The New Kid. Temple Mathews

loser/misfit club, including Roto Rudy, who scooted uncomfortably close to Will and gawked up at him like he was some kind of Greek god or something.

      “Where you from?” asked Rudy.

      “San Diego, Corpus Christi . . . a few other places.”

      “Yeah, you have that look about you.”

      “What kind of look would that be?” asked Will.

      “Like someone who’s been around and seen some things.”

      Rudy had no idea. Will had been around all right and seen things; the kinds of things that nightmares are made of. Will took a bite of his pizza and glanced out at the parking lot. The cheerleaders from that morning, including the one who’d caught his eye (her name was Sharon Mitchell, he had learned in chemistry class), were out working on the float again.

      Rudy tapped his fingers on the table top. He wanted to know more about his new hero. “You must be some kind of army brat or something, right?”

      “Something like that,” said Will.

      He was growing increasingly nervous because of the scene unfolding in the parking lot, where one of the super-cool unbelievably-beautiful totally-wonderful-in-every-way cheerleaders was using an ancient ball peen hammer to pound away at something on the old Ford that held the float. Will had a bad feeling, and when he had bad feelings, most often Hell came calling. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. A group of black-clad punks who thought they were wicked were walking across the parking lot toward a gray van tricked out with skulls and crossbones on the side. He sensed that these two disparate groups would collide; he could feel it in his gut. He just didn’t know how, or whether it would be his problem when it did. Rudy tapped Will’s arm to get his attention.

      “Hey, are you a gamer? Because if you are, maybe we could hit up. I’m on level 3 of Demon Hunter. I’ve got over a hundred kills.” Rudy beamed as if he’d won the state wrestling title or something. “In the Village of Madness I never saw the Rat Man Demon coming, I kept looking at the sewer grates and he like comes swooping down off the roof.”

      His attention still drawn outside, Will spoke matter-of-factly.

      “He hated the sewer, wouldn’t go anywhere near it. He hid in the rafters, mostly. That’s where I nailed his ass. Caught him totally by surprise.”

      Rudy gave Will a questioning look. Will cleared his throat.

      “At least that’s what I figured. Who knows? It’s just a game.”

      Rudy nodded. “Hey, again, thanks for saving my butt earlier. That was really cool of you. And nobody’s hardly ever cool to me. I don’t have a lot of friends in this school. Or any other school for that matter.” Rudy snort-laughed and then hiccuped until milk shot out his nose. “Sorry, I guess I took too many dork pills this morning,” he said, blushing.

      Will dropped his pizza and stood up abruptly, extricating himself from the lunch table. Whatever was going down outside was going to happen soon. Then he saw it. The old float truck’s gas tank was leaking, thanks to the ditzy cheerleader’s ball peen hammer blows.

      “I talk too much, I know. I’m sorry, I’ll shut up if you want,” said Rudy.

      But Will was already out the door.

      In the parking lot he moved as fast as he could without running; he didn’t want to tip the freaks off. They were handsome but at the same time scummy-looking leather Goths, punks who were smoking behind their skull van. One of them was attempting to light a cigarette with a plastic lighter. The scene went slow-motion in Will’s mind as he saw the rivulet of gasoline from the old truck’s tank snaking down toward the Goth puffers. Sharon Mitchell and her cheerleader friends were still going on about decorating the float and yammering about who they thought was cute and how they were going to have their hair styled for the fall dance. They were clueless.

      The Goth alpha prick now sensed Will and as he opened his mouth in a lecherous smile Will saw the beast had, in place of teeth, rusty screws. Fury rose in Will like a storm and he felt his muscles tense and his jaw tighten as the violence struggled to be released. Will’s only chance to save the girl and her friends was to get the lighter from the monster and he took two powerful steps and went airborne, slamming into the Goth smoker punk . . . who barely yielded. This sucker’s strong! thought Will. The punk’s jaws were snapping, preventing Will from getting a good grip on him as he scrabbled with the lighter, creating sparks. Then came a flame and as he bit into Will’s arm with his rusty screw teeth he dropped to the ground and held the flame to the rivulet of gasoline. Will managed finally to snatch the lighter away but it was too late—the gas was aflame and snaking its way toward the truck. With time-bending speed Will threw himself forward, catching up to the streaking fire, overtaking it, and knocking into Sharon Mitchell, their bodies colliding full on. Will’s powerful anger immediately evaporated. He was totally relieved to feel it depart. After all, he was lying on top of the head cheerleader.

      “What are you doing?” shouted Sharon, “Get off of me!”

      Will shoved himself off and then rolled toward the flame river, snuffing it out just a couple of feet from the float. His jacket was soaked in gas and burst into flames and as the girls screamed he shrugged it off his body and stomped it out. Sharon and the other cheerleaders stood gaping at the crazy New Kid standing in front of them with his shirt half ripped off, chest heaving. He looked like some sort of character from a comic book. But was he good or evil? They were still too shocked to notice the Goth punks laughing as they drove off, their van backfiring. Will, though, had no time to appreciate their stares as he shoved Sharon and her pack of cheerleaders away from the old truck. Another tendril of gas was aflame and shooting toward its target.

      “Go! MOVE! NOW!”

      They shrieked indignantly but did as he commanded.

      “GET DOWN!”

      They hit the dirt and then the old truck and the float erupted in a fireball. The girls were terrified. The smoke billowed. Will turned and faced Sharon, still holding the lighter in his clenched hand.

      “They were. . . .”

      Will gestured to where the Goth punks had been, but his voice trailed off—of course the creeps were long gone. He wondered if the girls had even seen them in the first place. Will knew he looked like some insane petty arsonist. He wanted to explain that the scummy Goths were infected souls, servants, but he knew the girls would never believe him. No one ever did. All Sharon and the other cheerleaders saw was some lunatic kid. Great, thought Will, I’ve met two cute girls today and managed to alienate them both. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d saved the butts of kids who’d ostracized him. And it most likely wouldn’t be the last.

      What Will didn’t know was that secretly Sharon had been totally electrified by her brief physical contact with him. She thought his hair was the bomb, his eyes were rock and roll, and as he walked away from the scene, she checked out his butt and gave him a 10 on her cheek scale. But of course she couldn’t let on that she felt that way. No, she had to make sure the New Kid thought she held him in callous disregard. So those were the signals she sent out.

      An hour later, after the Harrisburg fire department had completely doused the flaming float, Will sat across from Principal Steadman, who tapped a pencil tip on one of his crooked teeth and stared at Will with irritation.

      “We’re not getting off to a very good start, are we, William?”

      It was of course a rhetorical question but Will nonetheless gave his stock answer, the same answer he’d given over and over whenever he’d found himself in similar situations.

      “I made a mistake. I’ll try and do better.”

      “A MISTAKE? You call burning down a homecoming float a mistake ?” The veins in Steadman’s forehead looked like they were about to pop. He took several deep calming breaths, closing