I woke up in the morning and immediately went up to park, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. I didn’t feel like ‘playing’ anymore. I wondered what came over me as I sat on the swings and looked around. The sun was just coming up. At the hour where every other kid was up watching “The Smurfs” with an overflowing bowl of Golden Grahams and a few GI Joes and Legos on the floor with them I sat trying to make sense of everything and I wasn’t succeeding.
“Hey, Jeff,” Wendy’s voice cut off my concentration.
“Hey Wendy,” I replied with little emotion.
“Sounds like you’re thinking of something important,” Wendy replied as she climbed onto the swing next to and began moving while standing up.
“Not really,” I said with a shrug.
“Well, I am thinking of something important. Want to hear it?”
“Sure, I replied as Wendy accelerated her swinging. I could not fathom how she was able to do it but somehow she was standing in the swing and going so high the chain slackened a bit. She then jumped off the swing and flew several feet. Wendy looked like an angel as she glided and touched without any effort.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Everything you do.”
“I’m not too sure, really,” Wendy said as she walked back to the swings and stood in front of me. “Like you, I’m of clueless about my life.”
“How?”
Wendy did a light spin on her feet and looked at the ground. “I never know what’s going to happen, but I try to fight my way through it.”
“Hear that, Shonda? She still wants to fight,” Megan called out.

We looked to see the MACS standing on the curb, just shy of the entrance to the park. I had to wonder if one of them was always on the watch for me or Wendy and to move in with the verbal attacks that only pre-teens did.
Shonda ran towards us and I, like an idiot at the time, stepped in front of the fist that was meant for Wendy. I had never been punched before and I hoped to never experience it ever again as every nerve and muscle in my abdomen screamed out in pain to a brain that was having a brain fart moment, unable to process the messages as it concentrated on Shonda’s cold expression. I was certain she didn’t really care who she struck and was happy to connect with something.
I went down on my knees in the dirt with an agonizing, unbearable pain that I felt like throwing up the lone blueberry muffin I had an hour earlier.
Shonda took a few steps back and went into a fighting stance.
“Take her down, Shonda!” Amanda uncharacteristically yelled.
“You okay, Jeff?” Wendy asked as she walked over and stood between Shonda and me.
I only nodded due to the milkshake action occurring in my gut.
Wendy turned back to Shonda and then dragged her foot across the ground, carving out a half circle. “Cross this circle and it will be the last thing you’ll do.”
“Bust her ass!” Megan yelled to Shonda.
“Don’t make me hurt you,” Wendy cautioned and sighed.
“Whatever you did last time isn’t going to happen again.”
“That’s true,” Wendy replied with a nod.
Shonda took a step and pushed her hands out to Wendy, but she kept her feet a mere inch away from the border.
“Is there a reason to do this, Shonda?”
“Shut up and fight!”
“My Pa said I should talk and work things out.”
Shonda lashed out her right fist but only connected with the air as Wendy took a step back. “You always listen to your daddy?”
“I’m trying to, but you sure ain’t helping.”
Shonda took another swing and again met up with thin air.

However, Wendy fell to the ground as Megan charged and tackled her, followed by Amanda. Colleen, however, didn’t join into the fray. We looked at each other for a split second and to the carnage before us with a two-against-one fight with Wendy grappling with Megan and Amanda.

Shonda stayed clear of the circle, even as Megan screamed for her to help them. All the girls got several hits in on each other until Wendy rolled away and, miraculously vaulted herself back onto her feet. Her eyes were wild, and her shirt was mottled in dust.
Megan and Amanda stood up and walked in Wendy’s direction.
“You’re so dead when you walk into school on Monday. I will make sure your days are hell!” Megan sneered. Late in sixth grade we were taken to the junior high and shadowed a seventh grader so we could get a glimpse on how life was going to be after summer. I was partnered with someone who I think was named Jennifer. I can only guess because she never told me her name, didn’t tell me much about her day or how the classes were. No, she treated me like the kid brother she wished didn’t exist.
Megan, on the other hand, made friends with what I called the MACS JH squad: Melinda, Ashley, Charlotte and Sabrina. She was absorbed into their group so much one would assume she had been attending the seventh grade the whole time and just had to slum a few hours in the sixth grade.

“As long as you leave him alone, do what you gotta do,” Wendy replied.
“Are you in love with Jeff? Looks like you’ll finally get the Valentines’ card you never got.”
Melina’s comment was not at hurtful to me as she wanted it to be, at least I didn’t show it. It was true, I never received one Valentine card in sixth grade. Not. A. One. My dad told me not to worry about it as cards that others are forced to buy meant nothing at all. He said that he never got cards at school except for one. He never told me who it was from, but he did say she was his best friend, so it meant a lot to him.
“Maybe I am, Megan. It’s sad no one’s ever gonna love you. It's not your fault. You just don't know any better.”
Colleen fought back a snicker, but Megan saw it.
“Shut up, Colleen!”

There was a deafening silence, not chirp of a bird or the sound of the wind. Megan stomped towards Colleen and, I, for some reason, scrambled to my feet to once again place myself into mortal danger, this time by a frenzied Megan.
I stood between Megan and Colleen and closed my eyes as Megan’s fist flew but missed. Instead, Megan plummeted to the ground with a large red mark on her face, courtesy of Wendy.
Amanda and Shonda stood with their mouths agape, as was mine, as Megan shrieked and let out a howl that rivalled the tornado alert siren that sat on the top of the hill, right next to the elementary school, I might add.
Wendy barricaded Colleen and me as Amanda and Shonda were still lost on what to do.
Megan got to her feet and felt her face. There was a large mark that would become a bruise. That worried me as it would give her parents along with the Pounders, and the Prats. I could already hear Mrs. Stephenson’s voice echoing back the shrill cry in answer to her offspring. She ran up the street like a track star and yelled in horror at the sight of Megan’s and face.
“Megan! What happened!”
Megan pointed at Wendy, causing Mrs. Stephenson to march over to the three of us.
“You again! You have been causing trouble since you first got here. Did you hit my daughter?”
“I did,” Wendy replied with no emotion.
“You’re coming with me!” Mrs. Stephenson shouted and reached for Wendy’s arm.
“Megan started it!” Colleen’s words caused another moment of silence from everyone.
“She, I, mean we,” Colleen pointed at herself and then at Amanda and Shonda, “have been teasing her and Jeff. It kind of got out of hand.”
“You don’t have to defend her, Colleen.”
“It’s true! Each time Megan would have one of us come up to them and today she wanted to do it herself.”
“She’s lying, mom!”
Mrs. Stephenson was at a crossroads: to outright believe her heavenly angel of a daughter or to look at the contradicting evidence and conclude Megan was a bully, an emotional brutalizer or, in short, a bitch.
“I want the phone number to your parents.”
“We don’t have a phone,” a voice called out from the side of the road.
Mrs. Stephenson closed her eyes, shook her head, and turned around to see Anna.
“I am holding you responsible for her!”
“Okay,” Anna replied with a shrug, “but you may want to put a compress on her face. It’ll help with the swelling. Don’t worry, ma’am. We’ll be right here when you get back.”
My eyes widened. I did NOT want to be there when she returned as she would summon the entire neighborhood, and this time arm them with blowtorches and chainsaws. Mrs Pounders took a still crying Megan from the park and kept a wide berth away from Anna.
“You should probably go with them,” Anna motioned to Amanda and Shonda, causing them to hightail it across the street towards the Pounder’s house. Anna walked towards and stood in front of Wendy.
“Are you telling Papa?” Wendy asked,
“Tell him what? That you finally did something right?”
Wendy scowled.
“We gotta let him and Mama know what happened.”
Wendy nodded and then looked at me and Colleen. “You okay?”
“Yeah, it still hurts a little,” I replied as I rubbed my stomach.
“Hot punch to the gut, eh?” Anna asked.
I nodded.
“What about you?” Anna looked to Coleen, causing the Wendy and myself to do the same.
“I…I’m okay.”
“Are you ‘okay’, or ‘okay’?” Anna asked.
“I think I lost my friends.”
“They weren’t friends,” Wendy said.
Yeah, you need new friends,” Anna replied.
Colleen took a deep breath and looked to the ground for what seemed to be an eternity.
“I’m sorry, Jeff.” She said in a low whisper. “I just…”
I looked at Colleen and nodded my head.
“She’s over there, dad!” Hank’s voice cut through the tender moment, followed by the Stephensons, Mrs. Bremerton, some random households and my own! Megan’s mom must have used the neighborhood phone tree to gather the mob. I could see my dad running up the street, probably fearing that I had finally been beaten up by one of MACS and he had to see if I had survived the ordeal.
“This is gonna be bad,” Colleen said.
“No, but it’s about to get a bit confusin’”, Anna said as she turned around to face the crowd, along with my dad.
My dad stopped moving and stared in our direction, particularly at Anna.
“Anna?”
“Hello, Gregory.”