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the
stomach. I doubled over, and they all started pounding me harder than they
ever had before. Every time before I had cried. But today I didn't cry.
Today I got mad. Really mad. All the anger that had been building inside me
the last five months … all my anger at these bullies shooting spitballs at
me during English class and rubber bands during Math and blasting me in dodge ball
during PE and pounding my iPod into pieces and bullying me every day before
school and during school and after school … at five months of crying myself
to sleep and missing my dad and trying to be the man of the house and failing because
I was only ten years old … at not being big enough to fix the house or mow
the grass … at seeing Mom cry because she couldn't pay our bills … at
that stupid therapist acting like he knew how I felt … at the Army and the
government and those mean Taliban people in Afghanistan … all that anger
now energized my entire body and made my hands ball up into tight fists and the
heat built inside me like a ticking time bomb and then I finally—
    EXPLODED.
    I
screamed louder than I had ever screamed in my entire life—"NOOOO!"—and
my fists shot out at them and—
    â€”they
flew down the sidewalk as if they had been shot from a cannon.
    The
world froze.
    I
stood there, my body shaking with anger, my arms still extended in midair, as if
I were that soldier in the Civil War monument on the State Capitol grounds.
Vic and Biff lay sprawled on the sidewalk twenty feet one way and Bud and Rod
twenty feet the other way. They stared at me with stunned expressions—the same
expression I knew was on my face. After a long moment, Bud broke the silence.
    "How'd
he do that?"
    I
looked at my fists.
    "How'd
I do that?"
    I
could tell from his confused expression that Vic's dull mind was trying to answer
the same question. All I had done was throw my fists out at them. I didn't
remember even hitting them. But I must've hit them. Hard.
    "Vic,"
Biff said, "look at our scooters."
    Their
scooters lay further down the sidewalk. They got up and walked over and lifted
them. The metal frames were twisted like pretzels.
    "How'd
he do that?" Rod said.
    Vic's
dark eyes darted from me to his scooter and back to me.
    "That
scooter cost five hundred bucks, Max."
    "Wow,
bullying is getting expensive for you, Vic."
    "This
ain't over, Max."
    But
it was over for that day. Vic dragged his scooter down the sidewalk toward Second Street.
    "Vic,"
Rod said, "Let's go this way. Mrs. Cushing's outside."
    Vic
didn't turn back. He just said, "Shut up."
    Rod
shrugged then followed Vic. He pulled his scooter like a kid with a broken toy.
Biff and Bud trailed behind with their scooters. They gave me dirty looks as
they passed by, but they also gave me space. I looked at my fists again.
    "How'd
I do that?"
    I
looked up from my fists to the second-story window of the neighbors' house and
saw the same pale face.
    "S-T-R-A-N-G-E,"
I said. I put down my letters on the Scrabble board. "Eight points plus a
fifty-point bonus for using all seven letters."
    We
were playing Scrabble and eating dinner. Whole wheat spaghetti and organic tomato
sauce with meatballs made from leftover bison. Which Maddy had put on her
head.
    "Good
word, Max," Mom said.
    "Thanks."
I sniffed the air. "Something's burning."
    "Oh,
no, the rolls!"
    Mom jumped up and yanked open the oven door. Smoke billowed out. She waved at the smoke then pulled
the tray out of the oven and set it on the counter. The rolls looked like
little black charcoals. Mom tried to open the window above the sink, but it
was stuck. Again. She dropped her head and closed her eyes like she was about
to lose it, but she took a few deep breaths and calmed herself.
    "Sorry,
guys, no rolls."
    "That's
okay, Mom," I said.
    She
sat back down and poured another glass from another long bottle.
    "Max,
did those boys bully you today?"
    "They
tried. But you won't believe what happened," I said