The Exeter Hospital stated that the two teenagers were treated for “surprisingly similar wrist injuries” and released into police custody. The police summarily released them—pending yet-to-be-filed charges by the mystery woman the boys had attacked. The fish deliveryman, who was also not named, was released by the hospital and questioned by the police. The two teenagers had soft-tissue injuries—“tears in both the anterior and posterior radioulnar ligaments” for the first attacker, and “a single tear in the palmar radioulnar ligament” for the second. Somehow, in the scuffle that didn’t sound like much of a scuffle, the fish deliveryman suffered “more extensive damage to the distal radioulnar joint”; in fact, he had “a distal radius fracture and more than one tear in the radioulnar ligament.” All three were looking at “likely surgeries.”

True to form, the “Police Report” did not speculate if this small, pretty woman was the same small, pretty woman who’d done different damage to the shipyard worker in the parking lot at Roland’s. “We’d appreciate it if the woman or women attacked would contact us,” was all the police spokesperson had to say.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about this episode in the fish-market parking lot,” I said to the snowshoer, when we’d both had time to read about the feisty woman—a martial-arts marvel—in the most recent Town Crier.

“She can’t be from around here—it sounds like she knows some aikido-type techniques,” Mr. Barlow said.

“Aikido-type techniques,” I repeated. “What do you know about aikido?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” the little English teacher said, smiling.

I went once more to the man I knew would know. This time, I didn’t bother to bring a copy of the Town Crier with me. I already knew Coach Dearborn would have read the “Police Report.” This time, he didn’t ask me what was up. “Sit down, Adam,” the coach told me. I sat next to him on the long bench in the coaches’ locker room. Mr. Dearborn plunked his cigarette into the tennis-ball can, where it hissed. I was a little alarmed that he hadn’t lit a fresh cigarette—he hadn’t even taken a last drag—and he didn’t bother to swish the water around in the tennis-ball can, which he put down on the bench between us. “You’re right-handed, aren’t you?” the coach asked me. When I nodded, he said, “Give me your left hand.”