The Knight Brothers

04

Chapter Four

Jordan

Nineteen years ago

I watch her from across the playground, wondering if she needs my help. She's one of the scrappiest girls I know and I don't think she'll be too happy if I run to her rescue, but I can see she's getting more upset by the minute. I've seen firsthand what she's capable of when someone riles her. It ain't pretty.

Tommy Johns and his sidekick, Mark Flinn, have her cornered over by the giant snow pile in the corner of the yard. Their backs are to me, but I'd know that stance anywhere. Legs spread, arms crossed, shoulders set, heads cocked. Bully mode, locked and loaded.

They're assholes. My dad would wash my mouth out if he heard me use that word. I'm not allowed to swear, but he does it all the time...so I figure what the hell. What he doesn't know won't hurt him.

Another thirty seconds pass. I tick them off in my head, one by one, praying for their sake they'll get bored and walk away. Though April is trying to ignore them, it's clear they aren't leaving without getting some sort of reaction out of her. The third-grade bullies generally pick on those younger and weaker than them. Like kindergartners who cry for their mommies during recess. Today, though, kindergarten and first grade are on a field trip to the Art Center in Boston, so their prey is limited and they've turned their sights on her.

I know she can take care of herself, but I still don't like it. Not a bit. It sets my protective instincts to red. At age ten, I don't know where these feelings come from when it comes to April DeSoto, but they've always been there, from the time she was born. They won't go away. In fact, they seem to grow stronger every year.

Telling myself that I'm doing this more to protect them than her, I decide to wander over that way even if it means I'll have to listen to her bellyache about it on the walk home from school for the rest of the week. She doesn't know it yet but she's mine and I protect what's mine. It's how my father taught my brother and me.

As I get closer and closer, what I hear makes my blood boil hot. My fists clench tightly. "Heifer, heifer." Tommy Johns sings in an off-key voice.

They're calling her a cow?

Oh, hell no.

"Shut up," she says in a flat voice as if what they're saying doesn't bother her. Except I know it does because those green eyes I dream about are narrow slits and her chunky cheeks are a dark pink.

To anyone else looking on, they may think she's just cold. I know better. When she's just cold, the pink is brighter, almost like candied apples on the fattest part of her face. When she's embarrassed, it's more of a light blush that starts at the line of her hair and disappears underneath the neck of her shirt. It's the shade of her ballet slippers. But when she's getting ready to slug someone in the face, which she's done to me before, it's more the color of chewed bubblegum before all the sugar is gone. The very tips of her ears get just a shade darker, like raspberry flavor.

Her color now tells me these two jerks better watch it—she's ready to punch someone's lights out.

"Do you even know what a heifer is, heifer?" Mark Flinn taunts, following "the hole's" lead.

We call Tommy Johns "the hole" behind his back because he got stuck in an abandoned well when he was five. Dumbass thought he could shimmy down there with a coil of rope tied around a tree trunk. Only he was five. He couldn't tie off a knot to save his soul. Was in that dark, dank dungeon for darn near two days. Almost died. I'm not a mean person, and I hope God doesn't strike me down for thinking this, but I don't think the world would be a worse place without "the hole"in it.

"Nah...she's too dumb to know what a heifer is," "the hole"jabs.

In slow motion April looks up from the tunnel she's been digging. Standing leisurely, her burning eyes not leaving Tommy's face, she brushes the snow stuck to her mittens off on her jeans. I watch tiny bits of frozen water float to the ground, knowing "the hole" is about to join them, probably face-first.

Which means that April will be sent to the principal's office. Again. And she'll get grounded. Again. Maybe even get kicked out of school, which she's come close to before. This will probably get her suspended because there's no way this is ending without blood now. At only seven and in the second grade, she is already trouble, the whole damn word capitalized, not just the "T."

"Why don't you slink off in a corner and lick the heifer manure from your stinky-ass shoes, hole," April smarts back, taking one step forward.

Shitballs. She's really going to do this.

It doesn't matter that she's right. "The hole" lives on a cattle farm five miles outside of town. And his shoes do stink. I've smelled them before in the lunchroom. I usually hold my breath when I'm near him.

I now have about two point five seconds to make a decision here: let this scene play out or take matters into my own hands, saving April from herself. She needs to be saved a lot. At least she has me. She needs me more than she will ever know.

So I do the only thing I can—the same thing I've done my whole life with this reckless, fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants, infuriating girl. My girl.

I reach out, grab the back of "the hole's" winter coat, and throw the first punch.