They showed up a few minutes after we arrived. He was wearing that stupid T-shirt,
Camels in his sleeve, and a glop of hair gel on his head. Angela hung all over him right
from the beginning of the dance, and it didn’t take a genius to realize she’d had a few
drinks before she got there. Her dress was really flashy—her mother worked in a salon
and was up on all the latest fashions—and I noticed she’d picked up that ladylike habit
called chewing gum. She really worked that gum, chewing it almost like a cow working
her cud.
Well, good old Lew spiked the punch bowl, and a few more people started getting
tipsy. By the time the teachers found out, most of the punch was already gone and people
were getting that glassy look in their eyes. When I saw Angela gobble up her second glass
of punch, I knew I should keep my eye on her. Even though she’d dumped me, I didn’t
want anything bad to happen to her. She was the first girl I’d ever French-kissed, and even
though our teeth clanked together so hard the first time we tried it that I saw stars and had
to take aspirin when I got home, I still had feelings for her.
So there I was, sitting with Jamie, barely listening as she described the wonders of
Bible school, watching Angela out of the corner of my eye, when Lew spotted me looking
at her. In one frenzied motion he grabbed Angela around the waist and dragged her over to
the table, giving me one of those looks, the one that “means business.” You know the one
I’m talking about.
“Are you staring at my girl?” he asked, already tensing up.
“No.”
“Yeah, he was,” Angela said, kind of slurring out the words. “He was staring right at
me. This is my old boyfriend, the one I told you about.”
His eyes turned into little slits, just like Hegbert’s were prone to do. I guess I have
this effect on lots of people.
“So you’re the one,” he said, sneering.
Now, I’m not much of a fighter. The only real fight I was ever in was in third grade,
and I pretty much lost that one when I started to cry even before the guy punched me.
Usually I didn’t have much trouble staying away from things like this because of my
passive nature, and besides, no one ever messed with me when Eric was around. But Eric
was off with Margaret somewhere, probably behind the bleachers.
“I wasn’t staring,” I said finally, “and I don’t know what she told you, but I doubt if it
was true.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you calling Angela a liar?” he sneered.
Oops.
I think he would have hit me right there, but Jamie suddenly worked her way into the
situation.
“Don’t I know you?” she said cheerfully, looking right at him. Sometimes Jamie
seemed oblivious of situations that were happening right in front of her. “Wait—yes, I do.