Guardian Angel
8 Dogs
I SURVIVED SEVENTH GRADE. There had been a couple of times when a kid decided it was funny to pick on the runt, but it seemed like someone was always there to stop it. Rose or Brenda or Whitney—even Cassie once—would step between me and my heckler and start a conversation. Once when the sorry ass didn’t stop and reached out to push Samantha, Simon stepped in and I thought there was going to be blood on the walls. No one was going to grab his girlfriend. Even a high school freshman. I was glad he protected Samantha, but he had serious possession issues and practically dragged her away.
I was walking out toward the school bus on Friday late in May when I heard a commotion in a side hall. It was unusual for me to walk to the bus alone, but it seemed like everyone happened to have something else they needed to do. I wasn’t worried because everyone knew that if they messed with me there were a couple dozen commandos who would get to them. I guess I was a little cocky.
“No! Stop it!” Those words froze me in my tracks. Actually, it wasn’t the words, it was the voice. I turned and ran down the corridor just in time to see one of the Kowalskis with his arms around Jessica trying to kiss or bite her neck.
“Hey! She said stop, Kowalski. Back off!”
“Get lost, runt. She’s mine now. I bought first rights from her brother.”
“That asshole can’t sell you anything.”
“I’m warning you, runt. If you don’t beat it, I’ll kill you.” He grabbed hold of Jessica’s breast and she took a deep breath and screamed. That was all it took. I put my hand in my pocket and ran at whichever of the Kowalski brothers it was. He tried to stiff arm me but I got under it and jumped up on his back.
“Let go!” I demanded. He responded with an elbow in my ribs. It was always his favorite attack. I endured it, even though I was gasping for breath. His elbow came forward for another blow and I wrapped my right arm around him and sprayed his face—right in the eyes.
We’d been given an orientation before school and told that squirt guns were expressly forbidden on school premises. I was looking through my Edmunds catalog one day and saw plastic squirt bottles for storing and dispensing liquid chemicals. I’d bought two and carried one filled with ammonia with me all the time—in case a dog chased me.
Kowalski screamed and dropped Jessica. He swung at me but couldn’t see me so I dodged him. In answer to his scream, Kowalski two came barreling down the hall at me. I didn’t let him get close enough to hit me. I just squirted a healthy dose right at his eyes. He doubled over in pain. I saw Drew coming down the hall, but when he saw the two guys writhing he held up his hands and went back the way he’d come. Cowardly rat bastard.
“Are you okay?” I asked, turning to Jessica.
“Yes, thank you. Give me that.” I handed her the bottle. “What’s in it?”
“Ammonia.”
“Now just stand beside me.” There were rushing footsteps and the school principal with two teachers was bearing down on us.
“What happened here?” the principal demanded.
“Those two tried to rape me,” Jessica shouted before I could get a word out. “My friend Brian tried to pull them off me, but he’s so little he couldn’t really do anything. That one hit him and that left my hand free to get my squirt bottle.”
“And what’s in your squirt bottle that has them crying on the floor?” the principal asked. The two teachers were trying to pry the Kowalskis’ hands away from their faces.
“Just ammonia,” Jessica said.
“That would do.”
We were trundled off to the principal’s office and the school nurse started flushing the guys’ eyes with water. She and the two teachers dragged them to a bathroom where they filled the sink with water and kept dipping their heads in it yelling “blink!” I wish I’d seen that. Drown the bastards.
Police and parents were called.
As soon as they heard what had happened, my parents had a conference with Jessica’s parents. They came back with a united front. Jessica had complained of threats and they had little they could do to protect her so they equipped her with a bottle of ammonia. It wasn’t on the school’s list of banned substances like mace was. That ended right there. An amendment to banned substances appeared in Monday’s school bulletin.
The police agreed, though, that the act was self-defense. They commended me on being brave enough to attack the attackers, though they thought at my size it was foolish. They reprimanded Jessica and her parents for carrying such a potent substance but agreed that her response was appropriate and saved her from being raped. Jessica was taken to the hospital and pictures were taken of her bruised breasts. The Kowalskis were expelled and then jailed in the hospital for juvenile offenders. They were only fifteen, after all.
Drew suddenly disappeared.
I had a long talk with Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, Jessica, and my parents Friday night. Betts was out and I discovered that Mom and Dad had agreed to let her officially date. It sounds weird that they were so protective when I knew that all the parties Betts had gone to this year were boy-girl parties. Doug had told some stories his sister told him. His sister is cool and her best friend, my sister, is a bitch. What’s fair?
No one was mad at either Jessica or me, which was good. In fact, once they heard the real story—I let Jessica tell it—they said they really appreciated me coming to her rescue. They felt they’d lost control of Drew and the idea that he would sell his sister to his friends was the last straw. He’d been sent to some relatives out in Iowa. They lived on a working farm and had no children, so Drew was promised that he would be worked hard and would be too tired to get into trouble. There was no mention of when he would return.
“I have to know, Brian, how you just happened to have a bottle of ammonia in your pocket,” Mr. Barnes said. I looked at my parents and they nodded.
“I… um… had some trouble with… uh… dogs on my paper route last year.”
“Brian,” my mom interrupted, “this is the time to be truthful. Everyone here has a right to know and you have a right to own the real story.” Wow. I wasn’t so sure about that. I’d figured out that my parents knew what happened, though not everything. I took a deep breath and started in again.
“Last May, I’d just finished my collections on Saturday morning and was riding my bike home. Drew and the Kowalskis came blasting out of their drive on bikes and shoved me off mine and into the ditch. The change in my pouch scattered all over the road and they grabbed up as much as possible and ran off. My bike was bent and I had a scrape. I was short a bunch of money and my receipt book was all wet. Mom and Dad…”
“I’ll tell this part,” Dad said. “Brian got home and told his Mom that a dog had chased him and knocked him off his bike and that he lost his money in the ditch. I’m telling you this because he never made an accusation against any of the boys. He just took it. You might have noticed that Brian is a little… small for his age. While I don’t advocate violence, he’s too easy a target for bullies and needed some protection. We gave him a squirt gun filled with ammonia to protect himself on his paper route. You’ve never used it before, have you, Brian?”
“No sir.”
“But this wasn’t a squirt gun,” Mrs. Barnes said.
“No ma’am. It’s against school policy to carry a squirt gun to school. Even though it’s just a toy, it falls under the ‘no weapons’ clause of banned items. Last fall I ordered the squirt bottle from Edmunds Scientific and carried it all year. I wasn’t looking for an opportunity to use it, but I always made sure I had it with me. It seems like all year I had some good—and big—friends around me all the time. It was a whole year with nobody shoving me around.”
“Yet as little as you are, you heard me scream and came to help me,” Jessica said. “I think you’re my best friend, Brian. And my hero.” My chest swelled up and I sat up straight in my chair. If she hadn’t been sitting across the table from me, I’d have hugged Jessica. I think she knew it.
The end of school-year party at Brenda’s on Saturday was different. All the same things happened, pretty much, but the group of kids was different. There were still about twenty of us, but we didn’t have a class that was together all day long. Brenda no longer felt she had to invite her whole homeroom. We had real friends that had forged a link at lunch this year. I think Brenda’s parents were a little surprised that seven of the kids at the party were black. Still, aside from being surprised, they seemed to be fine with it and welcomed everyone the same as always.
It also was apparent that there were more couples at the party. Not everybody, but Lionel and Sugar had a thing going. Samantha and Simon were still together but seemed to be mad at each other. Liz broke up with her boyfriend sometime after Valentine’s Day. I was surprised to see Carl and Brenda cozying up to each other again. Rhiannon and Doug didn’t make a big deal about whether or not they were together, but they always teamed up for chicken fights in the pool. I thought Rose was seeing Derek, one of the guys in Lionel’s group, but they didn’t seem to have anything more than a casual friendship at the pool. In fact, Rose grabbed me for chicken fights after Whitney fell off. With Rose almost as short as me, we were a little more stable in the water and lasted a little longer. And I kind of liked holding Rose’s legs. Whitney joked that next time she was carrying me. That could be embarrassing.
After we got out of the pool and changed clothes, we headed for the backyard and burgers. Rose sidled up to me as I was chowing down on a big juicy one with everything on it. It’s funny, though, that there were no onions on the table. Dang it.
“I hear you’re a good kisser,” Rose said softly. I choked on my burger. I kept coughing and she hit me on the back a few times. I looked at her and realized there were some tears in my eyes from the sudden choking and back slapping. “Sorry. I didn’t expect that reaction. You okay?”
“Yeah,” I croaked. “You surprised me.”
“So are you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have anything to compare to.”
“I do. You should let me test you and I’ll tell you how you stack up.” I looked at Rose. Talk about stacked. She was probably about the same size around her chest that Brenda was but Brenda was a good three or four inches taller. I’d grown another inch during the year, but it was all before Christmas and there hadn’t been any movement from my 4'8" since. Rose had also packed her boobs into a halter top that was apparently supposed to be a bra and top all in one, but I could clearly see that her nipples had popped out.
“Um…” I realized I was staring and looked up. Rose leaned back a little and pushed her boobs out a little more. “Who said I was a good kisser, anyway?” My eyes drifted back down and I forced them up again.
“Cassie.”
“I didn’t know you were friends.”
“Well, we girls all had a slumber party at Liz’s house. She’s still real good friends with Cassie, though I guess Brenda and Whitney don’t like her much. Anyway, the conversation about one in the morning came around to boys and Brenda zeroed in on Cassie like you wouldn’t believe. I thought she was going to chew her up. She wanted to know why Cassie dumped you. She’s a real friend to you, Brian. She was ready to shred Cassie for hurting you. Cassie was almost in tears. She said she really, really liked you, but that you’d kissed her so good last summer that she knew if she kept seeing you she wouldn’t be a virgin by the time she got to high school. For some reason, that’s really important to her. Then with a little prodding, she went into great detail about how you’d been meeting in the woods all summer to play and then that you kissed her with your tongue and she got scared.”
“You actually talk about that stuff?” I said. I was horrified. “Cassie said all that?”
“It took a little encouragement and Brenda was actually comforting her by the time she was done telling us. We’re girls. We talk about all kinds of stuff. But don’t get your hopes up. Cassie made it very clear that she wasn’t going back to you because you are too dangerous.” Rose had moved close enough to me so we could talk without being overheard and her left boob was pressed right into my right arm and I could feel her little point like it was red hot. “Are you really that dangerous, Brian?” she said. Oh man. I sat down so my stiffie wasn’t as obvious.
Of course, after dinner we all went to the basement rec room and played games. It wasn’t long before Brenda announced that it was time to introduce our new friends to a favorite game. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about until she pointed at me and said, “Brian is experienced, so he’ll go first. And… eenie meenie minie moe,” she made a show of closing her eyes, but she came to rest on Rose and I suddenly realized what she was doing. “Rose! Seven minutes in heaven!” The two of us were shoved in the closet and the door closed.
“Um… sorry, Rose,” I said as I realized I was shoved right up against her.
“Ooh. I get it. Now you can demonstrate without anybody seeing.”
“What?”
“Kiss me like you kissed Cassie and let me decide if you are really a good kisser.”
“Really?”
“Just as friends. We’re not going to be boyfriend and girlfriend,” she clarified. “Otherwise, lay it on me.”
Crap! Did I need a written invitation? I wrapped my arms around her and felt her breasts against my chest and then I searched for her lips with mine. When I found them, her mouth was open and her tongue was right there waiting. I jerked back.
“What’s wrong?”
“You surprised me again. Can we start a little slower?” I moved against her lips again and she wasn’t as aggressive. Her mouth wasn’t open quite as wide and I spent a minute just kissing her lips before I touched them with my tongue. I don’t know why, but I really wanted her to think I was a good kisser, so I just focused on the point of contact between our mouths and held her. When I pushed my tongue past her lips a little, she got the hint and brought her tongue back into play. Whenever she’d start to open her mouth real wide, I’d back off a little until she settled down. She pushed her hips against me while I held her and I knew she could feel my erection, but I didn’t care. I backed up a little so we could catch our breath.
“One more, please?” she whispered. Okay. This time, Rose pulled my left hand away from her back and moved it up to hold her right tit. I was afraid I was going to spurt as I softly kneaded her glorious mound. The door opened and we jumped apart. I didn’t think anyone had seen anything, but we were both kind of panting. She took my hand and I followed her out of the closet to hoots and howls from everyone in the room. I know I must have looked a little glassy-eyed and was thankful I was behind Rose so my erection wasn’t quite as obvious.
“Rose, you didn’t break our pet, did you?” Brenda asked.
“Wow!” That was all she said. Some of the kids remembered what Cassie did last year and just assumed Rose was playing, too, but she didn’t let go of my hand when we sat down and waited for Lionel and Sugar to come out after seven minutes. Lionel looked in worse shape than I’d been.
“Um… Brian,” Rose whispered in my ear as people were distracted. “I know I must seem like a slut, but really, I’ve never let a boy touch me like that before. I couldn’t help it. I guess I understand what Cassie meant a little now. You are dangerous.”
“I’m really honored, Rose. You know I like you a lot and I never thought of you as a slut.”
“That’s because you are such a gentleman. I told you I didn’t want a boyfriend, but if you want to get together sometime this summer, maybe go skating or something, I’d like it. I mean if you wanted to.”
Want to? Seven minutes in heaven with Rose left me ‘wanting to’ a lot.
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