"Six," I lied.
"Is that split lip okay?" he asked.
"This lil' ol' scratch?" I asked. "You should have seen what I did to
them."
"That's my girl!" Dad said and went back to the clock, but Brian kept
looking over at me.
The next day when I got to the alley, the Mexican girls were waiting for
me. Before they could attack, Brian jumped out from behind a clump of
sagebrush, waving a yucca branch. Brian was shorter than me and just as
skinny, with freckles across his nose and sandy red hair that fell into his
eyes. He wore my hand-me-down pants, which I had inherited from Lori
and then passed on to him, and they were always sliding off his bony
behind.
"Just back off now, and everyone can walk away with all their limbs still
attached," Brian said. It was another one of Dad's lines.
The Mexican girls stared at him before bursting into laughter. Then they
surrounded him. Brian did fairly well fending them off until the yucca
branch broke. Then he disappeared beneath a flurry of swinging fists and
kicking feet. I grabbed the biggest rock I could find and hit one of the
girls on the head with it. From the jolt in my arm, I thought I'd cracked
her skull. She sank to her knees. One of her friends pushed me to the
ground and kicked me in the face; then they all ran off, the girl I had hit
holding her head as she staggered along.
Brian and I sat up. His face was covered with sand. All I could see were
his blue eyes peering out and a couple of spots of blood seeping through.
I wanted to hug him, but that would have been too weird. Brian stood up
and gestured for me to follow him. We climbed through a hole in the