Dear Diary,
The Central High Sharks broke into our school in the early morning hours.
The Runt came running up the 2A stairs, stomping in his over-sized combat boots yelling, “Get up, Get up… Madie…Madie!”
The boy is a constant nuisance. I never know when he is telling the truth. I slid deeper beneath my bed covers and tried to ignore the commotion.
“MADIE…PLEASE!” the boy yelled as he banged on my door.
The boy likes to cry wolf. Expecting another false alarm, I threw open my door and grab the little pest by his arm. I squeezed hard in an attempt to cause the boy pain. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
JT and Evan occupy the room next to mine. Irritated with the frequent nightly disruptions, they stepped up behind the boy holding a rope and masking tape. One word from me and they would have hog-tied the boy and tossed him into a rat infested dumpster.
“Can we not lock him in a closet somewhere?” Lisa begs from her doorway.
A dozen others agreed with whistles and grunts of irritability. Three nights this week, the boy has woken everyone up before dawn.
“Tony’s hurt!” The 8 year old sobbed.
A fix-it man by trade, a drifter from New Jersey, Tony lives in the school’s workshop, he spends his day fixing whatever we break.
I looked deep into the boy’s eyes for any indications the dramatics on display were a fake. “What happened to Tony?”
The Runt wiped his tears and runny nose on his shirtsleeve several times, “The Sharks beat him up!”
The Sharks live in the Central High School. Xavier is their leader. A former celebrity and wrestling champion; I remember the excitement when he moved into the neighborhood. The admiration didn’t last long. Xavier is cruel; killing one of his favorite past times. For sport, he has his goons use people as punching bags.
“Where is Tony?” I demanded. The Runt was crying so hard I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. The more he sniffled and wiped his nose on his shirt the more irritated and impatient I became.
I grabbed the boy by his shoulders “Stop crying! Where- is -Tony?”
From previous experience, I knew if Tony was hurt, he was hurt bad. The Sharks didn’t leave people a little injured. They left people dead or on the brink of death.
The Runt took a deep breath and pointed, “… in the workshop.”
I shoved the boy into my room. “Stay put!”
I took a moment to gather my thoughts. I looked around at my friends. “Spread out and look for the intruders. Capture the sharks by any means necessary… and feel free to break some bones!”
The Davis brothers could read me like a book. Before I could say, “grab your weapons” Matt and Jonas were at my side, ready to kick shark butt.
The Sharks were gone by the time the three of us arrived in the workshop. Tony’s neat and tidy work-space resembled the aftermath of a tornado. The sharks broke what they could, threw tools around the room and knocked over benches. The winter fuel we stored in the utility shed, stolen.
We found Tony slumped against the far wall, beaten but in good humor. It’s the Calvary!” Tony joked as he spit out a mouth full of blood.
Matt and Jonas went in search of a first aid supplies as I squatted down next to my broken friend to assess his injuries. “Did you have to fight them? Sometimes running away is a better option.”
Tony rolled his eyes “thanks for the advice but they didn’t give me an option… Where’s the runt?”
Tony found the Runt curled up on the steps of the school one morning. The boy was starving and near death. Out of the goodness of his heart, he took the boy in and nursed him back to health. To my dismay the Runt decided to make our school his home instead of running away the moment he was healthy and rejoining the rest of the gutter-rats.
“He’s in my room” I sighed. “He’s safe.”
Yours Truly,
Madie