AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Before I could plan my next move, I received a text from my grandfather, Seamus. One of the kids had told him texting was cooler than calling. Now he was a texting maniac.
All it said wasCan you swing by my office or call me?
My grandfather appreciated people’s time and effort. He hated to disrupt their normal day if they were working. So a casual message like this meant something different coming from him. It was the equivalent of someone else shouting,Come here right now!
I texted him,On my way.
Even I was surprised how quickly I got uptown. When I stepped into his office in the administrative building next to the church and school, I immediately knew what the problem was. Trent, Eddie, and Ricky were all sitting around a small table in the corner of Seamus’s office doing their homework.
My grandfather didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to embarrass the boys.
The first thing I asked was “Is everyone okay?”
My sons all nodded at the same time.
Seamus said, “The boys had a run-in with the bullies again.”
I turned toward the boys. “I thought we agreed you’d stay away from those courts until we worked this out.”
My grandfather interceded before the boys could speak. “It didn’t happen down the street. The boys were right in front of the church.”
Trent blurted, “We were just across the street. Tommy Sosa said we were too chicken to leave the grounds and started running around with his hands under his arms, flapping his elbows and clucking like a chicken. What were we supposed to do?”
I glanced over at my grandfather. Clearly, he was concerned about the situation, but Trent’s colorful explanation made him want to laugh. He was holding it in. And not doing a particularly good job of it. Even I’ll admit I can remember being goaded into doing stupid things when I was a kid. I think boys are especially susceptible to taunting. Tommy Sosa had known exactly what buttons to push.
I looked back at Trent. “It’s okay. You’re not in trouble. Just tell me what happened.”
There were a lot of starts and stops from all three boys. Basically, the same bullies who’d bothered them at the basketball courts had been walking down the street and saw them. The oldest boy shoved Trent to the ground. Then the one who had shown them the gun in his waistband pointed his fingers at Eddie like they were a pistol, and mimed shooting.
This was troubling on a number of levels. The threat of gun violence was the most alarming. I waited for the end of the story. What happened then? Where did the bullies go? Did any adults see it?
Ricky shrugged his shoulders. “We ran back inside the fence around the school. We didn’t see where the other boys went. I don’t think anyone noticed us.”
Eddie appeared to be the most shell-shocked. He said, “Can I be homeschooled for a while? I’m tired of getting pushed around when I come to school.” His tone said he was trying to joke, but I could tell he’d be happy to stay at home for a while.
Ricky was much more brash. He said, “Don’t you think it’s time we stood up to them? I want to get my own gun.”
I held up my hands and said, “Don’t say stupid things like that, Ricky. This is a problem that we can solve. But the first thing you need to do is stay on school property, as discussed.”
Eddie said, “Is this why some people think the police don’t help much?”
“The police have to follow certain rules. Even when our own family is involved.” I looked at my grandfather and said, “Would we be able to get any footage from the security cameras at the front of the school?”
Seamus smiled. “I already have a video file saved for you. You can see all three bullies clearly. It’s a little harder to see what they were doing.”
“That’ll do for a start.”
I decided I needed to call it a day and drive the boys home in my city car.
Chapter58
ONCE I GOThome with the boys, I started getting texts from Walter Jackson. He’d found a few more possible addresses for Allie Pritz. Two of the addresses were in Midtown, one in the Bronx, one in Brooklyn. Plus, I had the addresses William Patel had given me. It looked like I had a long day of checking addresses tomorrow.
Just after dinner, I sat at the dining room table, helping Chrissy with her history homework. She was studying the Dark Ages. It was generally basic stuff, like how most of Europe was in chaos and diseases like the Black Plague added to the misery.
Chrissy looked at me with her big blue eyes and asked, “I don’t understand what caused the Dark Ages.”
I’d been looking through her textbook to see if it included any details, but there were no real explanations. I said, “One theory is that as Rome withdrew from its outlying provinces, including Europe, organization and infrastructure broke down. Some people say there were no decent roads built for more than five hundred years after the fall of Rome.”
