their way down the hallway to their lockers to put away the stack of papers and notebooks from the temporary locker. Lily had just slammed the locker door shut when she heard a voice.
“I’ll teach that little slug to get in my way.”
“Did you hear that?” Lily stopped walking to listen.
“What?” Malaya was busy digging through the front pocket of her forest green backpack.
“That voice. I think it’s coming from down the hall on the left,” Lily said as she hurried her wobbly stride towards the voice.
“Take that,” the voice said as Lily rounded the corner. Lily could tell they were getting closer to the voice. She tried to go as fast as she could, but it was so hard to get around on the crutches. They rounded the second corner just in time to see Montana standing over a freshman cowering against the cold, metal lockers. Blood trickled down from his lip as the freshman tried to escape his tormenter’s grasp on his shoulder.
“Don’t you ever get in my way again,” Montana howled at the freshman, spit flying past his furled lips.
“Hey,” Lily shouted down the hallway. “What do you think you’re doing?”
She wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it. She wasn’t exactly in the best position to be standing up to bullies at the moment. Her crutches gave her a distinct disadvantage. Normally she would have run for a teacher instead of trying to deal with Montana on her own.
“What’s it to you, cripple?” Montana turned his attention to Lily and Malaya without letting go of his victim.
“Let him go,” Lily yelled. Lily pushed Malaya back in the direction they had come. “I’m sending my friend for the nearest teacher, so you better let him go now, or you’ll get caught.”
“What’s going on here?” Mr. Turnbow appeared from a nearby class room. By the look of his face, he already knew exactly what was going on.
“I was just, well, uh,” Montana stammered. To a freshman, he may have looked big and tough, but in reality he was a weak coward.
“I think you better have the school nurse look at that lip before she leaves for the day,” Mr. Turnbow directed the grateful freshman. The moment the injured boy was gone the teacher turned to Montana.
“There is never a good reason to hit someone. It shows a complete lack of discipline and self-control, which are qualities I consider essential in any real man. This time I will let you off the hook, because I know things have been rough at home lately, but if I ever find out that you hit another human being again, I will make sure that you pay the price for it. Do you understand?” Montana nodded somberly and shuffled down the hall towards the exit sign. Mr. Turnbow sighed as he watched him leave the school and then retreated to his classroom. Lily noticed that up until Mr. Turnbow had delivered his lecture, she had heard every one of Montana’s thoughts, but afterwards she heard nothing. It seemed that as soon as someone was apologetic, she could no longer hear their thoughts. Ever since she had come out of the, coma she had been wondering if her gift applied to both good and bad people, and after the day’s events Lily finally had her answer. She now knew that she was able to hear all wicked thoughts, regardless of whether the person thinking them was truly a bad person or not. She had heard many of Dean’s thoughts, because he was truly horrible the majority of the time. Robert was a nice guy, but was treated badly and sought revenge because if it, which is never good. Lily figured that Robert should have forgiven Dean regardless of what he had done to him, and because he didn’t, she was able to hear his desires of retaliation. It seemed to her that Montana was not as bad a person as she had thought, but was easily influenced by his friends, and not having a good father figure at home was taking a toll on him. Lily was surprised she hadn’t heard Landon’s thoughts yet. She was so sure she would have. He really was what he said he was, a nice guy who went along with what his friends were doing to avoid ridicule and banishment from the group. She still was irritated at him for doing nothing about the Robert situation. Landon was one of Dean’s best friends, and so he was in