Charlaine Harris - Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

Sammy’s eyes widened as he realized who was sitting with me and scrambled away, his tray shaking hard enough to spill his juice. He did smell a little like dog, but hey, we all have something. Jed was psycho and Sammy was a little doggy. I’d take a fur-covered pair of jeans over crazy any day. But today was a day crazy didn’t seem to want to leave me alone. I’d started on my second burger, so Jed couldn’t take that, but he did take my Jell-O. Cherry. It looked like fresh blood on his teeth as he wolfed it down. He narrowed his eyes at me as he licked a streak of red from his bottom lip. “You’re not afraid of me, are you, asshole?”

I took another bite and chewed it. Bullies only heard what they wanted to hear. I wasn’t going to waste my time.

He leaned in, his breath hot and smelling of meat and cherry. “I’ll make you afraid. You got that? I’ll make you so goddamn afraid you’ll piss your pants.” He snatched up his tray and stalked away.

Trouble, he was big trouble. Maybe the first trouble I couldn’t get around. Crazy is crazy, and crazy never learns. He’d keep coming and coming until he caught me or backed me in a corner. I didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder every minute. I didn’t want him watching me. I stabbed my fork in my french fries. I was going to have to do something. That something being not letting Jed beat the shit out of me and stay out of trouble.

There was a trick.

“Hey, Nicky, you hanging out with Jaws?” Isaac sat across from me, chin propped in his hand.

Jed definitely had the teeth for the nickname, but no one had ever called him that to his face. “Nah, just my turn on his list.” Isaac frowned. His parents had come over from Mexico and he’d already had his turn over that with Jed.

“Oh shit,” he said, wincing. “Whatcha going to do?”

“Don’t know yet.” I dropped my fork. “Guess I’ll have to think about it. Sneak through the woods home until he figures that out.”

After the last class, I bolted into the woods. They were thick and deep, full of poison ivy and tangles of blackberry bushes that would tear you to pieces if you tried to push through. I managed. Scratches were scratches. They’d fade quick enough. And I’d avoided Jed.

This time.

The next afternoon I was at the store looking for a present for Tessa. I scowled at the Santa ringing the bell by the door. One more reminder . . . everywhere you looked. Skinny or with sagging beards and worn black boots or faded red pants. Fakes. It made the whole season fake.

But there were only two more days until Christmas Eve and I couldn’t put off shopping anymore. I couldn’t get Tessa what she really wanted, so I wandered up and down the doll aisle. It was amazing. They had dolls that walked and talked, crawled and cried, ate and pooped. Why would anyone want a toy that threw up on you while you changed its diaper? That was crazy. But Mom sent me out with a list and one of these nasty things was on it. I picked up the nearest one. It only talked and waved its arms, no puking involved. That was the one.

“Playing with dollies now,” Jed purred from behind me. “Why not? You run like a goddamn girl. You might as well play like one, too.” His hand circled my arm above my elbow so hard it cut the blood off. I felt the tingle in my fingers.

Jed had been behind me in the woods yesterday afternoon, but he didn’t know them like I did. He’d come closer than I’d have thought, though. He just didn’t care. Pain was nothing to him. Diving through blackberry bushes, sliding down ravines. He was one scratched, bruised mess now, and wasn’t that too bad? I might try and stay out of trouble but there was no way I was sorry about that.

I ignored him, yanked my arm away, and took the doll to the checkout counter. He followed me every step of the way. “You can’t run forever, Nicky ,” he whispered. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck ruffle in the god-awful stench of his breath. “No one’s ever gotten away. And when I’m done with you and you hide like a little bitch every time you see me, I’ll make your little sister sorry, too. Her and her dolly.”

And that was that.

I’d put it off. I’d tried to stay out of trouble. I’d tried not to piss off Mom and Dad. But you couldn’t let the assholes win, even crazy ones like Jed. I sat in a plastic chair by the door, eyes on the floor, until Jed gave up and left. And I never said a word to him.

There were kids that hated Jed. Lots of kids. If I could get all of them to join together and stand up to him, Jed might not be as tough as he thought he was. I could give it a try, but the thing about being beaten down . . . it’s hard to get back up. I’d been to four schools now, Dad’s job kept us traveling, and each school had a bully. Sometimes the bully would get caught and punished, but half the time it didn’t matter. In weeks he would go back to doing what he did. The kids wouldn’t stand up for themselves and hardly any of them would tell. They just took the bullying, sure the teachers couldn’t help them. They were right. If the principal kicked the bully out of school, then he’d simply wait outside it.

My dad said in life there were sheep and wolves, and most of the time they couldn’t cross over.

I sighed. Jed damn sure seemed like he thought he was a wolf. He was nuts as they came. He’d keep coming after me, going after the others, start messing with Tess. I folded the top of the bag the doll was in and got up. Nope, it probably wouldn’t work, no matter how many kids Jed had given reason to hate him, but I’d give it a shot. There had to be some that’d band together against Jed. Hell, it always worked in the movies.

Right?

Wrong.

Isaac peered through black bangs at me in disbelief. “The guy’s not human, okay? When he stomps you, it’s like he’s never gonna stop. He could take on Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Werewolf all at once and go out for pizza after.” Isaac was a huge fan of horror movies. He’d seen ones made before I was born, before my parents were born. The inside of his locker door was covered with pictures of monsters. Snarling, crouching, flying, sucking blood. They papered every square inch. I liked Isaac but he was a little weird.

“Come on.” I stood at his locker and snorted, “He’s not all that.”

“Yeah, Nicky, he is all that. He caught me in the woods and he broke my arm, okay? And he said if I told anyone how it happened, he’d break the other one. I believed him because he meant it.” He slammed the locker shut. “No way. Leave me out of it. He’s crazy, and if you had any sense, you’d be watching behind you every minute.” With that he hurried down the hall.

I gave up on Isaac and went on to Dog Boy . . . Sammy, I meant. Sammy. Five words out of my mouth and he was gone, fast as any of his dogs. It went that way all day. I’d expected it, but I’d hoped it’d be different.

Isaac had said Jed had caught him in the woods, the same ones Jed had chased me in. Jed didn’t do his fighting on campus. That’d get him expelled and he knew it. Yeah, it would get him expelled—him, not me.

He didn’t have the little in that I had with Principal Johnson. Good old Principal Johnson, not the brightest man to choke on chalk dust.

So I went to Plan B. That day when Jed, who was dependable as Cs in math, sat down opposite me in the cafeteria and took my slice of pizza, I picked up my tray, dumped the food off of it, and whacked him hard on the side of the head with it.

It knocked him sideways, almost off the seat, but he caught himself with one hand on the table. His eyes were ice, his teeth bared, and violence shivered under his skin. “Who’s the bitch now?” I asked quietly. “You gonna roll over and take it? Or you gonna stand up and do something about it?” He’d been barely smart enough not to fight in school before, but this was a whole lot of different.