“Anybody know where Dragonfly is?” Big Jim asked.
And Poetry answered, saying, “He had asthma last night; maybe his mother wouldn’t let him come today.”
Big Jim’s stern face probably meant he was remembering his resolution not to fight Bob Till any more, unless he was forced to in self-defense. Of course, if Bob himself started a fight we’d have to defend ourselves.
I got an idea then, and it was, “Bob Till has already started a fight by stealing our watermelons last night. That’s the same as whamming me in the stomach—on account of that’s where the watermelons would have been if I had eaten them. And since he’s already started the fight, I’ve got a right to defend myself, haven’t I?”
“It’s not the same,” Big Jim said grimly, his jaw muscles still working. His fists were doubled up though, I noticed, and I could see he didn’t like the lasso with which he had lassoed himself.
Little Jim spoke up then and said, “How’d we feel in Sunday school tomorrow if Bob came in with a black eye and a smashed nose?”
Right then as I looked into that cute little guy’s cute little mouse-shaped face and saw how innocent he was, and realized he was so tender-hearted he’d even hate to swat a fly and wouldn’t if he didn’t think the fly needed to be swatted—I say, right then was when I noticed for the first time the rectangular manila envelope Little Jim had brought with him. It looked about five inches wide and nine inches long, and had something in it. I couldn’t tell what it was and didn’t get to find out until later in the afternoon.
Little Jim’s question, “How’d we feel in Sunday school tomorrow morning if Bob came in with a black eye and a smashed nose?” took some of the fight out of me, ’cause I knew Bob had to be in church tomorrow—that being one of the things the judge who had put him on probation had said he had to do—he had to go to Sunday school and church at least once every Sunday for a whole year.
I spoke up then with a half-mischievous voice saying, “The judge told him he had to go every Sunday unless he is sick and unable to. He might not be able to if—”
“Stop!” Big Jim cut in. “The thing is not funny!”