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name calling, and pranks that J.C. tended to dish
out his way.  But moving in on the girl Jack liked… that crossed a line.
     “Someone’s gotta stop this,” said Jack, getting to his
feet, a queer courage suddenly taking hold of him.
    Everyone at the table stopped eating and looked up at Jack
in surprise.
    “Huh?  Where you goin’?” asked Matt.
    “Listen,” said Jack, “You’ve got my back if anything goes
down, right?”
    “… I what?” asked Matt, confused.
    “If J.C. and his goons throw down, you guys got my back,
right?” said Jack, looking at everyone at the table.
    Matt and Chunk exchanged a worried look.
    “Oh… yeah.” said Matt, reassuringly.
    “Totally,” nodded Chunk.
    Jack nodded and made his way toward Anna. After he left,
Chunk turned to Matt.
    “Um… are we really going to do anything if Jack starts a
fight?” he asked.
    “Are you kidding?” said Matt.  “Those guys would kill us!”
    As Jack walked toward Anna, he could feel his heart pounding
and blood pumping behind his ears.  He was scared, there was no doubt about
that, but he wasn’t about to let J.C. push around the girl of his dreams. 
Different scenarios played out in Jack’s mind of how he was going to rescue
Anna from J.C.’s sweaty clutches.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of one that
didn’t end with him getting pounded into dust by the hulking upperclassman.
    Then, as he approached them, he realized he didn’t have to
do anything but get Anna away from J.C.  If he could do that, maybe he wouldn’t
have to incur the wrath of the meathead at all.
    “Hey, Anna!” said Jack cheerily as he leaned against her
table.  Anna and J.C. both looked up at him.
    “Um… hi,” she said, looking at Jack warily.
    “Finnegan?” said J.C.
    “Rowdey?” said Jack in response before turning his attention
back to Anna.  “Listen, I hate to break up whatever it is you two are doing,
but the school nurse asked me to come get you and bring you to the clinic.”
    “The nurse?” asked Anna.  “Why?”
    “Dunno. She said something about you coming by earlier,
complaining about a headache that just wouldn’t seem to go away…” Jack said,
nodding ever so slightly in J.C.’s direction.
    Anna immediately exchanged a look of understanding with Jack. 
“Oh, right.  Yeah, I need to get rid of this headache; it’s really bothering
me,” she said as she packed up her things.  She turned to J.C. and smiled. 
“Excuse me.”
    But as she stood up to go, J.C. grabbed her wrist.
    “Hold on now, beautiful,” he said.  “No need to run off. 
C’mon, I’ll walk you to the nurse’s office.  After all, we haven’t finished
talking.”
    “Let her go, J.C.,” said Jack, a little too forcefully.
    J.C. scowled at Jack.  “Oh, hey, Fishmonger.  You still
here?” he said tauntingly.  “How’s the head?”
    The bruise on Jack’s forehead throbbed at the mention.  The
threat was obvious – “ Leave now, or that’s nothing compared to what I’ll do
to you later ,” he seemed to say.  But Jack was sick of being bullied.
    “Great,” said Jack.  “Lucky for me you throw like a girl, so
it really didn’t hurt all that much.”
    J.C.’s smug smile disappeared as he got to his feet,
squaring off with Jack.
    “You wanna step to this, Loser?” asked J.C.  “Try saying
that to my face!”
    Jack cocked his eyebrow.  “I… just did.  But you were
sitting down, so all the blood must have been welling up in your ears.  Say,
that’s a nice shirt.  Did your mom pick it out for you?”
    “FYI, Fishgills, this shirt cost more than your dad makes in
an entire year,” replied J.C.  “Oops, I forgot, you don’t have one of those, do
you?”
    “Don’t have what?  A lame over-priced shirt?”
    “No!  A dad!” spat J.C. angrily.  “You don’t have a dad,
because he left when he realized what a loser of a son he had!”
    Jack had learned long ago to ignore the insults bullies used
to try to hurt