John McNab had never in his life met a kid he couldn't strike out. Until the runt. Now, as he thought about it, he came to two conclusions:
1. He couldn't stand having this blemish on his record.
2. If you beat a kid up, it's the same as striking him out.
So McNab and his pals went looking for the kid. They called themselves the Cobras. Nobody messed with them. At least, nobody in the West End.
The Cobras had heard that the kid hung around the park and the tracks, and that's where they spotted him one Saturday afternoon, on the tracks by the path that ran from the Oriole Street dead end to the park. He was down by Red Hill and heading away from them, book in hand, as usual. But the Cobras just stood there, stunned.
"I don't believe it," one Cobra said.
"Must be a trick," said another.
"I heard about it," said another, "but I didn't believe it."
It wasn't a trick. It was true. The kid was running on the rail. McNab scooped up a handful of track stones. He launched one. He snarled, "He's dead. Let's get 'im!"
By the time Maniac looked back, they were almost on him. He wobbled once, leaped from the rail to the ground, and took off. He was at the Oriole Street dead end, but his instincts said no, not the street, too much open space. He stuck with the tracks. Coming into view above him was the house on Rake Hill, where he had eaten spaghetti. He could go there, to the whistling mother, the other kids, be safe. They wouldn't follow him in there. Would they!
Stones clanked off the steel rails. He darted left, skirted the dump, wove through the miniature mountain range of stone piles and into the trees ... skiing on his heels down the steep bank and into the creek, frogs plopping, no time to look for stepping rocks... yells behind him now, war whoops, stones pelting the water, stinging his back... ah, the other side, through the trees
and picker bushes, past the armory jeeps and out to the park boulevard, past the Italian restaurant on the corner, the bakery, screeching tires, row houses, streets, alleys, cars, porches, windows, faces staring, faces, faces. ..the town whizzing past Maniac, a blur of faces, each face staring from its own window, each face in its own personal frame, its own house, its own address, someplace to be when there was no other place to be, how lucky to be a face staring out from a window .
And then could it be? — the voices behind him were growing faint. He slowed, turned, stopped. They were lined up at a street a block back. They were still yelling and shaking their fists, but they weren't moving off the curb. And now they were laughing. Why were they laughing!
The Cobras were standing at Hector Street. Hector Street was the boundary between the East and West Ends. Or, to put it another way, between the blacks and whites. Not that you never saw a white in the East End or a black in the West End.
People did cross the line now and then, especially if they were adults, and it was daylight.
But nighttime, forget it. And if you were a kid, day or night, forget it. Unless you had business on the other side, such as a sports team or school. But don't be lust strolling along, as if you belonged there, as if you weren't afraid, as if you didn't even notice you were a different color from everybody around you.
The Cobras were laughing because they figured the dumb, scraggly runt would get out of the East End in about as good shape as a bare big toe in a convention of snapping turtles.
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