Excerpt from the Short Story

Excerpt from

Zeke's Fight

Zeke tried to alleviate his restlessness by balancing on the back legs of the butt-cramping-hard library chair.

Seriously, he thought, if they wanted people to actually come to the library, they should get better chairs.

He loosed a rumbling sigh and righted his chair. He was mere hours into the first day of his in-school suspension and already, he was going crazy with boredom.

He had arranged his books like a drum set and pounded rhythms with a pencil and a highlighter. He had dozed off. He had counted along with second hand of the clock. He had even tried studying. That was how desperately bored he was.

Now he slumped with his cheek pressed firmly against the wooden table and contemplated what had landed him in such a torturous state.

Not what, he thought. But who.

Tristan.

He had punched Tristan right in the nose.

Well, first, he had said he was going to kill Tristan. And before that, he had grabbed him by the collar. And before that, he had thrown a shoe that split the skin on Tristan’s scalp.

So yeah, he was suspended.

Zeke wasn’t exactly a bully. He had a code. He never picked on anyone without good reason. Granted, he had found plenty of “good reasons” in the past.

Although he had a violent reputation with his classmates, he rarely – if ever – beat people up at school. Usually, he followed them home and ambushed them on the way. But this time, Tristan had put him in a blind rage.

Seeing red, Zeke recalled what he had overheard Tristan tell his two buddies, Nick and Dave, in the locker room. They had tried to bait him by bringing up the fact that he was adopted, as if that made his existence shameful or something.

But Zeke had handled that well. He didn’t care what names they called him or what anyone thought of him. It was when Tristan had insulted his mom that he had lost it.

“You know what I heard?” Tristan had told his friends. “He’s not actually adopted. That’s just the story his mom tells to cover the fact that she got it on with some Chinese or Japanese dude on vacation.”

That had done it. Zeke had spent years fighting idiots like Tristan who thought they could get away with insulting the woman who had saved him from group homes and foster care – the woman who had given him a loving forever home.

Apparently, Tristan had never gotten the message that no one insulted his mom and came away clean. Even after their fight in the locker room, when the coach had split them apart, Tristan had a stupid smirk on his face.

“Clearly, I still need to teach him a lesson,” the thought came to Zeke.

So he started planning. Today, he would follow Tristan’s bus on his bike and ambush him before he got home.

But, like a sledgehammer to his gut, he remembered his mom’s face at the meeting with the principal. She had looked so lost and sad at the news of Zeke’s fight. He didn’t want to put that look on her face again.

“So I’ll just make sure Tristan won’t talk,” he decided.

Then Zeke was distracted from his planning when the cute, Italian girl from class walked into the library. She had curly hair, a sweet personality, and a killer smile. He had wondered many times what it would be like to see someone smile like that for him.

He felt a weird sort of pain in his chest when he thought of how he always saw her laughing and smiling with her three friends.

Zeke had never had friends. He had tried out a few guys over the years, but they were only attracted to his power. They had had plans to take over the school with his help. Zeke didn’t care about that. He only wanted enough power that no one would mess with him or the people he cared about.

Then he started when he realized that the cute girl was looking at him. He had been caught staring at her while his mind wandered.

Awkward, he scolded himself.

She waved politely and seemed to wait for an answering gesture. He looked behind him to see if she had been waving at someone else, but no one was there.

By the time he turned back around, the moment was gone. She was heading toward the shelves.

Sooo awkward, he scolded himself again.

But she had waved. At him. Intentionally.

No one ever did that.

He leaned back in his chair, balancing on the back legs again. And since he liked to live on the edge, he added the element of balancing his pencil under his nose at the same time.

All the while, he plotted the downfall of Tristan, Nick, and Dave.

I’ll get them for insulting me, he thought. I mean my mom. For insulting my mom.

THUD!

The cute, Italian girl, Chiara, plopped a stack of books on the table next to him. As she settled, he let his pencil mustache fall into his palm and studied the books she had chosen.

They all seemed to be about different mythologies from around the world. They were weird books that Zeke hadn’t even known the library owned. Not that he knew any of the books the library owned.

Obviously, he knew there were books in the library. He just didn’t know which ones.

He paused to question how long it had been since he had actually checked a book out of the library. Maybe fourth grade. And he was in seventh grade now, so three years. He had been supposed to a handful of times, but had always faked it and passed his assignments by the skin of his teeth.

Wait, he thought. Do teeth have skin?

He looked back at Chiara, who was tearing into her book bag, enthusiastically.

Must have a report, he thought.

He heard the scritch-scratch of her pen as she jotted something in a notebook. Then, with a quick glance over her shoulder at the circulation desk where the librarian was busy reading, she tore out the piece of paper, put it into a thin book, and tossed the book onto his table.

He stared down at the gift. When he looked up again, she was halfway to the checkout station with her stack of books.

Totally confused, he looked down at the book she had left. It was some superhero book – The Orange Fury. He had heard of the guy, obviously, though he had never read the comics.

He opened the book and found her note:

“Did you know that the library has books like these? It seemed like something you might like.”

He was more than touched by her kind gesture. No one but his mom – and the occasional teacher – was ever kind to him.

Does she want to be friends? Was she flirting?

That was a ridiculous thought. There was no way anyone would flirt with him.

Still, the book looked cool. So he opened it up and started reading.

After the first book, he went in search of the second one. Just in case, he got the third one, too. Then, before he knew it, he looked at the clock and realized that he had missed his chance to follow Tristan home.

He would have to forget revenge. At least today.

Read excerpts from the other stories here:

An Enlightening Evening

Mac's Character Arc

Peter's Bad Day

Zahid's Library Card

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