Grant turned away. “I have to go,” he said. When Paul dared to step in his way, Grant was pushed to his breaking point. Without a second thought, he buried a right hook in Paul’s jaw. Instantly, the two began to throw punch after punch, slamming each other into lockers as they went back and forth across the hall.
“Fight!” an excited freshman announced. “Fight!”
From the onset, it was obvious this wasn’t going to be a little tussle that occasionally breaks out in school hallways; instead, it was a screaming, cursing, blood- flying, knock-down-drag-out. A crowd of onlookers gathered, and Hailey and Misty clinched hands, forgetting that they were mad at each other.
Paul slung Grant into a row of metal lockers, his back slamming against them so violently that the sheer momentum threw him back toward Paul. Hailey screamed, but Grant retaliated with the quickness that made him one of the top high school point guards in the country. He tackled Paul to the ground, and his punches came one after the other without restraint. As Grant took control of the fight, Paul’s friends, who previously felt content to stand by and watch, came to his rescue, and, what had been an intense one-on-one fist fight, quickly escaladed into a terrifying five-on-one brawl.
Hailey watched as two boys pulled Grant off of Paul. Thinking that they had stepped in to break up the fight, she breathed a sigh of relief. As she realized that they, nor the two who were helping Paul to his feet, had no intentions of stopping the fight, her heart jumped. Grant jerked away from the two teammates holding his arms; his eyes moved back and forth quickly as he stood in the middle of the circle that Paul and the others had formed around him.
“Y’all, stop it!” Hailey screamed. “Stop right now!”
“Help!” Mrs. Simmons called as she hurried down the hall from her classroom. “Principal Jordan! Coach Nelson! There’s a fight! Kids, go on now…the rest of you get on to your classes!”
No one budged.
Hailey turned to Misty. “Misty, I’m scared,” she gulped, and she could tell by the look on Misty’s face that she was scared too. She glanced behind her at Jessica and Emily, who stood frozen by fear of what would happen next.
Hailey had seen enough. She charged toward the circle, but, before she could sling herself in front of Grant and dare her friends to move, Joe John grabbed Grant from behind. “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us,” he said as Paul buried his fist in Grant’s stomach. Two more hard punches followed, and Grant sank to the ground, the other boys converging on top of him, each taking their shots at him as he did all he could to fight back.
“Get off of him!” Hailey cried as she began tugging at the top of the pile. “Stop it! Are y’all crazy? Get off him!” As she tried desperately to clear the pile, she was inadvertently hit with a sharp elbow and landed hard on her backside in the middle of the hallway floor just about the time Coach Nelson and Principal Jordan heard the ruckus and arrived to break up the fight.
Misty and Jessica moved to help Hailey to her feet. “Are you okay?” they sighed.
Hailey didn’t reply. She jumped to her feet and rushed to Grant’s side, eager to know that he wasn’t seriously hurt. He was bleeding, gasping and coughing as she threw her arms around him and looked around at her teammates feeling lonely, furious and betrayed.
“Okay, show’s over! Get to class!” Jack yelled forcefully as he shuffled the onlookers away. “Who started this?” he demanded, and a piercing mixture of anger and disappointment shot from his eyes.
“He did! Grant started it,” Paul pointed, his nose gushing blood onto his shirt and the floor.
Grant didn’t say anything; he just began to stand slowly, eyeing Paul as though he was somehow eager to begin round two.
“Hold up…” Jack said as he threw his arm in front of Grant.
“You aren’t nothin’ but trouble are you, boy?” Principal Jordan laughed as he moved toward Grant.
“Oh, come-on, John,” Jack barked. “You haven’t even heard his side of the story.”
“Joe John, tell me what happened here,” Principal Jordan demanded of his son.
“Paul didn’t start the fight,” Joe John shook his head as he faithfully placed his hands on Paul’s shoulders.
“Why don’t you tell your daddy how you jumped in and held Grant back while Paul took free shots at him?” Hailey yelled. “I thought you were raised better than that Joe John; I really did.”
“What was I supposed to do, stand there and let my best friend get his butt kicked instead?” Joe John argued. “Unlike you, I’m not interested in turning my back on my friends. I don’t know if you’ve got a crush on lover boy or what, but you’ve changed, Hails. We used to be a team…now look at us.”
“I did look, and do you know what I saw?” Hailey exclaimed. “I saw Paul getting pulverized, and rightfully so, before you and the rest of you numbskulls loyally rushed in and turned a fight into a dangerous game of payback.”
“Hailey, calm down, Darlin’, so we can get to the bottom of this,” Principal Jordan shook his head.
“Grant didn’t do anything, Daddy!” Hailey insisted. She walked toward Paul and poked him hard in the chest. “Paul went snooping in Grant’s disciplinary file,” she announced. “That’s how this whole thing got started. It’s Paul’s fault.” Then she reared back and kicked him in the shin.
“Coach!” Paul squealed as he grabbed his leg.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Come here, Fireball,” he groaned as he grabbed his daughter’s arm.
“Who threw the first punch?” Principal Jordan asked, and he looked at Grant for the answer.
“Not me,” Paul shook his head with a grin.
“Oh, you’re asking for it,” Hailey declared as she hauled off and kicked Paul again.
“Coach, do something with her!” Paul yelped, almost in tears as he rubbed his shin.
Hailey dodged her father’s grasp just long enough to deliver a repeat performance of the most trouble she had ever been in! Paul let out a cry as he fell to the floor that made every other man in the hallway wince.
Though Grant would have previously stated unequivocally that he wouldn’t wish such a fate on his worst enemy, in typical politician fashion, he flip-flopped on the issue. Then he quickly reminded himself that it was in his best interest never to have any reason to be on the receiving end of Hailey’s wrath.
“Would you get ahold of yourself, please, young lady?” Jack scolded, pulling Hailey back toward him. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Grant’s gotta have a little girl fightin’ his battles,” Billy Wayne mocked.
Hailey faked a lunge at Billy Wayne that made him flinch. “You want a piece of me, Big Boy?”
“If you have her under control, I would like to move on,” Principal Jordan gulped, and Jack nodded. “Who threw the first punch?” the principal asked again, and he continued to stare at Grant.
“I guess that was me,” Grant sighed.
“Figures,” Principal Jordan nodded. “I intend to punish you all. Grant, you can come to my office, and we’ll talk expulsion.” He turned away, muttering under his breath, “I had always heard that all you military brats are just alike.”
