Showdown at SunnyView Playground
by Michael Crane
Smashwords Edition
© Copyright 2010 by Michael Crane
Cover photo provided by istockphoto.com/klikk
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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This is a work of fiction. Names and places are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
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“There are three ways I can win this fight.”
“Yeah? How?”
Ralph was silent for a moment as he looked around to see if anybody was near us on the playground. “One; he has a heart-attack and croaks. Two; kick him right in the chin. That’s gotta put him down.”
I rolled my eyes. “Both of those ain’t gonna happen. What’s the third?”
He paused. “Uh... Um…” He went silent for a few seconds and then shrugged. “I forgot what the third one was.”
A fight was about to go down in a matter of minutes. Jimmy Winx, this vicious fourth grader known for dumping third graders’ heads into toilets and giving atomic wedgies, had Ralph in his crosshairs. Out of nowhere he walked up to him earlier that day and said, “You’re dead, Flannigan. Ya hear me? DEAD.” Ralph did nothing wrong to Jimmy, but then again Jimmy never had a good reason for beating up kids. He just did it for sport. For fun.
“I’m thinking we should run home,” I told him. “My brother can drive us out of the country, like to Mexico or something.”
Before he could reply, Jimmy walked up to us with a crooked smirk on his face. He pointed to Ralph with his yellow fingernail. “You.” He pointed to the corner of the school wall. “There. Now.”
Ralph gulped and slowly walked to where Jimmy had pointed. Not knowing what else to do, I followed behind to see what was going to happen. Ralph kept looking at the ground as he walked. When his back was to the corner, Ralph closed his eyes and waited for his beating.
Jimmy raised his fist. “Rock, paper, scissors.”
Ralph opened one eye. “Huh?”
“One game. Rock, paper, scissors.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I even had to blink a few times. The two went through the motions and then each drew. Jimmy threw “rock” and Ralph threw “scissors.”
Jimmy smiled and said, “Too bad. You lose, but no biggie. Good game.” He patted Ralph on the shoulder and told him to follow him to the boy’s bathroom since he had to take a leak and didn’t like to go alone. Ralph went along, and that’s when I started feeling a bit uneasy, but the two went off happily and laughing like they had been old chums all of these years. They walked into the school and disappeared.
A few minutes went by and Jimmy walked out with that same crooked smirk from earlier. Then a second later, Ralph walked out with his head and the collar of his shirt soaking wet. He stood next to me without saying a single word. He didn’t have to say anything. I already knew what happened.
I sighed. “I told ya we should’ve gone to Mexico.”
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Michael Crane is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a BA in Fiction writing. He likes to write a lot of inane babble—sometimes that inane babble can end up as stories. He is the author of two short story collections, his most recent being In Decline (which is available on Amazon.com and Smashwords). He lives in Orland Park, IL.
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