“I feel weird talking about Daniel behind his back,” Phillip said. “And I can see why he’d be upset, but really, there’s nothing wrong with my idea. If anything, we’re probably in more risk now than we would have been otherwise.”
“Be that as it may, just please don’t needle him too much,” Chloe said. “All right?”
“I won’t start any trouble,” Phillip said. “You have my assurance on that.”
—
The skies had been overcast all day, but the rains that were threatened from the south had not yet come in. Recess, then, was outside, and while the majority of the children ran around the schoolyard, four kids sat on some steps near the main entrance of the playground. The open air alleviated the agoraphobia that they had experienced in the cafeteria, and they were chatting amongst themselves.
“I don’t see why you guys can’t come to the table with us,” Tegan said, frowning. “It’s not that bad, really. It’s not like Deacon sits there.”
“Why don’t you come sit with us?” Jeanne asked in return.
“Well, I like talking with Nicole,” the other girl said in reply, her voice slightly defensive. “And I’m not scared of Deacon.”
“Good for you,” Rob sighed. He gazed off towards the center of the playground; its central feature was a pair of balance bars, where Deacon Flay and two of the students closest to him in capacity for cruelty were playing a sick distortion of “king of the hill”. His flunkies were orbiting the balance bars in opposite directions, eyes peeled for any of the smaller children wandering through the yard. When a target approached, one of the satellites grabbed him– it was always a boy– and shoved him into the corridor delineated by the balance bars, more or less. This clear act of aggression provoked Deacon, who would then push the child back out of the corridor in a direction perpendicular to his entry vector. That only happened for the kids who knew better than to resist. Those who fought their fate found themselves without the opportunity to duck out of the way of the balance bars. Banging their victims against the bars produced an amusing hollow clang, but each child was picked up only once. To do it more than once would remove the illusion that it was an accident.
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