He was whisked to Emergency at the Vancouver General. Mickey knew Joey pretty well, an eighth grader from Creekside. He was in the Cougars for a short time, a good fighter—fast with his feet. But then his dad found out and made him quit. Everyone in the gang liked Joey. Nowadays he took the bus up the hill to Grandview every day. He told Mickey he just wanted a change: he was sick of Creekside. Also, Grandview had a big computer lab. He liked working with computers. Grandview parents supplied the money for them, he told Mickey. Creekside had only six computers for the whole school. Now Joey’s face looked like it had been pushed into a meat grinder. And he had broken bones. Poor Joey. It made Mickey mad just to think of it. Joey was still on Mickey’s mind a couple of days later as he shouldered his way along the crowded hallway. He pushed through the cell phones and Walkmans, and out into the yellow October sunshine. He planned to enjoy his lunch under the trees. The grass was littered with horse chestnuts.
