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“FIGHT!…FIGHT!…FIGHT!…FIGHT!…FIGHT!” the crowd, outside the school was chanting. It was the next day, during lunch hour, and I had been late, in meeting Morgan.

“What is going on?” I questioned Laura, one of the football cheerleaders.

“Your little friend, Morgan, is in there fighting with Jason,” she giggled.

“WHAT?!?!” I pushed my way to the center of the crowd, just in time to see Jason’s fist connect with Morgan’s stomach. “STOP! What the heck are you doing?”

“Get off me, you loser,” Jason scowled as I pulled on his shoulders. He turned and punched me, in the face. I could, already, feel my eye starting to swell.

“Don’t you ever touch him!” Morgan screamed, jumping onto his back. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Mason, crying in the corner of the cafeteria.

“LET GO!” Jason shrugged her off and she fell to the floor. He was, immediately on top of her, punching her. I quickly grabbed him off and kicked him in his…‘manhood’. My head turned, hearing the sound of the principal coming, and Jason’s fist connected with my jaw. The blow knocked me to the ground.

“She started it!” Jason pointed to Morgan, as the principal and school counselor approached us.

“Tell me you didn’t,” I scrunched my eyebrows, looking at my best friend, not wanting to believe Jason’s accusation.

“That all depends on your definition of ‘started it’,” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her head.

“Did you, or did you not, throw the first punch Miss Smith?” the principal asked, as the counselor dispersed the crowd.

“Yes.”

“What?!?” my jaw dropped. I looked at Morgan, in shock. I couldn’t believe it! I never would have expected something, like this, out of her.

“It…it…it’s m…my…my fault,” Mason came up to us, trying to stop his tears. “He was…call…calling me names…and saying b…b…bad stuff about my dad…”

“He deserved what he got,” Morgan glared at Jason, shooting daggers at him with her eyes.

“As for you, Mr. Littrell?” the principal turned to me.

“I came up to see him punch her, so I stepped in and tried to pull him away and then he punched me…so…I fought back.” I shrugged my shoulders, still baffled by the entire situation.

“So, Mr. Collins, were you insulting, Mr. Richardson, here?”

“So what, if I was? She should still get expelled because she hit me!” Jason scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, well, all of you will be accompanying me to my office. I will need to call you parents…and guardians. Let’s go,” the principal led the way, out of the cafeteria and to his office. “Alright, while we are waiting, I expect a thorough explanation from each of you. Miss. Smith, we’ll start with you.”

“It’s simple really. I came into the cafeteria and saw Jason picking on Mason. I listened to what Jason was saying and told him to stop. He turned to me and started calling me all the names that he usually does. Well, I told him that if he didn’t stop, I was going to tell you. But, he kept going on about how horrible we were and how our families were scum and stuff…so I punched him.”

“Yeah…see? She punched me!”

“So are you saying that her story is accurate?” The principle raised an eyebrow, as did I. We all looked over at Jason.

“Uh…yeah,” he let out a laugh.

“Well, then, I have no choice but to expel you, Mr. Collins. That also means that you will, no longer, be able to participate in any sports or extracurricular activities,” the principal seemed just as shocked as we were that Jason admitted that Morgan was right.

“I’m sorry, Nick,” I hung my head as he drove us all home.

“Oh, I ain’t mad at ya,” Nick snickered. “I think you guys…well…you know that I’m against you guys getting into fights, but you were only sticking up for each other. So, I understand the motive behind it. However, you will have to be grounded for the rest of the night, because you were fighting in school, Baylee.”

“The rest of the night? I was expecting more than that…like a couple months!” I looked over at him, with wide eyes.

“Well, like I said, you were sticking up for each other. I wouldn’t expect you to stand there and watch that little punk beat on Morgan…and I sure would expect you to let him beat on you, either. It was more self defense, than anything. Besides, if you wanna go by the law…you had every right to step in and beat Jason.”

“I did?”

“He did?” Mason and Morgan chimed, at the same time as I did.

“Yes, because Jason is a guy and he was beating on a woman. Women are, generally, less able to fight back against a man because men are, typically, bigger and stronger. Thus, if you beat Jason and he didn’t even touch you…you still wouldn’t get in trouble, with the law, because you were defending a woman. Understand? That’s why I can’t see it being fair to punish you, for something the law wouldn’t. However, I feel that you need to take the rest of the night to think about other ways you could have handled the situation.”

“Wow. How’d you know that stuff?” I looked at him, with a bit of surprise.

“Let’s just say that there have been situations, in the past, that required me to acquire that knowledge,” he chuckled. He smiled, over his shoulder, at Morgan. Her mom wasn’t able to come to the school because she was working, but the principal had spoken to her, when he called, and she said to send Morgan home with us.

“Are we gonna be allowed to do our schoolwork together…or is that part of the grounding?” I asked, cautiously. We were sent home from school, for the day, with our class work, from the subjects we would be missing. The principal said that we were allowed to return to school the next day, if we felt up to it.

“I’m hungry,” I moaned, “we didn’t even get to eat lunch.”

“Yeah, and we were having corn dogs with fries today, too,” Morgan sighed.

“Alright, we’ll stop at McDonald’s…just don’t go thinking that it’s a reward or anything,” Nick laughed as he switched lanes, to pull into the parking lot. We went through the drive-up because, let’s face it, Morgan and I looked like total CRAP-O-LA!

“Alright, here’s how it’s going to work,” Nick started, as we filed into the house. “You guys can sit down, eat, and put some ice on those battle wounds, of yours. After you’re all done eating, you may work on school work. BUT…you are only allowed to work together for the time that you would, normally, be in school. Once school hours are over…Morgan goes home. Got it?”

“Sounds fair to me,” Morgan nodded, applying ice to her left eye. Both of her eyes were bruised, as was her right cheek, and stomach. She had a split lip and her ribs were hurting her, pretty bad. “I think Mason should sit with us too, we might be able to help him, if he gets stuck on something.”

“Really? You guys would help me?” Mason sat up straight, and looked from her to me.

“Of course, Mason,” I laughed, “all you ever have to do, is ask.” I leaned my head back and put a Ziploc bag, of ice, over my whole face. I, too, had two black eyes. I also had a swollen lip, a gash on my forehead, and some other scattered bruises.

We finished our lunches and went right in to the living room, to start on school work. Just as Nick had warned us, at 3:10 he took Morgan home. It kind of sucked that she had to go home, but we had been able to get all our work done…so that was good. I ate dinner with Nick and Mason, and then went up to my room. After watching TV for a little while, I turned in early with ice over my face. Man, was I thankful to whoever invented Advil!