Get up! Get up! Scat yelled as he ran up the 2A stairs in his over-sized combat boots. The boy was a constant nuisance and had a bad habit of waking everyone up before dawn for the attention. Madie slid deeper beneath her blankets and tried to ignore the noise.
“MADIE…PLEASE!” the boy yelled as he banged on her door.
Expecting another false alarm, Madie threw open her door and grab the little pest by the arm. She squeezed hard in an attempt to cause the boy pain. “Ok, we get the point!”
JT and Evan occupy the room next to Madie’s. Irritated with the frequent nightly false alarms, they stepped up behind the boy holding a rope and masking tape ready to hog-tie the boy and toss 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 within the last week, the boy had woken everyone up before dawn.
“Tony’s hurt!” The 8-year-old sobbed.
Madie looked deep into the boy’s eyes for any indications the dramatics on display were a fake. “What happened to Tony?”
Scat wiped his tears and runny nose on his shirtsleeve several times, “The Bobcats beat him up!”
The Davis brothers could read Madie like a book. Before she could say, “grab your weapons” Matt and Jonas were at her side.
The Bobcats were gone by the time the Madie, Matt and Jonas arrived in the basement. Tony’s neat and tidy work-space resembled the aftermath of a tornado. The Bobcats broke what they could, threw tools around the room and knocked over benches. The winter fuel stored in the utility shed, stolen.
Tony was slumped against the far wall, beaten but in good humor. “It’s the Calvary!” he said coughing up a mouthful of blood.
Madie squatted down next to her broken friend to assess his injuries “You should have ran, one person can’t fight an army of thugs.”…….