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Kate’s not here, Spence,” Zach said. “So she could see just how much of a loser you really are.”
    Now Spence straightened up. Not grinning any longer. “You’re calling me names now?”
    “Yeah,” Zach said. “I guess I am.”
    Spence dropped the books he’d been carrying, got right up on Zach, slamming his locker door closed as he did, the sound echoing up and down the empty hall.
    “You’re gonna need to take that back.”
    “Take it back?” Zach shook his head. He felt himself grinning now. “What are you, seven years old? No kidding, Spence, for a smart guy you can sound dumber than a bag of hammers.”
    One of his dad’s old expressions popping into his head, out of nowhere.
    Where did that come from? Where was all of this coming from?
    In a quiet voice, Spence said, “So let me get this straight: Now I’m dumb on top of everything else?” Zach could feel the heat of Spence’s breath on his face, like exhaust.
    Spence wasn’t all that much taller than Zach. He’d just always seemed taller; Zach felt as if he’d been looking up at the guy as long as he’d known him. Like having Spence in his life had given him a permanent stiff neck.
    “Stop it! Both of you! Stop it right now!”
    Kate.
    Zach and Spence both turned. There she was at the end of the row of lockers, hands on hips. Like a teacher.
    Spence spoke first, smiling at her. His class president smile. “Stop what?”
    Kate said, “How about whatever’s going on here? How would that be?”
    “Nothing interesting going on here,” Spence said. “Right, Harriman?”
    There was no point in getting Kate in the middle of this, even though she was always in the middle, right there between him and Spence, whether she was actually around or not.
    “We were just messing around,” Zach said. “You think I’d actually pick a fight with this guy?”
    “Right,” Kate said. Knowing both of them were lying, and not liking it from Zach. She looked at him carefully, then decided to let it go.
    “You ready to roll?” she said.
    “Yeah.”
    To Spence she said, “See you tomorrow, Mr. Warren.”
    “Done deal,” Spence said.
    Just like that he picked up his books and was gone, around the corner, up some stairs.
    Kate said, “Do I want to know?”
    Zach said, “No.”
    Then she looked down at her own books and said, “Idiot!”
    “Okay,” Zach said. “I’m sorry.”
    “I mean me,” she said. “I left my jacket in the auditorium.”
    “Total idiot, you’re right.”
    “Shut up,” she said, smiling at him for the first time. “Meet you on the bricks in five.”
    Outside.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Don’t ‘ma’am’ me,” she said. “I’m not your mother.”
    As she walked away, he said, “Act like you are sometimes.”
    Without looking back, she said, “Heard that.”
    He watched her disappear up some steps and realized he hadn’t exactly been glad she’d shown up when she had.
    It was then that Zach felt something and looked down.
    Looked down and saw something he’d never seen before, no matter how angry he’d gotten at Spence, no matter how badly he’d been humiliated:
    Clenched fists.
    His hands and his arms shaking, because that’s how hard he wanted to hit something. Practically his whole body shaking. Not with fear this time.
    With something else.
    Without thinking about what he was doing, or where he was going, he walked slowly down the row of lockers to one of the old brick walls at the basement level of Parker, one with old photographs on it, from sports teams out of the past.
    He found an empty place in the wall and just like that started pounding his fists into it. First a right, then a left, and then no pattern—just all these wild, random punches. Zach threw them with everything he had.
    The punches he’d imagined himself throwing at Spence Warren when he was still there in front of him.
    When he was finally done, out of breath and dripping with sweat the way he had been when he ran home across the park