Chapter One

My name is Starr. I sure don't feel like a star, more like a mud hole. My problems are many and one is a girl coming down the school hallway right now. Beatrice the Beast, older than me and tougher than gator hide.
Feeling my gut clench, I try to dodge the hulking brute by unloading my locker and heading back the other way. Too late. It's always too late with Beatrice. I hear her rushing footsteps, smell cigarette smoke in her clothes and hair.
Why is there no teacher in the hallway to protect me? I want to be strong, stand up for myself, but right now my nerve is sunk deep in that bottomless mud hole.
My spirit itself is mud.
Mouth dry and heart pounding, I walk ever faster though she’s playing with me now, blowing warm dirty breath on my neck. I want to run so fast I can fly, fly away from her and all such ambushes, but my feet are so heavy I can barely lift them.
She begins to hiss, like a cat toying with a mouse. Then the strike comes, and with a sickening thud my head jerks sideways from the blow of her ugly palm as she smashes my nose against cold metal and growls stinky breath in my face.
“Listen up, dork brain. You owe me for not snitching. Show me the green… or you’ll get worse than this!”
Focus, I tell myself. Say words slowly, don’t stutter or you’ll show weakness. “Go ahead and snitch, Beatrice. I don’t c-care.”
Well, I do care, but what else can I say to the thug? She’s right. I’ve been caught pilfering before, mostly fruit at Hill’s Market, though no one knows about the chew bone I lifted for my beagle Sketch. A certain pattern’s developing. Likely the Beast is referring to a compass I stole for Dad so he can find his way home from his long fishing trips that rarely bring any fish.
Now a trickle of warm wetness says my nose is bloody. The bully steps back, surveying her handiwork with a sneer and thrusting a bulky finger into my chest, right at my BEAGLES RULE tee shirt.
“I’m sick of seeing you… and that dog of yours. Better run see if he’s still alive, though he’ll not be for long. It’s real easy to snuff out a dog, so simple it cracks me up, cracks me up!” She begins to roar, laughing so hard she doubles over.
My face goes cold. Hair on my neck rises up. Blood drips from my crushed nostril, splotching my shirt. I swipe my bloody nose on a gym sock, and deep inside of me a bit of courage builds, fueled by rage.
“You touch my dog, Beatrice, and my dad will….” He will do what? “You’ll be the one to pay, for this.” Touching my nose, I flick blood onto her clothing.
“I’ll get you yet, geek.” She curses, thrusting her middle finger inches from my smashed nose, and bolts away, leaving me dripping blood.

With gut clenching, I go running down Mall Street to check on my dog Sketch and find him on our front porch curled up on the sofa, napping.
“Come here, boy.” He wakes right up and goes to licking tears mingling with blood from my nose. His warm body is all the comfort I’ll likely get today.
To set the record straight, Dad has never come to my defense on a single bully issue, though he could, given his great muscular build and quick temper. I’ll be more vigilant keeping an eye peeled for toughs like Beatrice, and double up my watching out for Sketch, too. Thieving things? Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.
What I need is a better security plan.

After nuzzling Sketch a bit, I take up my well-worn spiral notebook which I call Surviving Bullies & Criminals and add Beatrice’s sinister threat under a page titled, Bullies: Case Number Fifteen, the Beast. And then, as a reminder, I flip over to the page of Safety Rules: Number One: know who’s in your stomping ground.
There’s no better place for keeping an eye on toughs who’re lurking around Mall Street than our front porch, though the floor boards grow hard to my skinny backside real quick. I shift my weight and hear a swoosh, swoosh of shoe leather on concrete getting closer and closer, an eerie sound stopping my study of red ants crawling onto bare feet and setting off an inner alarm and clenching my gut even tighter.