clung to every ripple and bulge of his chest, was Buddy Repperton. He had a switchblade knife in his right hand and he was moving it slowly back and forth in front of his face like a magician making mystic passes.
He was tall and broad-shouldered. His hair was long and black. He wore it tied back in a ponytail with a hank of rawhide. His face was heavy and stupid and mean-looking. He was smiling just a little. What I felt was an unmanning mixture of dismay and cold fear. He didn't look just stupid and mean; he looked crazy.
'Told you I was gonna getcha, man,' he said softly to Arnie. He tilted the knife and jabbed softly at the air with it in Arnie's direction. Arnie flinched back a little. The switchblade had an ivory handle with a little chrome button to flick out the blade set into it. The blade itself looked to be about eight inches long - it wasn't a knife at all, it was a fucking bayonet.
'Hey, Buddy, brand im!' Don Vandenberg yelled happily, and I felt my mouth go dry.
I looked around at the kid next to me, some nerdy freshman I didn't know. He looked absolutely hypnotised, all eyes. 'Hey,' I said, and when he didn't look around I slammed my elbow into his side. 'Hey!'
He jumped and looked around at me in terror
'Go get Mr Casey. He eats his lunch in the wood-shop office. Go get him right now.'
Repperton glanced at me, then glanced at Arnie. 'Come on, Cunningham,' he said. 'What do you say, you want to go for it?'
'Put down the knife and I will, you shitter,' Arnie said. His voice was perfectly calm. Shitter, where had I heard that word before? From George LeBay, hadn't it been? Sure. It had been his brother's word.
It apparently wasn't a word Repperton cared for. He flushed and stepped closer to Arnie. Arnie circled away. I thought something was going to happen pretty quick maybe one of those things the call for stitches and leave a scar.
'You go get Casey now,' I told the nerdy-looking freshman, and he went. But I thought everything would probably go down before Mr Casey got back . . . unless I could maybe slow things down a little.
'Put down the knife, Repperton,' I said.
His glance came over my way again. 'Whit you know,' he said. 'It's Cuntface's friend, You want to make me put it down?'
'You've got a knife and he doesn't, I said. 'In my book that makes you a fucking chicken-shit.'
The flush deepened. Now his concentration was broken. He looked at Arnie, then over at me. Arnie flashed me a glance of pure gratitude - and moved a little closer to Repperton. I didn't like that.
'Put it down,' someone yelled at Repperton. And then someone else: 'Put it down!' They started to chant: 'Put it down, put it down, put it down!'
Repperton didn't like it. He didn't mind being the centre of attention, but this was the wrong sort of attention. His glance began to flicker around nervously, first at Arnie, then at me, then at the others. A hank of hair fell across his forehead, and he tossed it back.
When he looked my way again, I made a move as if to go for him. The knife swivelled in my direction, and Arnie moved - he moved faster than I would have believed. He brought the side of his right hand down in a half-assed but effective karate chop. He hit Repperton's wrist hard and knocked the knife out of his hand. It clattered onto the butt-littered hottop. Repperton bent and grabbed for it. Arnie timed it with a deadly accuracy and when Repperton's hand came all the wav to the asphalt, Arnie stamped on it. Hard. Repperton screamed.
Don Vandenberg moved in then, quickly, hauled Arnie off, and threw him to the ground. Hardly aware that I was going to do it, I stepped into the ring and kicked Vandenberg in the ass just as hard as I could - I brought my foot up rather than pistoning it out; I kicked him as if I were punting a football.
Vandenberg, a tall, thin guy who was either nineteen or twenty at that time, began to scream and dance around holding his butt. He forgot all about helping his Buddy; he ceased to be a factor in things. To me it's amazing that I didn't paralyse him. I never kicked anyone or anything harder, and