I nod.
“Good. Now give me your phone. I’m going to see if Mary in the cafeteria can spare some rice. I hear that’s the best shot you have. Sucks up the moisture. You’d have to ask Mr. Prue in chemistry for the specifics.”
She leaves, and I sit there alone for a few minutes. Her computer is on, and I wonder if there’s time to check Facebook and then erase the history. It feels like too much of a risk. A ridiculous risk. In fact, I can’t believe I’m thinking about myself at a time like this. Whatever the vice principal decides, I have made Moses’s life worse than it was before I came into it. If I’d been focusing on him and not on myself, I would have had the homework, and my backpack probably would have been zipped. I would have thought for a second about its placement and I would have been sure to keep it out of Carl’s reach.
Ms. Tate returns with a bag full of rice, and assures me that my phone is somewhere in the middle of it. She says to let it sit like that overnight. There’s only a half hour left in school now, and she tells me to read in the corner until the bell rings. I pull out one of my books, and she sees the wet warp and orange taint of the pages.
“Oh dear,” she says. “Can you still read it?”
“It’s mostly on the edges,” I tell her. The pages are hard to turn, and I’m not really registering any of the words, but I make sure to act like I’m reading so I don’t have to talk to her anymore. Eventually she seems to forget I’m there, even when she calls the vice principal to ask what’s to be done now. I don’t hear his answer.
I wonder if Moses’s parents will be called. From his memories, they seem like reasonable people. But this is not a reasonable thing their son has done, so there’s no precedent.
When the bell rings, Ms. Tate tells me, “Be here before homeroom tomorrow—let’s say seven-fifteen. We’ll discuss next steps then. I would advise you not to take the trouble you’re in lightly, and to think long and hard about what you’ve done. This is not to excuse Carl from anything that he did—but there have to be methods of dealing with him that do not involve fighting in school.”
I don’t challenge this point. But the question lingers, and I think both Ms. Tate and I feel it: What would those methods be? How do you stop someone like Carl, short of taking him down?
My guess is that the fight was not spectacular enough to merit school-wide gossip, because I make it to my locker unimpeded. I feel that if word had spread, Moses’s sister would have tried to get in touch with him. Although for all I know, she’s texted repeatedly.
It’s not that far of a walk home—fifteen minutes tops. I can’t map it or anything, so I rely on Moses’s memory. As people board buses and get rides, I try to make myself unremarkable. A lot of people are walking in the direction of Taco Bell and McDonald’s, so I veer down a side alley. I’m eager to get back to Moses’s computer, behind the closed door of Moses’s room. I am trying not to think about what it will be like for him when he wakes up tomorrow morning and realizes he has to get to school early to see Ms. Tate for the verdict on whether he’ll be suspended or expelled.
I hear a car coming and step to the side so it can pass. But instead of passing, it pulls up beside me. I turn and see someone who looks a lot like Carl—his brother?—in the driver’s seat, and then Carl in the passenger seat and some other guys in the back. The car turns into me, blocking my way, and stops. I turn around to run, but they’re already jumping out of the car.
I am so, so stupid.
“Hey, Cheng!” Carl’s brother calls out, slamming his door. “Think you’re tough, crying all over Petty’s office? Think it’s okay to attack someone in class, do you?”
He’s at least nine inches taller than me and might weigh twice as much. There’s no way this is fair.
“Fucking Cheng,” Carl snarls.
I don’t like the way they’re using my last name.
“Ready to fight now?” Carl’s brother taunts. “Gonna break out your karate moves?”
I want to leave my body, which isn’t even my body. I want to be able to leave while what’s about to happen is happening. Flight and fight aren’t really options. That leaves fright.
Protect your head.
I have no idea where I learned this. But when the first blow comes—Carl’s brother steps aside and makes Carl do it—I don’t try to strike back. I don’t open myself up by lashing out. No, I roll up and protect my head. I try to use the wall next to me to cover as much as possible. They start to kick me then, in the side. It hurts. A lot. But I am protecting my head. Moses’s head.
I hear shouting. The kicking stops. There’s more shouting. I can feel them moving away from me. Something soft comes and presses against me. The car doors open and slam. The engine starts. I open my eyes. It’s a dog—there’s a dog next to me. “Are you okay?” a woman is asking. She has her phone in her hand. I think it’s to call the police, but instead she says, “I got the whole thing. I got pictures of all those guys.” I’m trying to sit up, but it really hurts. I wipe my forehead and there’s blood.
“Okay, okay,” the woman says. “Don’t move. I’m calling an ambulance.”
I start crying. Because I’m hurting, yes. But also because I’ve done this to him. I’ve done this.
More people are gathering now, asking what happened. One of them says he’s a doctor and heard the shouting from his office. He checks me out and gets me to stand. We go to his office and he stops the bleeding, explaining that it’s just a cut, that I’m going to be okay. It looks worse than it is.
Then he checks my side and tells me I may have broken a few ribs. Tells me to lie down. Asks me for my parents’ number.
I try. But I don’t know it.
I explain about my phone, and I probably seem incoherent at first, answering What’s your parents’ phone number? with something about rice. But eventually the bag of rice is retrieved from my backpack. They take the phone out—too soon. It doesn’t work.
I tell them to call the school. To ask for Ms. Tate.
When they think I can’t hear, the doctor and his assistant say they can’t believe that kids today don’t know any phone numbers. I want to go to sleep. But I force myself to stay awake.
The ambulance arrives and I’m taken to the hospital for X-rays and for treatment. About ten minutes later, Ms. Tate comes in and says my parents are on their way. I look behind her and see my sister in the hall, crying. I wonder if she’s going to blame herself, for letting me walk home alone even though I told her it was going to be okay.
When my parents arrive, my sister stays in the hall. My mother is focused on how I’m feeling and what the doctors have said. My father is seething, and tells me that the boys who attacked me are being arrested as we speak. Apparently the video caught all their faces.