Their school is small. People don’t fight. Sure, there are arguments in the hallways, and sometimes a few angry shoves. But Lance has never seen anyone get punched except on his father’s westerns. It’s so alien that it takes him another long moment to realize there’s another boy sprawled under Johnny, a boy Johnny is hitting.

Before Lance can unfreeze his mind, much less his feet, Danny lets out a howl and breaks into a sprint, down the steps and toward the scene unfolding a few dozens yards away.

Danny isn’t bothering with words—just high-pitched howls, like a mad cat. But Lance understands that all he’s trying to do is to distract and startle, like when they’ve chased birds out of the vegetable garden at the ranch.

Lance scoops up the backpack that Danny just dropped and follows as fast as he can without tripping. As soon as he’s at the bottom of the stairs, he can’t see the fight for the crowd, but some of the kids have been so startled by Danny’s ongoing wails that they’ve turned away from the fight and toward him. That makes it easier for Danny to elbow his way through, Lance a few steps behind.

When Lance makes it past the other kids, he finds Danny frozen on the inside of their periphery, staring. Lance stares too. On TV, punches sound like gunshots—loud, dry pops. But Johnny’s punches sound heavy and wet, like slaps. The kid on the ground is Cade—one of Johnny’s classmates, another popular boy who plays football with Johnny. Lance sees two more boys on the football team that he thinks of as Cade’s friends, and they’re muttering and shoving each other, like they can’t decide whether or not to join the fight.

Maybe they don’t know whose side they should take.

Then the interlocked bodies lurch and topple sideways, and it’s Johnny on his back, and Cade is straddling him. He grabs the collar of Johnny’s shirt, snarling as blood runs down his face.

“Fuck you, you pervy fucking pretty boy, I’ll—”

“No!” Danny howls, darting forward from Lance’s side and pushing Cade’s shoulder with both hands. He’s about half Cade’s size but still manages to shove him with enough force that he’s off-balance and startled. He lets go of Johnny’s shirt, rolling over his left knee and landing on his butt on the asphalt. Johnny pushes himself to his feet and scowls at his brother.

“Get out of here, Danny!”

It’s only at that moment that Lance sees the Chevy, about two parking spaces away from where Johnny and Cade were fighting. Someone painted the word “FAGGOT” in bold red spray paint across the tailgate.

Whatever fervor possessed the two older boys seems to have passed. They’re glaring daggers at each other and breathing hard. Maybe after another second or two of that, they might have gone at it again, but just then a teacher shouts, “HEY!” from the top of the stairs, where Lance was standing with Danny only a minute ago.