at the history test the class was working on. Ryan stiffened, knowing Alito was expecting him to slump just low enough at his desk to give the other boy a clear view of his answers, and as he thought about what Alito and his friends might do to him after school if he refused to let Frankie cheat, he felt himself starting to ease his body downward. But just before Alito could get a clear look, Ryan heard his father’s voice echoing in his head:
Instantly, Ryan sat straight up, determined that for once Alito could pass or fail on his own.
Then he felt the poke in his back. He ignored it, not shifting even a fraction of an inch in his seat.
Another poke with what felt like Alito’s pen, harder this time. Ryan kept his eyes focused on the test in front of him, but shrugged his shoulder away from Alito’s pen point.
“Gimme a look, geek,” Frankie whispered, punctuating the last word with another, harder jab.
“No way,” Ryan muttered, straightening even further in his chair and hunching over his paper, trying to stay out of Frankie’s reach. He glanced up at the teacher, but Mr. Thomas was busy at his desk, a stack of papers in front of him.
“Last chance,” Alito said, and Ryan felt another poke. But this time it was down low, just above his belt.
This time it wasn’t a pen point.
And this time his body reacted reflexively. Ryan twisted around just in time to see the flash of a blade.
The kind and size of blade that meant business.
“Now!” Alito hissed, jabbing the point of the knife hard enough to make Ryan jump.
Ryan yelped as the point dug into him and the teacher’s head snapped up.
“Something wrong, McIntyre?” Mr. Thomas asked from the front of the room.
Suddenly every eye in the classroom was on Ryan.
“No, sir,” Ryan said. “Sorry.”
Mr. Thomas stood up and came around his desk.
“Really,” Ryan said. “It wasn’t anything.”
The teacher advanced down the aisle, his eyes never leaving Frankie Alito, and came to a stop next to Ryan.
“Really, it was nothing, Mr. Thomas,” Ryan said, praying that Alito had at least been smart enough to slip the knife back in his pocket.
“Both hands on your desk, Alito,” Thomas commanded. Ryan kept facing directly forward, not wanting to see what was going to happen next.
“What’s that?” He heard Mr. Thomas ask.
“Nuthin’,” Alito answered.
“Hand it over,” the teacher said.
Ryan could almost see Frankie Alito glowering, but then the teacher spoke one more word, snapping it out with enough force that Ryan jumped.
“Now!”
The tension in the classroom grew as Alito hesitated, but when Mr. Thomas’s gaze never wavered, he finally broke and passed the switchblade to him.
“Thank you,” Thomas said softly. “And now you will go down to the office, where you will wait for me. I’ll be there at the end of the period, and you will be out of school for the rest of the year, even if we decide not to press charges, which I can assure you we won’t. You’re through, Alito.”
His face twisted with fury, Frankie Alito got to his feet, jabbing an elbow hard into Ryan’s shoulder.
“I saw that, too,” Mr. Thomas said. “You’re only making it worse.”
Alito shrugged and walked to the door, then paused before opening it. He turned his eyes, boring into Ryan, and then he smiled.
It was a smile that sank like a dart into Ryan’s belly.
“Okay. Show’s over,” Mr. Thomas said, breaking the uneasy silence that had fallen over the room. “Back to your tests. You have only ten minutes left.”
But for Ryan, the test was already over. He stared at the questions that still remained, reading them over and over again, but no matter how many times he read the words, he couldn’t make sense of them.
It wasn’t enough that he had to worry about his mother and Tom Kelly. Now he had to face Frankie Alito and his friends, who would no doubt jump him when he was on the way home after school.
He turned his head and looked out the window. In the distance, he could see the skyline of Boston, and though he was pretty sure it wasn’t really possible, he thought he could even pick out the spire on top of St. Isaac’s School.
The school his mother had talked about the last time he’d come home with a black eye after a run-in with Frankie Alito.
Except he was pretty sure it hadn’t been his mother’s idea at all. In fact, he’d have been willing to bet it had been Tom Kelly’s idea.
But now, as he stared at his unfinished test, and knew all he had to look forward to for the rest of the day was Frankie Alito’s fury, he began to wonder.
Surely St. Isaac’s couldn’t be any worse than where he was.
“Time’s up,” said Mr. Thomas.
CHAPTER 2
BROTHER FRANCIS STOOD in the doorway of the vast dining room at St. Isaac’s Preparatory Academy, scanning the tables of students, searching for Kip Adamson. At least half the school’s two hundred students were sitting at the long tables eating, talking, and laughing, yet despite the noise they were generating, the chamber was still far quieter than had been the much smaller cafeteria at the school Brother Francis had left only last fall. Indeed, it seemed to him as if the old stone building housing the dining hall was somehow offended by the noise, and, rather than tolerate such frivolity within its walls, had somehow found a way to absorb the noise the school’s students made, muting it almost as quickly as the students generated it.
Though he was new to St. Isaac’s, Brother Francis had a knack for attaching names to faces, and now he was able to greet nearly every one of the students by name as he walked between tables in search of one particular face. Kip Adamson, though, was nowhere to be seen; he’d already missed his senior math class, and Sister Mary David had sent Brother Francis to find out why. Sister Mary David’s wrath was legendary; not only would nobody willingly miss her class without an ironclad excuse, but she wouldn’t hesitate to vent her fury upon Brother Francis, should he prove unable to explain young Adamson’s absence.
Kip must have had a good reason — at least, he’d
In the far corner of the dining hall, Brother Francis spotted Clay Matthews, Kip’s roommate, sitting with his usual group of friends. As Brother Francis approached, he caught a glimpse of playing cards, and suddenly knew why they were all knotted up in the corner together.
“Hey, Brother Francis,” Tim Kennedy said loudly enough that the young cleric was sure it was meant as a warning to Tim’s friends rather than a greeting to himself. Sure enough, the other boys’ heads snapped up the instant Tim spoke.
Brother Francis put on his sternest face. “I believe you’re all aware that gambling is against the rules,” he said. The boys glanced at each other uneasily. “Think what would have happened if it had been Sister Mary David who caught you instead of me.”
As the rest of the boys paled slightly, Jose Alvarez did his best to look utterly innocent. “Gambling?” he asked, as if Brother Francis had spoken in some exotic language he didn’t quite understand.
“We’re just playing Crazy Eights,” Darren Bender said.
“I see.” Brother Francis held his hand out for the cards. Clay Matthews groaned, squared the cards into a deck and surrendered them to Brother Francis, who slipped them into one of the deep pockets in his cassock. “Have any of you seen Kip?” he went on. “He missed his math class.”
