I rolled my eyes, embarra.s.sed.

"The fact is," said Sensei Mike, "you've been distracted around here a lot lately. I guess I was just wondering: is that all about . . . your math homework?"

I shrugged. "I guess so," I said.

"Nothing else."

I shrugged again. "Well, there's a lot of stuff. You know, school and whatnot."

"You gonna tell me about it or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?"

"Well . . ." I wagged my head back and forth. I didn't really want to talk to him about it. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it. But before I knew it, I heard myself saying, "There is one thing . . ."

I was sorry the minute the words came out of my mouth. I was sorry, and, weirdly enough, I was kind of happy at the same time. Because there was this one thing on my mind that I'd wanted to bring up to Sensei Mike for a long time. It was this secret ambition I had that I hadn't told anybody. The reason I hadn't told anybody was because I wasn't sure it was possible. If there was anyone who would know, it was Sensei Mike.

Now the thing about Sensei Mike is: he tells you the truth. He's not one of these happy-talk guys who'll say what you want to hear or what he thinks you're supposed to hear because he read it in some article or something. He'll tell you his best opinion, flat out, without mincing words. So I was happy because I wanted to know his opinion. But I was sorry because I was afraid of what his opinion might be.

So I took a deep breath. I went into a side pocket of my karate bag and wrestled out a battered old paperback book I kept hidden there. I'd found it in a box at a fundraising book sale they'd had at the public library. I'd been reading it and reading it in secret for weeks now, cover to cover and back again. I kept it in my karate bag because sometimes my mother goes through my school bag to clean out the half-eaten lunches and so on. But she leaves my karate bag alone. I didn't want her to find it because, like I said before, I knew it would drive her crazy with fear and I'd never hear the end of it. And I knew if I asked my father about it, he'd tell my mother, so I couldn't talk to him either.

I held the book out to Sensei Mike. It was called: To Be a U.S. Air Force Pilot.

Sensei Mike took the book in one hand and glanced down at it.

"What do you think?" I said. "You think I could make it as a fighter pilot in the Air Force?"

Sensei Mike pulled the book close to himself. Leaning back in the chair, swiveling back and forth, he opened it, paged through it.

"Cool," he murmured. "Cool jets."

He glanced through a few more pages, then shut the book and held it out to me. I took it and stuffed it back down into my karate bag.

I stood there, nervous, waiting to hear the answer to my question.

"You wanna be an Air Force pilot?" he asked me.

I managed to nod.

"Really tough. Really tough training. Very selective, very elite. A lot of guys don't make it. Even some of the best. Just not that many slots open."

I went on nodding. I already knew all that.

Sensei Mike folded his hands on the knot of his black belt. "You know, a lot of guys, teachers and so ona"they'd be happy to tell you that you can be anything you want to be, anything you set your mind on. You go to them, they'll tell you you should feel good about yourself, that you're special and all that stuff."

"I know that, Sensei Mike. That's why I didn't go to them. I asked you 'cause I want the truth."

"The truth is: you can't be anything you want to be. All that talk is garbage. I mean, I could try till my ears smoked, but I couldn't write a symphonya"not a good one, anyway. I couldn't throw a baseball ninety-five miles an hour or hit one out of a major-league park. I want to do all those things, but it doesn't matter how hard I trya"I just wasn't given those abilities." Sensei Mike came forward in his chair, leaned forward, and looked up at me hard. "But this is also the truth: if you try your best and better than your best, and work and push yourself until you think you can't go on and then push yourself some morea"thena"then if you have a little bit of luck on your sidea"then you can be all the good things G.o.d made you to be."

"Well, I'd do that," I said. "You know I would. You've seen me. I'd bust my chops for this."

"Yeah, you would, that's true."

"So what do you think? Could I do it?"

He turned it over in his mind one more second. Then he said, "Absolutely. With your brains, your reflexes, and the way you work . . . a.s.suming you meet the physical requirements, the eyesight and all that . . . I think you got Ace written all over you." He pointed a finger at me. "You'll still be a chuckleheada"but you'll be an Ace chucklehead."

"I don't know, Mike," I said. "You gotta get a congressman to nominate you and everything."

"Don't sweat it. I know plenty of congressmen. I know some Air Force bra.s.s too. Finish your education, pull down the big grades, and you'll get your shot, I promise you. And hey . . . meanwhile, try to keep your mind on what you're doing. You can't fly jets if Lou Wilson splatters your brains all over the dojo."

When I walked out of the karate studio that day, I felt like I was about ten feet tall, a giant among men looking down at the world from high above. My mind was racing over all kinds of things, over everything that had happened that day. The karate demonstration and the way all the kids shouted and applauded. Beth coming into the cafeteria the way she did, and the way we talked and she wrote on my hand and everything. And now, Sensei Mike: I think you got Ace written all over you . . .

I had this feelinga"this incredible feelinga"that it was actually possible that I could turn my daydreams into reality.

It was just like Sensei Mike said. My mind was totally in the clouds. I wasn't paying attention. I was completely unprepared for what happened next.

It was getting toward evening now, around five o'clock or so. On the far side of the mall, in the gap between the Pizza Kitchen and the movie theatera"beyond where the movie theater parking wasa"I could see the sun turning red as it reached the tops of the far hills. I took a deep breath of the cool September air. I wished I could get in my mom's car and drive out to those hills and look out from the top of them toward the setting sun and see my future out therea"see what was going to happen and what it would be like, and end all the suspense I felt inside me.

I guess it's a good thing I couldn't do that. If I had seen what my future was really going to be like, I would've gone home that night and hidden under the bed.

Anyway, I had to get back for dinner. Plus I still had my history paper to write.

So I started walking across the parking lot. I'd parked the car in back of Paulson's, the mall supermarket. That part of the lot wasn't the nicest place in the mall. It was where the garbage Dumpsters were. It was also where the homeless guys hung outa"the crazy ones and the alcoholic ones who pawed through the Dumpsters for food. Kids hung out there sometimes too. Everyone knew there were some checkout people in Paulson's who would sell you beer without checking your ID. So sometimes kids bought a beer in Paulson's and drank it in the back by the Dumpsters after the police patrols had pa.s.sed through.

What I mean is: that rear area wasn't a great place to be, especially after dark. But on a busy day like today, when the parking lot was practically full, it was easier to find a s.p.a.ce back there because the shopping moms avoided it. Anyway, I knew I'd be out of karate before dark, and I wasn't worried. I went down the narrow lane next to Paulson's and came around the back. I reached my car. Opened the hatch. Threw in my karate bag.

Then I stopped. Stopped with my hand on the hatch door, about to push it down.

I had lifted my eyes to scan the area, make sure nothing threatening was going on. As I was turning away, I spotted a group of kids slouching against a brick wall near the Dumpsters. There were three of them. They all had paper bags in their hands. They were lifting the paper bags to their mouths and lowering them again. I knew there were beer bottles in the bags.

One of the kids was Alex Hauser. He was glaring at me. He lifted his paper bag to his lips and lowered it again. I waved to him. He didn't smile or wave back. He just tapped one of his friends on the shoulder. He pointed me out to him.

With that, the three kids pushed their way off the wall. They tossed their paper bags into one of the Dumpsters. They started coming my way, with Alex in the lead.

They didn't look friendly.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Alex

Alex had changed a lot since our best-friend days. He almost looked like a different person now. He used to be a kind of happy, open-faced, round-faced guy, but now his face looked narrow and hungry; sullen too. His mouth was set in a permanent frown, like the mouths of those ba.s.s I caught in Lake Wyatt sometimes. His eyes seemed to flash with anger. He was wearing a watch cap and a blue tracksuit. His two friends were also in tracksuits. One, a dark-skinned guy, had a red bandana on. The other had his blond hair cut to the nub. I guessed they were from Alex's new school. I didn't know them, anyway. Frankly, I wasn't looking forward to an introduction.

I shut the hatch door as Alex reached me. He stuck out his fist. I touched it with mine by way of h.e.l.lo. Alex smiled with one corner of his mouth. It wasn't a friendly smile, not really. It was that nasty smile guys wear when they're planning to start trouble but they don't want to give you an excuse to say so.

"Hey, Charlie," he said. "How's it working for you?"

"Pretty good, pretty good. How you doing, Alex?"

"Excellent, excellent. Guess you're still doing your karate, huh?" And then suddenly, he let out a loud karate shout and jumped into a sort of mock fighting position. It was meant to startle me, meant to make me jump and look stupid. Which I guess I did a little. Not much, but enough so Alex could laugh at me and the two punks with him could laugh too. "Charlie here is a black belt," Alex said to the others.

The crew-cut guy said, "Pretty tough guy, huh," as if he thought that was funny.

I didn't like the feel of this at all. I hadn't seen Alex in a long time. I could tell he'd changed a lot. But I didn't think he'd do anything crazy like start a fight with me or anything. I mean, why would he?

Then Alex said: "Hey. I heard something funny today."

"Oh yeah?" I said warily.

"Yeah. Really funny. You wanna hear?"

I shrugged. "Sure. What's so funny?"

"It's just a funny rumor I heard about you."

"About me?"

Crew-cut Guy snickered nastily. I was beginning not to like Crew-cut Guy.

"About me?" Alex echoed. He made a facea"a sort of stupid face to suggest I was acting stupid, pretending not to know something I really did know. "Yeah," he said then in a friendly voice that was not very friendly, "about you," and he poked me in the shoulder hard enough so it hurt. I stared at him. It really was as if he was a totally different person. Not the Alex I knew at all. "I heard a story about you that was really hilarious. That you were going out with Beth Summers."

I felt something inside me then. It was like an icy hand had taken hold of a piece of me and twisted it. Was it possible Alex had been waiting for me out here? He probably knew when my karate lesson was. I hadn't changed my schedule in years. Was it possible he'd brought his friends here so he could confront me about Beth? Could he have already heard about my conversation with her in the cafeteria? Sure he could. Alex still knew people in my school. They could've seen me with Beth and called him. Had it made him angry enough to come out here with a couple of punks to try to start a fight with me?

"Is that right?" he said. "You going out with Beth?"

"I don't know," I told him. "I might sometime, maybe. Why? You have a problem with that?"

Alex made an elaborate gesture of indifference. "No. I don't have a problem with that. Why would I have a problem? Heya"" He gave an ugly laugh and sort of backhanded my shoulder in the same spot where he'd poked me. "Hey, I hope you get more out of her than I did. I mean, she's kind of an uptight little stick, if you ask me."

Now the Bible says you're not supposed to keep anger in your heart, and I hoped I wouldn't keep it, but it was there now, all right. In fact, so much anger flared up in me when he said that about Beth that I almost felt my fist was going to shoot up and knock Alex across the parking lot before I could stop it. But I did stop it. You can't hit a guy for what he says, even if it stinks. So I just answered hima"quietly, you knowa"working hard to keep my voice steady.

"Well," I said, "I guess I didn't ask you, did I? And now I'm going home."

I started to move away. Crew-cut Guy reached out to grab me. The way I was feeling just then, this was not a good idea on the part of Crew-cut Guy.

"Hey, where you going . . . ?" he saida"or started to say. Because before he could finish, I took a step back away from him, turning as I did. At the same time, I put my hands up on guard. I didn't exactly slap his hand away. I just sort of gently deflected it with the back of my hand at the same time I slipped out of his reach. Crew-cut Guy's grabbing fingers went right past me and caught hold of nothing but empty air.

It was a good move. With that one turning step I'd maneuvered myself past all three of them. I'd gotten away from the back of the Explorer so they couldn't corner me against it.

I lowered my hands now. I didn't want them up in fighting position. I didn't want to provoke Crew-cut Guy to take a swing at me because if he did, I might have to hurt him, and I didn't want to hurt hima"well, all right, I did want to hurt him, but I wasn't going to. Anyway, I could get my hands up fast enough if I needed them.

"You guys have a good night," I said quietly.

For a second it looked like Crew-cut Guy was going to come after me. The anger was raging in his eyes, and he made a move. But Alex held him back, pressing the back of his hand against his chest. He was looking at me, Alex was, and kind of half-smiling, a strange smile, almost as if he admired me.

"Don't be stupid," he told Crew-cut Guy, holding him there without taking his eyes off me. "He'd put you in the hospital."

I could see Crew-cut Guy was angry about that, but he held back. I was grateful to Alex for stopping him. I saluted him with one finger to my head.

"Why don't you give me a call sometime?" I said. "We could talk. Privately."

I walked around the side of the car. I yanked the driver's door open while Alex's two friends glared at me. I slid in behind the wheel and shut the door.

The anger was still hot in me. In fact, it was worse nowa"now that I was away from them and didn't have to worry about doing something violent and stupid. Now the anger closed my throat and made my stomach clutch. It was a rotten feeling.

I jammed my key into the ignition and twisted it hard, turning the engine over. I grabbed hold of the gearshift, ready to throw the big car into reverse.

Just then, the pa.s.senger door opened and Alex slid into the seat beside me.

"All right," he said. "You wanna talk? Let's talk. Drive somewhere."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Argument

With Alex in the car beside me, I drove out of the parking lot, the Explorer's tires bouncing hard over the exit ramp and out onto the road. I guessa"being as angry as I wasa"I was driving a little too fast. I had to ease down on the brake, bring the big car under controla"and bring myself under control too. I took a deep breath and forced myself to loosen my jaw, which was clenched together like a bear trap.

Alex didn't say anything as I drove out over Route 109, past the other big mall in town. The silence hung there between us. I was the one who broke it.

"I like your friends," I said. Only the way I said it, it meant the opposite.

"They're okay."

"Oh yeah, they're great. The kind of guys who'll always be around when you need them."

"Hey, they're my friends, all right?"