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didn’t seem like there was any blood. Someone ran to retrieve the ball for Brian. When The Kid’s eyes cleared, he looked for Matthew in the crowd, Matthew’s round head, Matthew’s black face among the brown and white faces. The Kid had dinner at the Crumps’ house once a week, had what Mr. Crump called a standing invitation , and tonight was that night. Mrs. Crump always made meatloaf or shepherd’s pie or ground chuck casserole, something thick and hard to digest, but at least it was homemade, it was a break from the frozen pizzas his dad made, the takeout Chinese food, the drive-thru windows they visited.
    The Kid couldn’t find Matthew in the crowd and this made him worried, both because some kids could have dragged Matthew back out of sight to do bad things to him but also because it was good to see his friend standing there during the dodgeball game, it was reassuring to think that there’d be something after this, dinner at the Crump’s house and making comic books up in Matthew’s bedroom.
    Brian stepped and threw, hitting The Kid in the side of the neck. Stepped and threw, hitting The Kid in the throat. Stepped and threw, hitting The Kid in the mouth to a thrilled round of Oooooos from the other boys. Every time The Kid got hit, the boys closed tighter around the scene, this secret thing, blocking it from outside view. Brian jogged in place, impatient for someone to retrieve the ball so he could throw again.
    The Kid tasted something in his mouth, hot salt and battery tang. Blood between his teeth. The freshness of the mouthwash was gone. He worried that the blood in his mouth would give him bad breath, would give the kids in class something to complain to Miss Ramirez about. But he worried more about spitting it out, a red blotch on the concrete, showing Brian and the others this inside thing. He worried more about what the sight of blood would do to the crowd of boys.
    He finally found Matthew, standing on the other side of the courtyard talking urgently with Miss Ramirez and the P.E. teacher. The P.E. teacher turned and saw the crowd of boys and The Kid alone against the wall and blew his whistle. When the crowd didn’t budge he blew it again, louder this time, the whistle screaming over the noise in the courtyard, and the boys started to disperse, reluctantly, the edges of the crowd dissolving first, pulling away from the heart of the group, making their way inside to the locker room. Brian held fast at the center, though, bouncing his weight from leg to leg, gripping the ball, readying for one last throw.
    The whistle had blown. The game was over, technically. The Kid no longer had to stand against the bricks waiting to get hit with the ball. The game was over, officially. He could walk away from the wall and the game.
    Brian made a last stutter step and threw at The Kid but The Kid ducked away from the wall and the ball ka-ranng ed off the bricks, bouncing far out into the yard. Some of the other boys laughed at the missed shot, hooted at Brian for missing The Kid with his final throw.
    The Kid had made a mistake. He knew this immediately. The whistle had blown, he was following the rules, but he had made a bad mistake. Brian was still standing where he’d thrown the ball, fifteen feet from The Kid, murder in his eyes. A bad, stupid mistake. He should have stayed against the wall for that last throw, let the ball bounce off his face or the side of his head one more time. What difference would it have made? But now he knew that what happened next in the locker room with Brian and Razz and whoever else would be much worse.
    Brian joined the jumbled line filing into the school, giving one last slanty look over his shoulder at The Kid. The P.E. teacher herded the rest of the boys inside, Matthew sticking close by him for protection. The Kid stood at the wall until everyone was gone, until even the girls had passed, Miss Ramirez and Michelle Mustache, everybody. Waited until the courtyard was empty