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  BYSTANDER

  FEIWEL AND FRIENDS

  NEW YORK, NY

  A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK

  An Imprint of Macmillan

  BYSTANDER. Copyright © 2009 by James Preller.

  All rights reserved. Printed in August 2009 in the United States of America by R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Harrisonburg, Virginia. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Preller, James.

  Bystander / James Preller.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Thirteen-year-old Eric discovers there are consequences to not standing by and watching as the bully at his new school hurts people, but although school officials are aware of the problem, Eric may be the one with a solution.

  ISBN: 978-0-312-37906-3

  [1. Bullies—Fiction. 2. Conduct of life—Fiction. 3. Middle schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Moving, Household—Fiction. 6. Divorce—Fiction. 7. Family life—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.

  8. Long Island (N.Y.)—Fiction.]

  I. Title. PZ7.P915Bys 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008028554

  Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto

  First Edition: 2009

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  www.feiwelandfriends.com

  Dedicated in memory of my brother John,

  loving father to David and Ryan

  Where you been is good and gone

  All you keep is the gettin’ there.

  —Townes Van Zandt,

  “To Live Is to Fly”

  BYSTANDER

  1

  [ketchup]

  THE FIRST TIME ERIC HAYES EVER SAW HIM, DAVID HALLENback was running, if you could call it that, running in a halting, choppy-stepped, stumpy-legged shamble, slowing down to look back over his shoulder, stumbling forward, pausing to catch his breath, then lurching forward again.

  He was running from, not to, and not running, but fleeing.

  Scared witless.

  Eric had never seen the boy before. But in this town, a place called Bellport, Long Island, it was true of most kids. Eric didn’t know anybody. He bounced the basketball, flicking it with his fingertips, not looking at the ball, or the rim, or anything else on the vast, empty grounds behind the middle school except for that curly-haired kid who couldn’t run to save his life. Which was too bad, really, because it looked to Eric like he might be doing exactly that—running for his life.

  Eric took a halfhearted jumper, missed. No lift in his legs. The ball bounced to the left wing, off the asphalt court and onto the grass, where it rolled and settled, unchased. Eric had been shooting for almost an hour. Working on his game or just killing time, Eric wasn’t sure. He was tired and hot and a little bored or else he would have bounded after the ball like a pup, pounced on it after the first bounce, spun on spindly legs, and fired up a follow-up shot. Instead he let the ball roll to the grass and, hands on his hips, dripping sweat, watched the running boy as he continued across the great lawn in his direction.

  He doesn’t see me, Eric thought.

  Behind him there was the sprawling Final Rest Pet Cemetery. According to Eric’s mother, it was supposedly the third-largest pet cemetery in the United States. And it’s not like Eric’s mom was making that up just to make Eric feel better about “the big move” from Ohio to Long Island. Because, duh, nobody is going to get all pumped up just because there’s a big cemetery in your new hometown, stuffed with dead cats and dogs and whatever else people want to bury. Were there pet lizards, tucked into little felt-lined coffins? Vietnamese potbellied pigs? Parakeets? People were funny about pets. But burying them in a real cemetery, complete with engraved tombstones? That was a new one on Eric. A little excessive, he thought.

  As the boy drew closer, Eric could see that his shirt was torn. Ripped along the side seam, so that it flapped as he ran. And . . . was that blood? There were dark red splotches on the boy’s shirt and jeans (crazy to wear those on a hot August afternoon). Maybe it was just paint. The whole scene didn’t look right, that much was sure. No one seemed to be chasing after the boy. He had come from the far side of the school and now traveled across the back of it. The boy’s eyes kept returning to the corner of the building, now one hundred yards away. Nothing there. No monsters, no goblins, no ghosts, no thing at all.

  Eric walked to his basketball, picked it up, tucked it under his arm, and stood watching the boy. He still hadn’t spotted Eric, even though he was headed in Eric’s direction.

  At last, Eric spoke up. “You okay?” he asked. Eric’s voice was soft, even gentle, but his words stopped the boy like a cannon shot to the chest. He came to a halt and stared at Eric. The boy’s face was pale, freckled, mushy, with small, deep-set eyes and a fat lower lip that hung like a tire tube. He looked distrustful, a dog that had been hit by too many rolled-up newspapers.

  Eric stepped forward, gestured to the boy’s shirt. “Is that blood?”

  The boy’s face was blank, unresponsive. He didn’t seem to understand.

  “On your shirt,” Eric pointed out.

  The boy looked down, and when his eyes again lifted to meet Eric’s, they seemed distant and cheerless. There was a flash of something else there, just a fleeting something in the boy’s eyes: hatred.

  Hot, dark hatred.

  “No, no. Not . . . bl-blood,” the boy said. There might have been a trace of a stutter in his voice, something in the way he paused over the “bl” consonant blend.

  Whatever it was, the red glop was splattered all over the boy’s pants and shirt. Eric could see traces of it in the boy’s hair. Then Eric smelled it, a familiar whiff, and he knew. Ketchup. The boy was covered with ketchup.

  Eric took another step. A look of panic filled the boy’s eyes. He tensed, stepped back, swiveled his head to again check the far corner of the building. Then he took off without a word. He moved past Eric, beyond the court, through a gap in the fence, and into the cemetery.

  “Hey!” Eric called after him. “I’m not—”

  But the ketchup boy was long gone.

  2

  [pretty]

  THEY CAME SOON AFTER, AS ERIC HAD GUESSED THEY might. Four of them on bicycles. Three boys and a girl.

  Eric was alone on the court, standing at the foul line. He dribbled twice, caught the ball in both hands, feeling for the lines of the ball with his fingertips. Foul shooting was a ritual, a practiced set of precise patterns. He took a deep breath, blew the air out, bent his knees, eyes fixed on the rim. Elbow up and out, wrist flicked. The ball shivered through the mesh. Perfect.

  The hunters came from around the far side of the big brick building. They weren’t pedaling hard, didn’t seem in any big hurry. They were talking and laughing as they rode, glancing around, the trail gone cold. Eric retrieved the ball and stepped back to the foul line. He glanced behind him, in the direction where the ketchup boy had fled. There was no sign of the boy; he had vanished like a ghost among the tombstones. That left just Eric. And now the bike riders were headed his way, four sailboats fixed on a distant shore, tacking this way and that in zigs and zags, but surely aimed toward the boy on the court in red basketball shorts, white new kicks, and a sleeveless tee.

  The shaggy-haired boy in the lead pulled up right in the middle of the court, halfway between the foul line and the basket. He stayed on his bicycle seat, balanced on one leg, cool as a breeze. The boy looked at Eric. And Eric watched him look.

  His hair fell around his eyes and below his ears, wavy and uncombed. He had soft features with thick lips and long eyelashes. The boy appeared to be around Eric’s age, maybe a year older, and looked, well, pretty. It was the word that leaped into Eric’s mind, and for no other reason than becau
se it was true.

  The other three stayed on their bicycles and slowly circled the perimeter of the court, riding behind Eric and then back around and around, the noose of their circle drawing tighter each time. They, too, said nothing, as if content to wait for instructions.

  Eric wondered if something bad was about to happen. And he wondered, too, if there might be anything he could do to avoid it. A part of him watched the scene unfold as if he wasn’t in the middle of it, as if it was in a movie or something, as if he watched from an overhead camera, the cyclists circling like vultures around a carcass.

  “You didn’t see anybody come by here, did you?” the boy asked.

  “Looks like a french fry,” a skinny, hatchet-faced boy added. He laughed, and the third boy joined in. Eric glanced at them, avoiding eye contact, then turned to look directly back at the leader, the one who had asked the question.

  “I’ve been shooting around,” Eric explained with a shrug. “I didn’t really—”

  “Nobody, huh,” the brown-haired boy said, sliding off his bike and dropping it carelessly to the ground. He didn’t look that big or that strong, but he moved with an easy confidence. There was toughness there, a hardness beneath the long lashes and full lips. The boy held out his hands, clapped once. Said, “Let’s see that ball, huh.”

  Eric didn’t hesitate. He made a sharp bounce pass to the boy. “Sure, here,” he said, as if there was nothing he wanted more than to hand over his ball to this stranger.

  The other two boys deposited their bikes on the grass. The girl—with a high, round forehead and straight blond hair parted in the middle—remained seated on her bike, wrists dangling over the handlebars, silently watching.

  “You new around here?” the boy asked. He dribbled the ball a little awkwardly, his skills unrefined.

  Eric nodded. Yes, he was new. Eric sensed that he’d have to be careful; this encounter could go either way. It could turn out okay, or go very bad. Threat hung in the air, though no one had said or done anything wrong. It was just a feeling Eric got. A knot in his stomach.

  The boy turned to the hoop and took a shot that clanged off the metal backboard and bounced away. He grinned and shrugged, eyes smiling. “I’m not really one of those basketball guys,” he explained. “My name’s Griffin. Most everybody calls me Griff.”

  “I’m Eric.”

  Griffin gestured toward the school building. “You gonna go to school here? What grade you in?”

  “Yeah,” Eric answered. “Seventh.”

  “Lucky you.”

  One of the other boys, the heavy, raw-knuckled one, snorted, “You any good at homework? We could use somebody to do our homework.”

  The hatchet-faced boy laughed. His large front teeth protruded slightly and his black hair was limp and ragged. Eric instinctively disliked him. Weasel, he thought.

  Griffin smiled at Eric. “Don’t pay any attention to these guys,” he said. “They think they’re funny. Anything for a laugh, right, Cody?”

  The ugly one, all beaked nose and buckteeth, blew a bubble and let it burst. “Good times,” he chirped. “Good times.”

  “I feel sorry for you,” Griffin said to Eric. “You move here—and all we’ve been trying to do is figure out how to break out of this place!”

  Griffin had a way about him, a certain kind of natural leadership that Eric respected. Words came easily to Griffin, his smile was bright and winning. Eric felt almost envious; Griffin seemed to possess a quality he lacked, a presence.

  “So, tell us,” Griffin continued, commanding the court. “Why did you move here?”

  “Well, it wasn’t my idea,” Eric confessed. “My parents . . . sort of . . .”

  He trailed off. Better keep that part to himself.

  “You don’t talk a lot, do you,” Griff noted.

  Eric tilted his head, shrugged, embarrassed.

  “He’s a shy boy!” the big one squealed.

  “Shut up, Drew P.,” Griff said. “Get me that ball, will ya?”

  And Drew P. did.

  “Droopy, Droo-pee,” Cody chimed in a mocking, singsong voice.

  “Get a life,” Droopy snapped back.

  Griffin shook his head, as if the dialogue disappointed him. He explained to Eric, “His name is Drew Peterson. The other day we started calling him ‘Droop’ and ‘Droopy.’ Get it: Drew P.” Griffin smiled. “I don’t think he’s crazy about it.”

  Eric didn’t respond, just listened and nodded.

  Griffin weighed the ball in one hand. “You mind if we keep this?”

  “What?”

  “The ball, Eric,” Griffin said. “You don’t mind if I keep it for a while, do you? As a souvenir?”

  “Yep, yep, yep!” Cody chirped.

  Eric started to answer. “I, um—”

  “Um . . . what?” Griffin interrupted, his face a mask now, hard to read. “You think maybe you have a choice?”

  The two other boys moved a little closer to Eric, one on each side. They seemed to grow in stature. A little taller, a little fiercer, the way a dog looks when its hackles are raised.

  Eric did the math. Three against one, not counting the girl. She wasn’t doing anything, just standing by, watching.

  No, no choice, Eric thought. No choice at all.

  3

  [joking]

  HE DID NOT WANT TO PART WITH HIS BASKETBALL. BUT Eric knew that if he caved right now, just a week before school started, he’d be a marked man for the whole year. It was funny, almost. School hadn’t begun, but he was already taking his first test.

  “Actually, um, I do mind,” Eric finally said. He didn’t whine it or say it with a whimper. He just told it flat out. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and he would certainly miss the damn ball. “But you guys can play with it,” Eric quickly added. “I mean, I was about to head home in a few minutes, but—”

  Griffin laughed out loud. “Dude, hey, we’re just busting on you.” He passed the ball back to Eric, a one-handed fling. “I don’t even like basketball.”

  “Come on, Griff, let’s go. I’m bored.”

  It was the girl.

  She said, “It’s too hot. Let’s find Sinjay and get invited into his pool.”

  Griffin looked at her, nodded once. “Yeah, I guess.” He turned back to Eric. “So,” he said, landing on the word with emphasis, like it was a complete thought, a summarizing statement. So. “You really didn’t see a kid come through here? For sure?”

  Eric looked him in the eye and blinked. “I’m just shooting around. I’m like in my own little world out here.”

  “Okay, I’ll take your word for it.” Griffin looked around, slowly rubbed his hand across his chest and belly.

  Eric could see the doubt in Griffin’s eyes. He volunteered, “I mean, I think I would have noticed somebody if—”

  “I gotcha,” Griffin replied, sharp and dismissive. “Loud and clear. You didn’t see him. Nothing wrong with that. We’re just looking for one of our buddies, that’s all. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  Eric said that he could.

  Griffin’s face brightened. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” he said, snapping his fingers. “This will be really fun, Eric. You will definitely enjoy it. We’ll give you one shot, from right there”—he pointed at the foul line—“and if you make it, you get to keep the basketball. If you miss”—he shrugged—“we take it.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Drew P. said.

  “Yep, yep, yep!” Cody called out. That’s when Eric recognized the voice. Cody was doing a pitch-perfect imitation of Petrie from The Land Before Time. Eric’s younger brother, Rudy, had spent a full year obsessed with those videos.

  “Come on, Griff,” the girl persisted. “This is so lame.”

  Eric considered his options. There weren’t any good ones. “Okay,” he relented. “One shot. But what do I get if I make it?”

  “Ho-ho!” Griffin exclaimed. “Now you’re bargaining, huh? I like that, Eric, very ballsy.”


  “I bet a dollar he makes it,” the girl said.

  “I’ll take that bet,” Cody said.

  Griffin eyed her appraisingly, eyebrows arched in mock surprise. “You like the looks of him, huh? The new boy in town?”

  She made an “oh, please” face, like the very idea was stupid. “Let’s just get this over with, Griff.”

  So Eric dribbled once, twice, took a deep breath, and laid a brick. He missed everything, the backboard, the rim, the works. His heart sank.

  “Air ball!” chortled Drew P.

  “You owe me a dollar, Mary!” Cody claimed.

  Mary. Her name was Mary.

  Griffin grabbed the ball. He set it on the ground, rested his foot on it, stood pondering the possibilities, then gently rolled the ball to Eric.

  Eric bent to pick it up and murmured, “Thanks.” The word slipped past his lips as a reflex, just tumbled off his tongue without thinking, a verbal somersault of ingrained manners, thanks, and Eric kicked himself for saying it. What an idiot. Thanking these guys for not stealing his ball! Actually thanking them! How pathetic.

  “I am disappointed in you, Eric. I really thought you’d make that shot,” Griffin said. He lifted his bike off the ground, climbed back onto it. “We’ll see you in school, Eric. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have a few classes together. Wouldn’t that be special? We could go to the library and do homework together!” He let out a friendly laugh, like it was all a big fat joke.

  “Yeah,” Eric replied.

  The gang of four pulled away. Griffin gestured toward the pet cemetery, and they headed for a gap in the fence.

  Eric let out a deep breath. He felt the tension seep out of his neck and shoulders. Good riddance, he thought. No wonder his shot fell short. Too stressed. The girl, Mary, was right. It was hotter than hell out here.

  Eric didn’t hear Griffin’s return, not until the boy was almost on top of him.