Free The Runner by Cynthia Voigt Page B

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    He went on down the hall and up two flights of stairs to algebra. All around him, locker doors clanged shut. Bullet never took anything to class: they could make him show up; they could make him sit there; but they couldn’t make him carry things around with him. If he needed paper or pencil, the teachercould supply it. If he needed a book, he’d look over someone’s shoulder—or do without. He didn’t care. The teachers pretty much ignored him once they figured it out. He passed the courses and that was all that mattered to them, getting the kids through the courses and out.
    As that week went on, Bullet became aware of some mounting tension, in the halls, in the lunchroom, even in classes. It was like the tension in a bus going to a meet where you didn’t know how you’d do, some team you’d never run against before. Muttered remarks, too low for a teacher to pin down, got made across a classroom. Everybody was touchy, or too quiet. Everybody looked around a lot, watching everybody else. “A little experiment in escalation,” Jackson called it, over lunch on Wednesday, his eyes glittering, looking nervy, looking pleased with himself.
    â€œBullet’s not interested,” Cheryl said, warning Jackson to keep his mouth closed.
    â€œI think you underestimate Bullet,” Jackson said. “He’s smart enough, and he can’t be as hard-hearted as he acts. Nobody could be. Is that right, Bullet?”
    â€œYou tell me,” Bullet answered.
    â€œOkay, I will. We’ve agreed, at last, that maybe the Civil War is over, and maybe the South will not rise again. Now it’s time to bring this place into the twentieth century. So we’ve been doing a little talking, making an encouraging remark here and there, a discouraging remark there and here.”
    Bullet asked, “Why?”
    â€œDidn’t I tell you?” Cheryl asked.
    Jackson groaned. “Because you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,” he told Bullet, angry now.
    â€œIt’s not an omelette you’re making,” Bullet pointed out.
    â€œSounds like you’re afraid to rock the boat,” Cheryl challenged him.
    Bullet didn’t bother answering.
    â€œC’mon, Bullet, you know that sometimes things have to blow up before any kind of progress can be made,” Tommy said.
    Bullet looked around at them. They were too smart to let themselves act like such jerks, but they still did. They thought that just because they were smashing eggs they must be making an omelette. He shrugged: too bad.
    â€œI’d like you on our side,” Tommy said to him.
    Cheryl saved him the trouble of answering: “He’s not on anybody’s side, except his own.”
    Bullet looked up out the high windows, where rain sluiced down, then back at his plate. He was eating a cafeteria lunch. They’d finally run out of everything at home, and he wasn’t about to eat plain slices of bread for lunch.
    Later, practice was called because of the rain, but Bullet ran the course anyway. There was no law guaranteeing that it wouldn’t rain during a meet, and maybe even rain just like this, hard and cold, an autumnal rain, pelting down where the wind blew it. He took a long hot shower in the gym before he went into town.
    At Tydings’ Grocery, he asked Millie to cut him three steaks. He always fed himself steak for the three nights before a meet. “About ten dollars worth,” he told her. At the front of the store, he picked up a jar of peanut butter and a dozen eggs, plus a gallon of milk. These he placed on the counter where Herb Tydings sat looking out at the pouring rain. Herb ran the store. His wife, Millie, was the butcher. Herb had pale soft skin that always looked freshly shaved, and round, rimless glasses. “Looks like the weather’s finally going to turn,” he remarked. “So I guess it’s about winter, wouldn’t you