| Scooter Savinkoff picked at a Band-Aid covering the back of his hand. Tiny drops of water, more falling dew than rain, peppered his grunge-ladden Seattle Seahawks jacket, dampened his jeans and matted his unkempt red hair to his slightly oversized head. "Can I see it again?" Scooter Savinkoff asked. "No," Danny Jerrigan answered. "Recess is half over. He might come at any second and I don't want him seeing it and running away. We'll only get one chance at this, Scooter." "I can't believe you're going to use it," Scooter said sullenly. "Do you want him to keep doing it?" Danny asked. Scooter said nothing, merely looked at the ground. Danny was taller than Scooter, who was diminutive even by third-grade standards. The precipitation seemed to bounce off Danny's stylish haircut, which remained in place no matter what level of little-kid intensity he achieved during play. He picked his nose deeply, scraped about with his fingernail, and came out with a sizable, crusted greeny. "That's a good 'un," Scooter observed. "Best one of the year, I bet." Danny wiped the booger on his pants. He wished he was home, so he could wipe it on the bottom of his nightstand. He had three years worth of dried boogers wiped under there, a big collection started during a fit of third-grade inspiration. He pulled his bent glasses from his face and tried to wipe the beaded rain from the lenses. He only managed to spread the water around; drizzle covered his hands, his clothes, his face. Covered everything. Usually did in northwest Washington, where it seemingly rained eight days a week. He put the glasses back on, but they hung askew from his nose, bent so many times that they could never again hold their original shape. The boys were unusually quiet. Scooter broke the uneasy silence. "I can't believe you stole it out of your Dad's closet," Scooter said. "He tells my mom it's for our protection," Danny said. "She says she doesn't want it in the house but he ignores her. He doesn't think I know about it." "Stealin's bad," Scooter said quietly. "I know," Danny said without emotion. "Lotsa stuff in that closet, though. Dad keeps his Playboys in there too." "Wow," Scooter said. "Can I look at them next time I come over?" "Sure," Danny said. "Next time my parents leave us home I'll show ya. You should see Miss October -- she's got huge hoo-hoos." The lack of giggly, pre-adolescent laughter that usually accompanied any mention of women's body parts epitomized they boys' mood: sullen, fearful, trepidatious. They sat on the edge of a soggy merry-go-round, galoshes-covered feet resting inches from a chocolate-brown mud puddle the size of a small car. The merry-go-round's water-logged wood held only a few tenacious flakes of its original thick green paint. The bars, once painted a bright, cheerful yellow, now held only the color of lumpy rust. The wet wood, the flecks of green and the muted rust seemed to bend into the hazy gray that dominated the afternoon, gray that hung thick as mustard gas filling the trenches of World War II. Scooter picked up a pebble and tossed it in the puddle. It slashed into the water, sending out tiny ringlets to coast lazily towards the puddle's edge. "Knock it off," Danny said. "I just like to watch the rings is all," Scooter protested. His own glasses, the dirt-cheap black plastic frames some men used for safety glasses, were also drizzle-streaked. It made him look like a bug with multi-faceted eyes. Most kids made fun of his frames, but his family couldn't afford anything better. A wad of grungy, once-white athletic tape held the right temple onto the frames. The right temple was a slightly lighter black, a replacement cobbled together by an optometrist who'd run out of replacement arms for Scooter's cheap and oft-broken glasses. "Knock it off," Danny repeated. "You might screw it up." "How could I screw it up?" Scooter whined. "Beats me," Danny said. "But you might." Scooter said nothing for awhile. His heels drew deep gouges in the muddy dirt and gravel surrounding the merry-go-round. Water filled the gouges, as if they were oozing sores on the skin of some huge golem. Scooter's nervousness grew by the second, as did Danny's. The sounds of children playing kick-ball filtered through the air, joining the drizzle's endless dull patter. Both boys wished they were in the game. But it was too late to back away from the plan, and they both knew it. The merry-go-round was an oddity in the Dell Grade School playground. Most of the playground equipment sat close to the school; the jungle gym, the slide, the teeter-totters, everything. The merry-go-round, however was on the Nature Trail, a concept pioneered by Principal Williams some ten years ago, far beyond the memory of any student currently attending Dell. The nature trail ran through the woods behind the school. It was beautiful, walled in by towering, arrow-straight lodge pole pines and covered with fragrant bark laid fresh each spring. Principal Williams intended the trail as a educational resource for science-minded students. There was only one problem -- none of the students used it. In fact, the only time anyone utilized the nature trail was during science class "field trips." Few kids ventured that far from school, even during recess, and on a rainy day no one came near the trail. It was deserted and far from the other kids. Exactly what Danny wanted -- far enough away to hide loud noises. Screams, for example. "Maybe he won't come at all," Scooter said with a combination of disappointment and hope. "He'll come," Danny said. "Look at it out here. Everything is soaking wet. Just the way he likes it. He'll come. How's your nose?" Scooter unconsciously touched his still-swollen nose. "OK I guess," he said. Earlier that morning a well-aimed mathbook-turned-missle smashed Scooter's nose, drawing drops of blood and more than a few tears of familiar, frustrated rage. "How's your hand?" Scooter asked. "Still broken," Danny said, rubbing at the cast. "It throbs when it rains. Don't know why." "That why you finally decided to stand up to him?" Scooter asked. Danny thought for a moment. Was the broken hand the final straw? They'd both suffered so much humiliation since Dustin Meyers moved in halfway through the fifth-grade year. It was difficult to say which incident pushed Danny's decision to get even. "Don't know," Danny said. "I've just had enough, that's all. He's evil, Scooter. And he gets bigger every day. I think if we don't do something soon, he might hurt us real bad pretty soon." Scooter's head hung low, his shame for his tiny, frail body clinging to him like syrup to a pancake. Even if he wanted to fight back, it wouldn't make any difference. Scooter knew that -- and so did Dustin. "Yeah," Scooter said. "I guess we gotta do something." They sat and waited. Scooter checked his Power Rangers watch (the White Ranger, his favorite) -- 12:49 p.m. Only 11 minutes left in recess. He started to tell Danny time was running out, but stopped short when he saw Dustin Meyers lumbering up the Nature Trail, feet kicking up loose bark, moving towards the merry-go-round. "You ready for this?" Danny asked. Scooter didn't like the tone in his best friend's voice, but he nodded anyway, and said nothing. Dustin "The Splasher" Meyers, the worst bully ever to sally forth from the Pine View Trailer Park, the biggest kid in the sixth grade (everyone knew he should have actually been an eighth grader, but was held back twice), sauntered up with a smile on his lips and eyes glittering with little-boy malice. He stared at Danny. "I got your note, jack-ass," Dustin hissed. He had a cold voice, a deep voice, manly when compared to the other boys at Dell Elementary. "I'm surprised you'd call me those names when you know I'm going to beat the shit out of you." "And I'm surprised you can read at all, you trailer-park loser," Danny said, his expression never changing. Who-do-you-think-you-are anger flared in Dustin's face. Scooter flinched involuntarily, his eyes wide behind his battered, water-beaded glasses. He felt petrified, plan or no plan. He suddenly knew it wasn't going to work, Danny's little head-game would fail, and Dustin would either plant both feet in the puddle and soak him with a splash (if he were lucky), or punch him in the nose and drag him through the puddle proper (which was far more familiar and far more likely). "You're just a couple of fags out here on the little-kid toys," Dustin sneered. "You two touching each other's monkeys?" "Yeah, we learned by watching you and your Dad," Danny said. Scooter gasped. Dustin's face scrunched into a ball of hate. "How do you want it this time, Jerrigan? You want me to kick you in the balls again, or do you want me to break your nose like I did to your little butt-buddy there? I think I'll drag you in front of the other kids first, so they can see what pussies you are?" Dustin's tightly-balled fists hung at his sides like loaded cannons. His shoulders hunched forward in a predatorial stance. Danny said nothing. Instead, he stood up and slid his foot across the ground, scraping the puddle's edge and kicking a thin sheet of water at Dustin. Dustin brought up his arm and turned his head, but the muddy water still splashed across his face and chest. He turned to face Danny, water dripping from his nose and murder roiling in his sixth-grade eyes. Scooter simply gasped, mouth hanging so far open raindrops splashed on his tongue. Danny had just splashed Dustin. In the limited world of Dustin Meyer's mind, there was no greater insult. Splashing was the trademark of Dustin's artful bullying. In the fifth-grade, Dustin became famous for jumping feet-first into a puddle, sending a well-targeted wave of water towards unsuspecting victims. It was one thing to be punched or pushed or threatened by a bully -- it was quite another to sit through the rest of class soaking wet with soggy, cold underwear riding up your butt. Dustin knew this. He wasn't a standard bully, simply out to establish power. He wanted to humiliate people. He wanted fear. He needed it like a drug. Then, of course, his now-legendary growth-spurt hit during the summer following the fifth grade. Dustin, already bigger than any other kid, put on four inches and gained 40 pounds. He could do anything he wanted to anyone he wanted with no fear of retaliation. No one dared to tattle on him for the endless playground tortures, less he catch the fink away from school and apply a truly horrible punishment, like breaking a finger or -- worst of all -- using that old switchblade he carried when not at Dell. With the growth spurt, his bullying took on new levels, including beatings that grew more and more severe. No matter what physical punishment he handed out, however, Dustin always finished off with a good-old-fashioned dirty puddle drenching, leaving his crying, bleeding, humiliated victim with a cold, wet reminder for the rest of the day. Splashing was Dustin's calling card, his signature. For Danny to splash him was the ultimate affront to Dustin's royal standing as the Cruel King of Dell Elementary. "You're dead, Jerrigan," Dustin said, water dripping from his face and cold violence dripping from his voice. "I'm gonna break that other hand for you. But first, you're gonna pay for getting me wet. You won't have a dry piece of clothing on you when you go back to class." Dustin took two fast steps forward and launched himself into the air with the patented form that had soaked Dell schoolchildren a hundred times over. He was simply the master of the splash, an aquatic artisté who could direct a sheet of water over ten feet towards an unwittingly dry victim. Danny stood at the puddle's edge -- with one double-foot splash, Dustin would soak the smaller boy. Dustin's thick body finished it's arcing descent and his feet hit the water. A perfect wave splashed up, cascading over Danny, who ignored it and even smiled open-mouthed as the muddy water hit him like a big, cold slap. Dustin didn't notice his full-splash victory, a sheeting masterpiece of water that soaked Danny from head to toe in one fell swoop. Dustin didn't notice, because his feet didn't stop. Still moving fast from the running jump, he slid in to his waist. His arms lashed automatically out, splashing into the water but catching on some solid ground just beneath the surface, stopping him like a glob of oatmeal smacking against a wall. His eyes blinked away mud kicked up by his landing, and his mouth hung open, already gasping for air in an instinctive reaction to sudden cold. There he stopped, looking as if he'd waded into chest-deep water. "What the hell is this?" Dustin screamed. Panic etched his face. Scooter sat on the merry-go-round, utterly silent, his knees pulled tight against his chest. Danny remained standing at the puddle's edge, drenched from head to toe but smiling victoriously. "I told you I was going to get even," Danny said. "I even wrote you a note, you dumb shit." "Get me out of here!" Dustin screamed." Come on you guys, help me, this is really deep!" "You have no idea how deep it is," Danny said. He reached behind his back and pulled free a small, leather-bound book. It fell open at an X-Files bookmark, a slight rotten-egg stench wafting up from the exposed, yellowish pages. Scooter rocked back and forth, silent tears gliding down his face. Danny had talked him into this, but he never figured it would be this scary. He just wanted the humiliation to stop. He just wanted to enjoy recess without looking over his shoulder every second, waiting for the next beating, the next soaking. "Curim cruat dyonitieth advatum," Danny droned, reading from the book. One hand held the small leather book in front of him, the other hand, held rigid by the cast, reached up and out, over the puddle, fingers outstretched. He looked like a soggy, diminutive preacher hurling a message to his congregation. "What are you doing?" Dustin screamed. "Stop it and help me, guys. I'm stuck!" "Dewelo advantia fashool," Danny replied. "Advantia fashool!" Dustin's body jerked downward and he let out a scream of surprise and fear. Only his head remained above the surface. He tilted his head back, trying to keep the muddy water out of his mouth. His eyes were wide and white with stark panic. Scooter rocked faster. He'd seen someone's body jerk underwater like that in a movie called 'Jaws,' the one about the big shark. "Please!" Dustin screamed. "Danny, Scooter … help me!" Scooter buried his head in his knees and kept rocking. Danny read a little more. "Advantia fashool!" Dustin disappeared underwater with a jerk, and then was gone. A small burst of bubbles rippled the brown surface, making it look like boiling beef broth, then nothing, leaving only slowly expanding ripples that hit the puddle's shore and died away. Somewhere in the distance the faint sound of a schoolbell drifted across the large playground. "Well I'll be darned," Danny said with a relieved laugh. "This book really does work. Come on, Scooter, we've got to go back to class." "What about him?" Scooter said with a quaver, pointing to the puddle, still terrified beyond belief. He'd never imagined it would be so horrible, and he'd never imagined he could fear his best friend in the whole world. "Dustin?" Danny asked. "Well, Scooter, right about now I'd say class is the last of Dustin's worries. Hurry up, I don't want to be late." They dashed from the merry-go-round, heading for the school and giving the puddle a wide birth. Danny tucked the spellbook into his back pocket, Dustin already gone from his mind as he plotted how to sneak the leather-bound pages back into his parent's closet without them noticing. After all, he knew stealing was bad. -- fini -- *Splashing Contest Originally appeared in "Flesh & Blood" magazine | 
