“You sore or something?” he asks, as if he didn’t know.
I keep on walking.
“O.K., be sore!” he snaps. Then he breaks into a falsetto: “Goo’bye, Bashful!”
I let him have it before he’s hardly got his mouth closed. He hits me back in the stomach and hooks one of his ankles around mine so we both fall down. It goes from bad to worse. He gets me by the hair and bangs my head on the sidewalk, so I twist and bite his hand. We’re gouging and scratching and biting and kicking, because we’re both so mad we can hardly see, and anyway no one ever taught us those Queensberry rules. There’s no point in going into all the gory details. Finally two guys haul us apart. I have hold of Nick’s shirt and it rips. Good. He’s half crying, and he twists away from the guy that grabbed him and screams some things at me before darting across the avenue.
I’m standing panting and sobbing, and the guy holding me says, “You oughta be ashamed. Now go on home.”
“Aw, you and your big mouth,” I say, still mad enough to feel reckless. He throws a fake punch, but he’s not really interested. He goes his way, and I go mine.
I must look pretty bad because a lot of people on the street shake their heads at me. I walk in the door at home, expecting the worst, but fortunately Mom is out. Pop just whistles through his teeth.
“That must have been quite a horror picture!” he says.