Jason woke Jeremy when breakfast was ready. He probably needed the sleep – yesterday had to be more emotionally exhausting than his more usual bouts of hysteria – but today was going to be busy for them all.
"Here ya go," Josh plopped a cup of soda water in front of Jeremy and poured some headache powders in it and stirred. "Drink it up."
Jeremy grimaced, but did as he was told, then grimaced more.
As soon as the medicine was downed, Josh switched it out for a cup of fresh coffee, which was obviously more to Jeremy's liking.
"You need to get dressed," Jason told him. Jeremy looked down at himself and was surprised. He'd thought he was, not that he'd thought about it.
"Do you remember coming home at all?" Jason asked.
Jeremy shook his head. He picked up his fork and looked at Jason questioningly.
"I'm surprised we– you – haven't already had visitors. If you want to chance catching you this way, then eat first."
Jeremy sighed dramatically, put down his fork, and slid from the chair and crossed the room to his clothes.
Jason and Josh looked at one another and did NOT laugh.
Jeremy, dressed, returned to the table and began eating ravenously.
"I'm beginning to feel bad I didn't force-feed him last night," Jason said ruefully.
Jeremy snorted, almost a giggle, and kept on eating.
"Now, we need to talk. Tell me what happened."
Jeremy did.
THE STORY:
Jeremy gave the girls the new jump rope. He'd used fine cord for the ropy parts, and while it was clumpy in parts and the joins were a little raggedy, it was a good example of rope repair. The little girls were delighted, especially when, when the bad boys cut it, Jeremy repaired it for them on the spot. The other girl, Rebbie,looked up from her book and watched him the first few times he did that.
"You're nice to them," Rebbie said to Jeremy, when he leaned back against the building and crossed his arms.
He looked startled, glanced at her, shifted his legs, dropped his arms. "I-I-I , th-they're n-n-nice t-to m-me." he managed to say, then went to turn one end of the rope for the little girls. They didn't try to talk to him, or expect him to talk back, and they just looked like kids, not like – not like girls.
Rebbie smiled and went back to her book, smiling faintly.
It was early days yet, her Ma said, but acquaintance wasn't a bad thing for the future. You just never knew. Ma was a flibbertigibbet, of course. Never cracked a book in her life. Probably couldn't read.
That was something else interesting about those brothers. They read. All of them.
Rebbie looked down at her book and smiled dreamily, the dreams of a girl becoming woman.
Jeremy, sneaking a glance, thought she looked happy.
Martha and Sarah started yelling at him because he was getting them tangled up in the rope. He let them knock him over, and they pushed and pulled and smacked at him on the ground and they all laughed.
It was at the last recess it happened.
Teacher let the children out, but had asked Jeremy to help her with stacking readers. When he had finished, he went outside.
The little girls had been tied up with their jump rope, and the bad boys were teasing them, doing bad things like putting their skirts over their faces. Jeremy shoved them out of the way and started to untie the girls.
The boys jumped Jeremy, who was holding his own fairly well, when one of the older boys who didn't go to school anymore came along and was giving his brother ideas about what he should or shouldn't do. He (the brother) strolled over to Rebbie, and grabbed her arm.
Rebbie screamed.
The grown boy started unbuttoning Rebbie's top.
Rebbie bit him, or at him, and he backhanded her.
Jeremy shook off his attackers and used his knife to help him free the girls, but somehow he ended up tied up with them, and the older boy brought Rebbie over and tied her in with them, and then started pulling on her clothes and hair and stuff.
Teacher was ringing the school bell for help, and doors were opening in the square.
The two Latimer brothers each took a side and ripped Rebbie's dress open at the top and kept touching her.
Someone said, "What's going on here?" but Jeremy barely heard them. And they were still far away.
So far away.
The little girls were screaming, and Rebbie was crying, and teacher started beating that big boy with her broom, while the two schoolboys kept getting in her way. Jeremy was running his hands along the layers of the ropes. He knew where the joins were and could undo them quickly once he found them.
The men from the town had rescued Teacher and the women who had come with them were surrounding Rebbie.
Just as Jeremy found the join, and cut through the rope to the join, Rebbie hauled off and punched Fat Frankie in the mouth with her ringht fist, and the eye with her left one, and then grabbed his hair in both hands and bit his nose!
The rope fell free, and Jeremy wrapped it around his hand a couple of times and he went after all three boys swinging and hitting with the wire-strengthened rope. He had had enough and those boys weren't getting away with it this time. He swung and slashed and hit blindly, over and over again.
Someone from behind grabbed his shoulders and he grabbed part of the rope with his other hand and whirled around and choked the person who had grabbed him from behind. The only thing he was seeing was red, and when others began pulling him off, he started swinging and slashing with the rope again. Over and over and over and over, until the red went black and he went down with a scream.
Someone got the rope, pulled it through his hands, and threw it out of his reach.
He jumped up with fists flying.
A whole buncha people dragged him and carried him as he continued to fight them all. He bloodied a few noses or mouths, because he got blood on his knuckles,and they changed persons and he had to fight some more peoples.
But nobody was screaming anymore, and he tried to look around and check on Rebbie and the girls, but whenever he did 'they' grabbed hold of him again and he couldn't be sure.
He was NOT going to stop fighting until he was sure.
Then there were no more hands grabbing at him, nobody pushing him around, but he couldn't stop fighting.
Until he just wasn't.
Wasn't fighting anymore.
It was getting dark, and he was sitting on something – a floor, because it didn't have no edges? – and he had a headache, and his hands hurt and hurt, front and back. He brought his hands up to his face and studied them. He couldn't see much, but they looked and felt like he'd been in a fight.
Oh yeah! He had been fighting. Boys were hurting girls, and he had to save them.
Had he saved them? He couldn't remember.
He scooted across the floor(?) until he hit a wall (?), then he scooted along the wall until there was a corner. He leaned back against the corner and hugged his legs and put his head down.
There wasn't anyone left to fight, and he was all alone.