Read Deep Winter for Free Online

little bowling pins. Danny put one hand on the panel of glass that covered the game and shook the nickels in the other.
    â€œHey, retard, what are you doing? Laying a turd in your pants?” Danny looked behind him. Two older boys with crew cuts smiled at him with grins that weren’t so friendly or kind. One was big-boned, tall for his age, and had a cauliflower ear on the left side of his head. Mike Sokowski, only a few years older than Danny but already the meanest bully in Wyalusing. The other kid was fat and wore clothes a size or two too small for him. Carl’s gut hung out from under a stained T-shirt that pulled tight over his belly.
    â€œYou deaf, too, retard?” Sokowski asked.
    Danny still didn’t answer. He looked past the two boys toward Uncle Brett out on bowling lane four. Uncle Brett held a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and talked with a few of his drinking buddies.
    Sokowski and Carl stepped a little closer to Danny, boxing him up against the Spot Bowler game.
    â€œWhatcha got in your hand?” Sokowski sneered.
    Danny’s hand gripped the nickels tighter. “Nothing.”
    â€œDoesn’t look like nothing,” Sokowski said. “Check his hand, Carl.”
    Carl did as instructed. He grabbed Danny by the wrist and shoved it hard behind his back. Sokowski took Danny’s face and shoved it flat against the panel of glass. Danny could smell the licorice on their breath.
    â€œJust give us the nickels, shithead. You’re too stupid to play arcade games,” Sokowski mocked while Carl twisted Danny’s arm up higher behind his back, forcing him onto his tiptoes.
    The muscles in Danny’s shoulder burned hot, and he could feelthem stretched to their limit. A wave of dizziness wrapped around his head like a plastic Halloween mask, causing a feeble moan to escape his lips. The pain was finally too much, and he opened his palm, and the nickels bounced to the linoleum floor. He tried not to, but he started to cry.
    Sokowski gave Danny’s face a final shove into the panel of glass before letting him go. “Aww, listen to the little pussy cry.” Sokowski chuckled.
    Carl snorted like a laughing pig and snatched up the coins.
    â€œLeave him alone, assholes,” a girl’s voice demanded.
    The boys looked behind them. Mindy Knolls, pigtails tight on the sides of her head, glared right back at them. She was smaller than the two boys, but that didn’t matter to her at all. Her skinny chest swam under a shirt that looked like a hand-me-down, and she crossed her bony arms over her stomach, waiting to see what Sokowski and Carl would do next.
    â€œWhy don’t you go play with your little peckers somewhere?” Mindy said.
    The boys knew that they weren’t supposed to beat up girls. Besides, Mindy sported two sets of knuckles nicked up from her fair share of fighting and standing toe-to-toe with two older brothers. She clenched both fists down at the sides of her small hips, ready to use them.
    â€œThe retard your boyfriend or somethin’?” Carl sneered.
    â€œShut up, Carl. You want me to tell my daddy that you’re picking on Danny? He’ll whup your fat ass.”
    Carl shut up. They got their nickels. That was enough for him.
    But Sokowski wasn’t done yet. He pointed to Mindy’s chest, snickered a yellow-toothed grin. “Looks like you got two mosquito bites under your shirt. Sure ain’t boobs.”
    If that rattled Mindy, she didn’t let it show. “Sure beats your mosquito pecker.”
    Sokowski’s grin slipped right away, and his face brightened red. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
    â€œBet Carl here already knows.”
    Sokowski’s face burned brighter. He turned his venom back on Danny. “We’ll be seeing you around, retard. And next time you won’t have any stupid girl to hide behind.” Sokowski cocked his fist, made Danny flinch, then left