Wrestling Against Myself (19 page)

Courtney eyed him suspiciously.

“Really. You can eat with us and be bored to tears when Dave and Ted start talking about geek stuff that no one else cares about.”

“Maybe.”

“I hope you do. You can never have too many friends, right?”

Courtney shrugged as she slowly ate her food.

“I'm still on for giving you a ride after school right?”

Courtney nodded.

“Good. It sure beats driving alone. Cars can be boring places you know. Just you, the wheel, the road, the radio, and some guy who wants to give you the finger.”

Courtney tried not to, but she allowed a small smile creep onto her face. “Who is dumb enough to give you the bird?”

“Normally someone who doesn’t know what I look like, but if I get out of my car they put that finger down and give me a thumbs up.”

“If you got out of the car after I gave you the bird I would drive away as fast as possible.”

“Oh, you planning on giving me the bird now.”

“No,” Courtney said with a chuckle.

“There, that's better.”

“You're a good guy Tiny,” Courtney said after a moment of silence. “I hope that don't change.”

Tony appreciated the compliment, but was confused by why she thought anything would change. He figured it was the stress of being picked on. Instead of getting into a deep, philosophical conversation, Tony figured he would file it away as something that might need to be touched upon at a later time. There wasn't much time left during the lunch period and he felt it was a topic that needed time.

“How about after school you meet me at my car? It's unlocked,” he changed the subject.

“You don't lock your car?”

“Hardly ever, keeps me from being locked out.”

“That's why you have keys, silly.”

“They're in the car too,” Tony said sheepishly.

“Wow. Aren't you afraid someone will take it?”

“So far, so good. The way I see it, if someone wants to steal my car, they're going to. Simple as that. Doesn't matter if the car is locked or if the keys are in it or nothing. If they want it, they'll simply take it. The way I figure, if I keep it unlocked and the keys in it, at least when I get it back I won't have a bunch of stuff to fix or broken glass or nothing.”

“I guess. I know if I ever get a car, I'm locking it. My dad had his car stolen once, it was horrible. We never got it back and my dad was mad for a long time.”

“It happens.” Tony was glad that the girl could focus on something other than her locker being vandalized and hoped he was right about the janitor painting over the graffiti.

“So after school you want me to wait in your car for you?” Courtney clarified.

“Yeah. I mean, don't try to hot wire it or nothing.”

Courtney grinned. “Can I roll down the window?”

“Yes.” Tony laughed. “I know how you girls can get about being sweaty.”

Courtney gave a nod and finished her lunch.

The bell rang and the students began to file out of the cafeteria. Tony and Courtney waited around for the dining hall to be nearly empty before getting up. They parted at the door, as Tony went around the back of the building to where the smokers normally were.

Oddly enough, Peter and his crew weren't there. Tony shrugged. Maybe it wasn't them that spray painted the word on Courtney's locker and left the note in his locker. He was wondering if the problem had spread to something so big, that it was beyond what he could handle. He knew he could take care of Peter and his crew; most of the time they were all talk and little substance, but if there were more groups involved, it might be a daunting task. Instead of dealing with what ifs, Tony decided to deal with things as they came and headed towards class.

“Tiny,” a voice called out from just behind the archway, but Tony couldn't see who it was.

Tony walked in the general direction and turned the corner.

Without warning, someone jumped from behind him and wrapped their arms around his neck. Immediately, Tony grabbed their elbow, bent at the waist and bucked his hip, causing his assailant to flip over his back and land with a thud on the concrete walkway.

“Nice to see you too, Tiny,” John Sharp said as he looked up from the ground.

“What are you doing,” Tony said as he extended his hand to help his friend up.

“I was going for a ride. Can we do that again? Huh? Can we?”

“Sometimes I wonder about you,” Tony said in disbelief. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
 

“You wouldn't kill
anyone; it isn't the Christian thing to do.”

“You don't pay too much attention in history class, do you?”

John smiled as he dusted himself off. “I scared you good though, didn't I?”

“You surprised me.” Tony began walking towards class. “What did you want, other than getting thrown?”

“Just to hang out with you. Do you know that talking to you for ten minutes doubles my street cred?”

“You have street cred?” Tony had no clue what his teammate was talking about.

John looked at his watch. “Three minutes worth so far.”

“You're too much. What happened to your group of friends? Decided to ditch school the first week?”

“You mean Peter and them?”

“Yeah. I haven't seen them all day, thought they might have been behind a few incidents.”

“You mean the graffiti?”

“One of the things I'm referring to.”

“Isn't it awesome? Fight the man.”

Tony gave John an incredulous look.

“I don't mean what they wrote, that was not cool. But it takes balls to break into the school in the morning and tag up.”

“Tag up? They're referring to themselves as the freak and they happened to put it on the locker of the one person they have issues with.”

“Come on Tiny, Dunedin needs to get hard core.”

“You watch too many movies. But, not to lose what's important here, you're admitting that it was Peter and his Merry Men?”

“Everyone knows that, Tiny. They got busted right after doing it.”

A small smile came to Tony's face. “Did they get suspended?”

“Nah. Too early for that. They got in school suspension, I think for a whole week. I bet they have to scrub the school clean.”

“Why can't they leave that girl alone?”

John Sharp shrugged. “I don't know Tiny, but they really don't like her.”

“What about you? Are you going to join in on their stupidity?”

“You know me, Tiny.”

“Exactly why I'm asking.”

“I can see you're trying to be friends with the girl, even though she's a trouble maker.”

“How is she a trouble maker,” Tony asked.

“She got Peter and them sent to the principal's office twice this week, maybe even more.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I see. So it was her who made them pick on her outside of school; four against one. And, she made them spray paint her locker too. She must have real strong mental powers to make four guys bend to her will. I'll have to ask Dave and Ted which superhero she is, this way the government knows who to call when they need help.”

“I didn't mean it like that, Tiny. But since she's your friend, I am not going to do nothing. It's gotten around that you're going to have her back, so I think her problem is with Peter. Everyone else will leave her alone.”

“At least that part of my plan worked,” Tony said and then looked up when he heard the bell.

“Crap Tiny,” John said as he looked to see where he was. “I got to be in A-3.”

“I suggest you run,” Tony said as he stood outside his classroom door.

And run John did.

School finished and with Peter and his crew stuck at in school suspension, Tony didn't have to worry about people picking on Courtney during the day. It was school policy to let those serving in school suspension out a half hour after the rest of the school unless they had to ride home on the bus.

Tony grabbed his books and made his way to the parking lot. Even though he couldn't see the small girl in the bucket seat, he knew she was there because he saw the window rolled down as soon as he stepped on the student parking lot.

The first week of school was over, his brain was fried as it began to adjust to the new schedule, and Tony wanted to go home and grab a few laps in his swimming pool. Though Courtney would've been safe walking home that day, he wasn't going to take back his offer of a ride. Besides, he wanted to get to know her better and she was certainly more talkative in his car then at the lunch table.

Tony opened the door to his car. He was glad that Courtney had the foresight to lower both windows and most of the heat already escaped the Firebird. “I see you didn't hot wire the Beast and take it for a joyride,” he said as he settled into the bucket seat.

Courtney grinned. “I wouldn't, even if I knew how to.”

Tony started the car and revved the engine.

“I bet you never get tired of doing that,” Courtney said.

Tony pushed down on the accelerator one last time. “Nope.”

“Must be a guy thing.”

Tony laughed. “Probably is. Something about having all that power available, you sometimes have to make sure it's still there. You never know when you might have to go a hundred and twenty miles an hour. I mean, sometimes you got to make sure you get home from the store before the ice cream melts.”

“Boys!”

“Anyway
, we survived the first week of school, that's saying something.”

“I barely survived it,” Courtney said as she sank into her seat. “But, at least I made a friend.”

“Oh, who's that?”

Courtney sighed heavily. “You, silly. Boys might know a lot about powerful cars, but they have a habit of missing the obvious.”

“Oh, me. That's right. I thought you might be referring to someone else, like maybe a boyfriend or something like that.”

“Hardly. I doubt any guy is ever going to want to date me.”

Tony didn't want to touch on a sore subject and wished his mouth would stop saying things like that. “Don't worry about it. Freshman boys are clueless about girls, but give them a year or two and they'll be fighting over each other just to sit next to you.”

Courtney shrugged but remained silent on the matter.

“So you have a friend. That's good,” Tony tried to end the silence.

“You know, you're not my only friend,” Courtney said, almost as an afterthought.

“I wasn't implying that,” Tony said as he crept down the road.

“I know, but I didn't want you to think that I was totally friendless. I mean, I don't have any friends at school yet.”

“You got me,” Tony said with a smile.