Page 10 of Now and Again

Riley folded her arms. ‘You’rethe nobody, Jack,’ she told him, quietly seething.

The entire school, as one, made the delighted sound, ‘Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh.’ Juliet felt all funny in her tummy. No one had ever defended her honour like that.

Jack looked ready to pop. He took a threatening step toward Riley, and that’s when a fist flew out from nowhere and smacked Jack in the jaw. He went down like a sack of spuds. Juliet looked over to see the punch had been thrown by Sam, the footballer. ‘Don’t be a twat!’ he told Jack.

Then someone else, a random meathead, punched Sam. ‘That’s my mate!’ the meathead said. Thenhegot punched. ‘That’smymate!’ said another footballer.

About then, it turned into a full-on group brawl. Fists flying, chairs crashing, people running to get out of the way. Juliet was locked in place until she felt a hand grab hers. ‘Come on!’ said Riley, dragging her away from the smackdown, and they ran together from the cafeteria, struggling through the herd of teenagers either running away from or toward the fight.

When Juliet finally stopped running and caught her breath, she found she was out on the front lawn with Riley. They looked at each other. ‘What the hell just happened?’ Riley asked herself.

‘Ummm, I don’t know,’ Juliet lied.

Riley grinned. ‘Youdidtrip him, didn’t you?’

Juliet shrugged. ‘I might have… I mean, maybe my leg was just, you know… Sometimes your legs are just hard to keep track of.’

Riley laughed. ‘I’m not gonna tell anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.’

Juliet took a chance. ‘Fine. I did it. On purpose.’

Riley laughed a bit more before she tamped it down to ask, ‘What for?’

That was a much trickier question. ‘He was being… I didn’t like how he… I thoughtyoumight…’

Riley raised her eyebrows. ‘You did that for me?’

Juliet took the chance that Riley wasn’t about to laugh directly in her face. ‘Yeah.’

Riley looked at her very seriously, and Juliet couldn’t read her remotely.

‘Juliet Sullivan!’ said an adult voice, and they turned to see the deputy head, Mrs. Traynor, bearing down. ‘I’ve just broken up a mass brawl, and I’ve been told it was all down to you!’

Juliet felt like she might soil herself as Mrs. Traynor flew at her. But as she reached her, Riley stepped forward. ‘Mrs. Traynor, I was there. I saw what happened.’

‘Then you can come too.’

Juliet cracked like an egg the second they got in Mrs. Traynor’s office, blabbing about the leg-up. She’d never been good at defying authority. When she’d finished talking, Mrs. Traynor didn’t immediately say anything, and Juliet felt pressured to confess further. ‘And there was this one time during a science test - it was on photosynthesis – that I kept writing after the teacher said pens down. I was writing an answer to the last question, and because I was at the back of the room, I had a few more seconds until she—’

‘Juliet, can you please shut up a second? I’m trying to figure out how to punish you,’ Mrs. Traynor said.

‘Juliet, wait a sec,’ Riley said. ‘She missed the bit where she was defending me because Jack was being a bully.’

Mrs. Traynor frowned. ‘What?’

Riley explained the start of it. Jack had, as Meera had guessed, been dumped and not taken it well. Jack was sure he was leaving her for someone else. That had come to a head in the cafeteria. ‘I said I didn’t want to talk, and he was being quite intimidating, and I felt like I had to go with him. That was until Juliet tripped him. That’s when everything went off the rails.’

Mrs. Traynor sighed through her nose. ‘Right. This just got more complicated. ThankgodOfsted finished with us yesterday.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Everyone that was fighting gets a week’s detention.’

‘I wasn’t fighting,’ Juliet began hopefully. ‘Does that mean I don’t have detention?’

‘No. You’re doing clean-up instead. The cafeteria’s a mess.’

Riley’s mouth swung open. ‘What? You’re gonna punish her too?’

‘She started the fight.’

‘Not really, that was Sam. Andhewas trying to help as well.’

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