Runaway, however, could not contain herself. She looked at Stephen incredulously and said, with her brow furrowed, “Who talks like that? Why not just tell him to go away?”
“Doesn’t sound as articulate, thereby lacking sophistication, as our friend does,” Stephen motioned with his head. “Then the insult remains.” He winked at her.
Runaway smiled at his response and let out a small laugh.
“What’s a ‘repast,’ anyway?” Brandon looked around, lost.
“I rest my case,” Stephen whispered. We exchanged smiles all round, except Brandon, of course.
Stephen again looked up at our unwanted visitor and said, “Still here?”
“No… leaving,” he replied.
“Then be off with you.” And Stephen waved him away with his hand.
Runaway didn’t skip a beat.
“You know who that came from, don’t you?” She took a bite out of her burger and motioned with her head in the direction of the boy retreating from the table.
“Who?” Brandon immediately asked.
She was still chewing, and with a full mouth, said, “Bret.”
“Why would you think that?” he asked again, looking at her with a blank stare.
“Brandon,” Stephen started “Really, do you pay attention to anything? Or is it your habitual nature to be dense?”
Brandon looked at Stephen as if he was speaking a foreign language.
“Hello…” Stephen snapped his fingers in front of Brandon’s face. “He’s from Bonita, and who else would send a creepy individual like that to question our motives?”
Runaway smiled. “Well, now we know he’s curious, and if he’s curious, then we know others are, too.”
The following week, we were walking down the hallway at school when someone stepped right in our path. Runaway and I were walking out of economics when we saw Derrick, one of Bret’s friends.
Derrick was a nerd who tried to fit in with the “in” crowd, but unfortunately for him, he never fit in anywhere. He was average in every way—height, hair, weight, looks, and intelligence. It seemed to me that he was exactly like Brandon, only with a different group of people. Why else would he have hung out with the Bonita crowd if he went to Glendora? I gathered that he was pretty much an idiot, but he tried to be tough, because he thought that by hanging out with Bret he must have been above the rest.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the leader of the pack,” he said in a sing-song voice and clearly referencing the 60s song.
“Oh aren’t you clever,” I fired back with a snarl in my voice. “What the hell do you want?”
“You know, Topher you’re just the little puppy that follows her around—everyone says so,” Derrick sneered.
“Everyone?” I spat. “Who’s everyone? You, your mom, and dad?”
“Oh, I understand,” Runaway looked at me and then right back at Derrick. “And you’re not Bret’s go-to boy? Topher has his own identity, which is more than I can say for you… you can’t even figure out where you belong.” She raised her eyebrows.
“You think your car club is so cool,” he arrived at his point. “I’ll bet Bret can beat your old bucket of bolts any day.”
“Derrick,” Runaway stopped and looked at him squarely in the eye. “Why don’t you crawl back to the hole you came from, and let Bret make his own threats, ask his own questions, and make his own comments. I don’t need to have a conversation with him through you.” She brushed past his shoulder in order to continue walking.
He turned and yelled at our backs as we continued down the hall.
“Topher, I’d be embarrassed if I let a girl run my life,” Derrick said, taunting me again.
I stopped and turned to look at him. Runaway had walked a few more steps before she, too, stopped and turned.
“Well, now, see, that’s the difference between us, Derrick,” I looked at him earnestly. “At least I have a girl in my life, which is, of course, something you will never understand. And second, I would be embarrassed if I had Bret for a friend. At least I know Runaway isn’t just being my friend because I’m a nerd, and she can use me to get information. Can you say the say the same?” I asked, with a sinister smile.
Derrick seemed at least momentarily defeated, because the only retort he could manage was, “Yeah, well, Bret is gonna kick your butt, Runaway!”
Runaway looked at me with a surprised look on her face and mouthed, “Kick my butt?” to me. I shrugged my shoulders.
She then looked at Derrick and began walking toward him. “Slow down, little man,” she said. “I’ll tell you what,” she said slowly. “You send Bret my way, and when I have finished with him, I will come looking for you.” She looked him directly in the eye.
At the last moment before she reached Derrick, she stomped her foot on the ground, making an enormous echo in the hall. Derrick jumped, with a wild sort of look in his eyes, and left in a hurry. Truth be told, Derrick was somewhat short, and Runaway, being at least 5’9,” towered over him.
She turned back toward me with a triumphant smile on her face.
“Poor guy—he’s probably running scared, trying to find the quickest way to go tell Bret ‘she stomped her foot at me,’ ” I said, still smiling.
My mood immediately changed as I switched to a more serious topic. I suddenly blurted out, “What are you going to do about him?”
“Who?” Runaway asked, innocently looking at me.
“Bret.”
“Nothin’,” she replied impassively.
“Why nothing?”
“What would you have me do?” she asked.
We walked in silence for a few minutes, and I was thinking about how he constantly seemed to either follow us or loom over us. For myself, I was sick of it, and I knew Runaway felt the same—but she seemed to be staring off in an indifferent state of concentration and perplexity. People passed us in the hall, and went unnoticed. As we approached the end of the corridor, she finally broke the silence.
“Don’t worry, Topher, I have a plan… I always have a plan,” she said, looking at me sideways.
“Oh, good, here comes another idea.” I glanced at the ceiling. “Great, then tell me why I always get a bottomless pit feeling in my stomach when you get an idea?” I looked at her with raised brows.
“Funny, Toph. Really, though, I do have a plan.” She was watching the ground as she walked.
“Okay, I give. What is it?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
“What?” I exclaimed, getting a bit irritated. “Can’t I know?”
“No.” We were looking directly at each other.
“Why?”
“Don’t whine, Topher,” she shook her head. “You sound like Brandon.”
“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s a curse in itself.”
We walked further along the corridor and ran directly into Grant. He and Stephen were walking directly toward us, lost in conversation. Just behind Grant’s enormous frame, Brandon tagged along. Grant looked up and both he and Stephen stopped talking.
“Hey guys, what’s up?” Grant said.
“Not much.” Runaway replied impassively. “What’s up with you guys?” Her face was full of questions.
Stephen explained their intense conversation.
“We were recently accosted by that moron, Pete Masterson. He decided to spew ridiculous verbiage regarding the club and was relentless about how everyone from Bonita thought it was ‘lame,’ to use his word.” Stephen looked disgusted at having to actually use the word “lame.”
“What did you say?” I asked.
“Told him to shove it.” Grant smiled. “Then I told him that if he loved Bonita so much, perhaps I could make arrangements to have him flown there.”
Stephen continued the story. “It was brilliant—Pete looked at Grant like he was being utterly serious and said, ‘Have me flown… really? How?’”
Runaway and I both looked at Grant, waiting for the response.
He smiled and said, “I told him I’d send him on the Grant Taylor Express!”
With this, he made a motion like he was grabbing the back shirt collar of an invisible person with one hand, and the back of the pants with his other hand—then he pantomimed throwing the person through the hall.
We all burst out laughing.
“Yeah,” I said “Runaway and I were just told by Derrick about how Bret is going to kick her butt.”
Runaway looked innocent as she said, “I didn’t even know butt-kicking was involved.” She then changed her tone and said, “What is it with him, anyway? That’s three times we’ve had to put up with his cronies trying to pry information out of us.”
“Well, good news.” Grant beamed and changed the subject, “I don’t have a game tonight because we have a buy. I’m sure none of you remember this… I have only been telling you all week long.” He said this in an offhanded way. “So the question is—what do you want to do?”
Subconsciously, I think that we all—with the exception of Brandon—were in mental agreement that we wanted to go to Henry’s. Bret deserved that much. Knowing that he had sent his spies to check on us and figure out what we were doing deserved a return favor, even if that meant making a rare appearance.
I knew that’s what Runaway had been referring to with her plan. The only problem was, I didn’t know what else was in the plan, but whatever it was undoubtedly entailed Bret being humiliated in some way.
“What’s a buy?” Brandon asked.
“It’s just when there hasn’t been a game scheduled,” Grant said.
“Oh, good to know.”
“So, what should we do on my night off?” Grant was now looking at Runaway, smiling and rubbing his hands together.
“How ’bout we take a little drive over to Henry’s?” Runaway suggested.
“You mean where everyone from Bonita hangs out?” Brandon whined.
“Everyone and their brother hangs out there, Brandon, not just the people from Bonita,” I told him. I had a feeling I knew exactly where this was headed—he was going to put up a fight.
“Oh, I don’t want to go there,” he whined.
“Why?” Runaway asked.
“Because everyone from Bonita hangs out there, and it’s just awkward.”
“Awkward?” Runaway straightened up. “What’s so awkward about it?”