Echo by Kate Morgenroth

Author:Kate Morgenroth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2009-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

21

Justin was sitting alone at a table in the cafeteria, hunched over his tray, chewing methodically without really tasting the food. He glanced around the cafeteria, to see if Tim was coming, and spotted Daniel, also eating alone at a table across the room. Somehow, seeing that made him feel a little less alone.

When he turned back to his food, though, he gave a start. While he was looking the other way, Tim had somehow managed to slide into the seat on the other side of him without Justin noticing. But to his surprise Justin found that this time he wasn’t scared of Tim. “Did you come to steal my lunch money?” he said.

“Gimme a break, Justin.” It almost sounded as if Tim were the one who was nervous this time. “Billy wants to meet.”

Justin nodded, as if he had been expecting it, which of course he had. “Where is he?”

Of course, he didn’t really need to ask. Justin knew exactly where Billy was—or rather where he was about to be; he was going to be coming through the doors of the cafeteria any minute now.

“No. See, Billy wants to talk to you later,” Tim explained. “The back stairwell, near the gym during last period. Like three thirty.”

At that moment, right on cue, Billy passed the table, and he was roughly dragging another boy along by the shirt.

“Why wait?” Justin said. “We might as well get this over with.”

He got up and started after Billy.

“Justin—,” Tim called out.

Justin stopped and turned around. But when he turned, Tim suddenly shrank back. It almost looked like Tim was…afraid.

“What’s wrong with you?” Justin demanded.

Tim stood up so abruptly that he knocked his chair over. “I was just passing along a message, okay?” he said.

“Okay. Whatever,” Justin replied. He turned back to Billy, who at that moment had gotten the younger boy in a headlock. He was at it again, Justin said to himself. He wasn’t going to let Billy pick on every kid who was weaker than him.

Justin strode purposefully over to Billy. “Hey,” he called out.

Both Billy and the kid looked up, and Justin suddenly saw that both were laughing. And then, with a lurch of his stomach, Justin realized that the kid that Billy had in a headlock was Billy’s younger brother, Zack.

“You didn’t say before that it was Billy’s brother,” the voice commented.

I didn’t? Justin replied in his head. He was confused. He thought back. How could he not have known it was Billy’s brother last time?

“So you just now realized that it was his brother?” the voice asked.

Yeah, of course I just realized it, Justin said. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have had any reason to go over to get him to stop.

But now that he’d started it, he couldn’t exactly say, “Sorry. I made a mistake.”

So instead he said, “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah, later,” Billy replied.

“If you have something to say to me, you can say it now.” Justin thought he was speaking quietly, but when

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