fuckin’ dog!”
    â€œAw, don’t be mad, chica ,” said another. “We like you, girl.”
    â€œYeah,” said the third, pumping his hips into the handlebars of his bike. “We really like you.” He let his tongue roll out of his mouth and flicked it at her. Obscene.
    Nell’s stomach pitched.
    A wallop of pain punched her between the eyes.
    She turned away from them as if to run, and they laughed among themselves as soon as she looked in the opposite direction. But the celebration of their victory over pudgy Ms. Nobody was premature. Nell wasn’t turning away to flee. She regarded a patch of gravel between the sidewalk and the nearest building. The rocks were a mishmash of small pebbles and larger stones. Without so much as a second thought, she swept up a handful of the rocks and looked back toward her assailants. They weren’t paying attention anymore, distracted by a group of black kids on the opposite side of the street.
    Nothing but two lanes of tarmac separated both gangs. Traffic was sparse. Nell could sense that, at any second, the bicycle gang would move to meet their enemies, where they would be out of her reach. The tallest of the black kids yelled something that she couldn’t understand, but his tone was clear: he didn’t like the bike gang either. They should get out of his neighborhood. Off his streets. Or he’d show them exactly why they should never show their faces on the corner of Kings Highway and East 16th again. There was no doubt in Nell’s mind that, had the bike gang not been there, the grouping of black guys would have harassed her just like the Puerto Ricans had. But that was the way things in Brooklyn worked. Everyone was at odds with one another. Nobody was safe from scrutiny. And yet, at that particular moment, Nell felt solidarity with the boys across the street. They were conveniently distracting. Just what she needed.
    As the two groups puffed up their chests and hollered back and forth at one another, she picked out the largest rock from the palm of her hand. Reeled back. Let it fly as hard and fast as she could. It hit the leader of the bike gang square in the back of the head with a muffled thud. The guy’s hand flew up to the point of impact. He spun around, his eyes as wide as a wild dog’s. When he spotted Nell with the handful of rocks, he looked ready to fly into a rage. But then the black kids erupted into a fit of laughter. They slapped their legs and stomped their Dr. Js against the hot concrete.
    She threw another.
    It bounced off his shoulder with a smack.
    â€œBitch!” he roared, but she kept throwing, pelting him about the head and shoulders, stoning him in the middle of the intersection.
    But his anger seemed to shift to low-level panic, punctuated by what must have