Zero Period

I had gotten to school early and was sitting on bleachers on the south athletic field. There was a hole in the chain link fence that separated the school from the Beachwalk subdivision and I saw my friend David bend down, under the bar, step through the break in the fence, and walk towards me.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"About 7:50," I said.

"Okay." He sat next to me, putting his backpack next to mine. He kept his hand on it, looking out across the field.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"No, not really," he said. His eyes were scanning the field and across to the parking lot. "I got in a fight with some dude yesterday and he said he was gonna bring some friends here today to kick my ass."

"Oh," I said. "Who was it?"

"I don't know. Some guy."

"You think he's gonna do it?"

"No clue. But I'm ready if he does," David said. "Check this out." He unzipped his backpack, holding it open, pointing it towards me. I looked inside and saw a couple of books, a notepad, and a closed brown paper bag.

"You gonna hit him with a sandwich?" I asked.

"Look in the bag," David said.

I reached in and started pulling the bag out. It was heavy. "Don't take it out of the backpack!" he said. I unrolled the top and looked inside, and saw a black automatic handgun. The safety was off. I slid the safety on, then pressed a button to eject the magazine. David was staring across the field, scanning it. I tipped the magazine towards me, sliding a bullet out from the top. It was a real bullet, it curved up to a small reservoir at the top, and there were 4 indentations around the edge of the reservoir top that allowed the bullet to expand at impact. I slid the magazine back in, feeling a sharp click. I put the gun back in the bag and handed the backpack to David.

"I put the safety on," I said.

"Okay."

"Where'd you get that?" I asked.

"My dad. He gave it to me when he left Mom. He came in right before he left and handed it to me and said 'Don't tell mom I gave you this. But now that I'm leaving you're gonna be the man of the house. Don't use this unless you need to.'"

"Cool," I said. "So you actually gonna shoot this guy?"

"If it comes to that," David said.

"And you're gonna do that here? In the middle of school?"

"If it comes to that."

"Okay," I said. We both looked out at the field, at people walking across the grass towards the buildings. Cars were pulling into the parking lot, boys were talking to girls. The first bell rang. I needed to get to class but I wanted to stay and see how this turned out. David stared ahead, his hand inside the bag, watching.