Part II
"Better get it over with soon Maxie, or I’ll break it, I will." Pain shoots up and down my arm like electricity. I swallow it down, before it has a chance to escape my mouth in any form of surrender. I have to fight and be strong, even if I can’t walk because my legs are paralyzed. "Gosh darn it, just give it up Maxie. You’re to weak anyhow. Say ‘uncle’ now or I’ll have to break it."
Just when I feel I can’t stand the pain any longer, a door slams. My arm is instantly released as the gang tears off down the hill. Saved by a teacher. Always saved by a teacher.
But as I rouse and unfold myself from my crouched position, I see it’s not a teacher but the new girl in school who’s just saved me. Thin, with mouse-colored brown hair and glasses. She’s had a detention in English every day this week, and it wasn’t her fault either. The whole class was there to witness this injustice, but nobody stood up for her. Ms. Turpan has to be the meanest teacher ever to walk this planet. The stick figure is not from what you could call a well-off family—her shirt is way too small, her jeans are all baggy and tied up with a worn out belt. She doesn’t fit into our average eighth grade classroom scene yet. Her big eyes follow the cluster of boys dashing down towards my house. Then they turn to me and the mess.
"You okay?"
I consider the broken pencils and spilled lunch. My math homework is taking a bath in my orange juice. A almost unidentifiable object is next to a half eaten apple, formerly know as a pen. A little sketch I had kept in my pencil case since third grade is torn to shreds. I can still feel the pain in my arm. The Monkey Apes have never gone this far before. Okay is far from the word I would use to describe this situation.