God’S Child

By Robert Fedorchek

Gods Child is the story of Nancy Biggs and Tim McNally, both of whom attended Catholic grade schools. When they seek ways to spread the teachings of Jesus Christ, the two soon learn that service to the church is circumscribed by a male-dominated hierarchy that dictates roles for men and a role for women. Tims perspectiveinfluenced by his mentor, a priest of the old guardaligns with the churchs prescribed roles. Nancy, on the other hand, must submit to the power of the men in Rome or fight against the churchs institutionalized sexism. In her struggle for equal treatment, Nancy gains the support of four priests.

Meanwhile, the pope makes a pilgrimage to Fatima to commemorate the 105th anniversary of the Blessed Virgins appearance to three Portuguese children. In his remarks, he announces a change in the life of the Catholic Church that shakes the institution to its foundations and liberates Nancy to follow her true calling, and Tim to question his professed vocation. Gods Child explores the personal lives of two people of faith, and the epochal saga of a historic change in the life of the Church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532040740

Robert Fedorchek

Robert Fedorchek is a professor emeritus of modern languages and literatures at Fairfield University; he holds a BA, MA, and PhD. In addition to his first novel, The Translators, he has published eighteen books of translations of Spanish and Portuguese literature. He and his wife live in Fairfield, Connecticut.

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Copyright © 2018 Robert Fedorchek.

Image Credits: Cover (Church interior), thinkstock.com; Parts I (Signs and Symbols) and III (Emblem of the priesthood), shutterstock.com; and Part II (Fátima Shrine), photograph by Robert Fedorchek.

God’s Child is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and occurrences are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-4075-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4074-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919836

iUniverse rev. date: 01/27/2018

CONTENTS

Prologue

PART I

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

PART II

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

PART III

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Epilogue

For Theresa,

whose love knows no bounds

In memoriam:

Will, Richard, and Jack

PROLOGUE

T he interior of the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit hummed quietly with reverent anticipation as the organist played a medley from the Orgelbüchlein of Johann Sebastian Bach. The dove of peace and love embroidered on the reredos, its silver and gold wings outstretched to embrace all of humankind, glittered like a permanent burst of sunlight. The tall candles in the sanctuary, five at either end, stood aflame, flanking a sea of red roses, for it was Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter; the Sunday that commemorated the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles of Jesus Christ; the Sunday of the Tongues of Fire, the glossai hosei puros, the singular gift that enabled the twelve to speak in languages heretofore unknown to them. It was also the Sunday of the Gospel according to John with those sublime words spoken by Christ: Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained.

Virtually all of the members of this parish in the affluent Long Island Sound town of Ash Creek, Connecticut, still found it difficult to believe that the Church of the Holy Spirit had been accorded such a signal honor.

It would be the first parish Mass of the newly ordained priest who peeked out of the sacristy and saw a church with pews so full that attendees spilled into the two side aisles where they would have to stand.

The priests of the diocese, together with visiting clergy from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington, D. C., had already taken their places in rows of chairs positioned in front of the lectern on the gospel side. As befitted the historic occasion, all were attired in ornate raiment, their red chasubles with orphreys of gold a reflection of the candles with their lambent tongues of flame. The centuries-old underpinning of the Catholic Church’s pomp and ceremony was the symbolism of colors. But whereas red was the color of the Passion, of Pentecost, and of the blood shed by martyrs faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ, white was the color of purity, of the Resurrection, and of Ordination. And each ordination brought new life-giving force to the Church, more so in the groundbreaking reception of the sacrament of Holy Orders several Mondays ago in Norwich, Connecticut, for in that ritual Reverend Mother Nancy Nye became one of the first American women to be ordained a Catholic priest, with the full sacerdotal powers of her brother priests. Pope Francis II himself, to the chagrin of his archconservative, hidebound opponents in the Vatican, had journeyed from Rome to bestow the papal blessing in person on her, Reverend Mother Ellie Ride, Reverend Mother Merici Gallarelli., Reverend Mother Caroline Rankin, Reverend Mother Doris Tessier, and Reverend Mother Liliana Amaral.

Mother Nye’s four priest friends—loyal, stalwart supporters through thick and thin—had presented her with gifts and left to take their places in the chairs by the lectern: Father Samuel Shroyer, C.S.C., chaplain of the Newman Club at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, gave her an alb; Father Christian Mannheim, S.J., professor of theology at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, gave her a cincture; Monsignor Matthew Goodpaster, pastor of the parish of Saint Aloysius and advisor of their Catholic Youth Service Organization, gave her a stole sewn in the Holy Land; and Padre André Sousa Neto, resident at the Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima, and past parochial vicar at Santo Christo Parish in Fall River, Massachusetts, gave her a copy of the Breviary in English and a companion volume in Portuguese.

The moment came to don those priestly vestments. With each one she would now, and forever more, follow the practice of her mentor and say a silent prayer. Stepping into the sacristy’s el while giving thanks to the Almighty and to Popes Francis I and Francis II, she clasped the alb, the full-figure white garment that harkens back to the purity of baptism, and slipped it over her head as she would a dress, letting it drop to her ankles; then she looped the cincture, a white cord belt symbolizing chastity, around her waist, but as she began to tie it, Mother Nye froze momentarily; next, she picked up the stole—red on that Pentecost Sunday—and kissed the center part of it before placing it around her neck and over her shoulders, securing it with the cincture; lastly, she grasped the bright red chasuble, the outer piece whose various colors signified the Church’s feasts and calendar, and settled the opening over her head, smoothing it as the richly embroidered garment—a precious gift from her beloved parents and grandmother—fell below her knees, its very existence on her person an overt sign of the years of prayer, study, and sacrifice that had culminated in her ordination.

Entering the sacristy proper, she glanced at her five concelebrants and saw that they were chatting softly with one another: Most Reverend Vito Vigano, Archbishop and Papal Nuncio in Washington, D.C.; His Eminence Dylan Cardinal Guilfoyle of Boston; Most Reverend Anthony Yates, Bishop of Norwich; Reverend Thomas Exxum, pastor of the parish of Saint Xavier where Mother Nye would officially take up her first assignment in one week; and Reverend Timothy McNally, the recently appointed acting pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit. Rev. McNally made no secret of the fact that he, following the lead of two American cardinals, had opposed the entrance of women into the priesthood and was not happy that Mother Nye, a new parishioner, would say her first parish Mass at his church. He yielded only in obedience to the bishop and Pope Francis II’s directive.

At the instant that she turned her head, Rev. McNally turned his.

Did Mother Nye expect a smile? Was she that naive, that innocent? Because the blank yet somehow scrutinizing expression that she beheld chilled her from head to toe. But it couldn’t be; her imagination was running away with her. Only her mentor, and confessor, Reverend Gabriel LaVecchia, knew. Only that saintly man knew how it had happened, and yet Father Tim, as he preferred to be called, looked at her as if he knew. But how could he know that she was pregnant? Not even her parents knew, for she hadn’t yet found the right moment to tell them. Only her doctor and her mentor knew. Could her rapist know? How? And if he did know, did he care? He must have, otherwise he wouldn’t have left the hair-raising note that had taken her breath away. And in addition to the fact that she had no recollection of the man at all, could form no image of him at all, no one had ever located the Mrs. Rickles who had requested that late afternoon private appointment. After Nancy had recovered a hazy consciousness, she knew, knew instantly. Her torn panties and the skirt used as a wipe for semen were the least of it. Blood drawn at the hospital told her and the police that the missing Mrs. Rickles—if indeed Rickles was her name—had somehow managed to slip the so-called date rape drug GHB into her tea. When pregnancy was medically confirmed she had refused to cry. She had said, tellingly, to Father Gabe, I’m in God’s hands. I hope in the Church’s, too.

Abortion—the sacrilege of it a horror to her—had not entered her mind, nor had it entered her mentor-confessor’s mind. But how and when to announce her state had turned into a dilemma of near obsessive, staggering proportions. Confirmation of the pregnancy had come five weeks after her ordination, and now she had to notify Bishop Yates. Father Gabe, in his capacity as her mentor, had insisted on accompanying her. Would a scandal ensue? Most certainly. Would it militate against other women becoming priests? She would fight. She hadn’t sinned, hadn’t even been the occasion of sin. She had simply been a woman, which for her spoke a truth for all ages, and she would refuse to be cowered, would refuse to allow it to appear that fault was hers. She didn’t even know the reason for the rape. But what reason could there be? In a tenebrous corner of her mind, one thought did occur to her, a thought so evil, so vile that it had caused a mental reign of terror—that she, a woman, had gained entrance into the closely guarded male world that had existed for millenia, thereby championing gender equality. Although clearly not true equality.

And she asked herself—yet again—the question she had asked herself so many other times: Why did some men fear some women? Or rather … why did so many men fear so many women?

By dint of self-control she smiled, not to antagonize Rev. McNally but to calm herself. It had always been her way.

With that smile she thought back to a conference table while making a retreat, to Father Chris Mannheim’s topic for a brief inspirational talk to adults, to her suggested Act of Forgiveness. And her homily came to mind: she had planned to speak of the sublime virtue of forgiveness, and of the love, Christ’s love, that generates forgiveness, while still questioning herself, still wondering whether she had—on this Pentecost Sunday, this glorious day of the publicly official beginning of her ministry—forgiven the man who had defiled her. How many other women had he violated? And why?

PART I

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ONE

M y spiritual journey to God began on a drizzly, windy November day in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Despite the raw weather, I came to understand that said day was a gift. Not that I deserved it. But let no one tell you that God’s love, His grace, is bestowed only on the good. For if such were the case, why would the pure of heart have need of the sustenance that leads to eternity at His side? Saint Augustine, though, will tell you—much, much better than I—of redemption and the path of righteousness. But I digress as I recollect.

Let me state it succinctly: on that day I was a month shy of turning twenty-three; on that day I saw two radiantly young faces in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, the biological parents, to all appearances, of a newborn bundled in fluffy fleece, a baby boy who gurgled with contentment; on that day I managed to catch a glimpse of the infant I had agonizingly surrendered for adoption; and on that day I was an unwed mother who had, for a year and a half, been clean of the weed that I had smoked in my native Connecticut after it became legal. I will not go into the folks I hassled nor the laws that I broke to learn the names of the parents of my baby. I will say, not that it does me much credit, that I began to make amends in my own way; I will also say that I pray daily for him and for them.

The reason I gave up my baby (an unacceptable one, I’m sure, in the eyes of many) was because I lost his father, and that reason will be best explained in context, that is, put in a sequence of events, as the whys and wherefores of his loss conjure up far too many painful memories. I am well aware that this sounds vague, so for now let me simply say that the beginning of that context materialized because I enrolled at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Eastern Connecticut is located in Willimantic, an old thread mill town which for many years has celebrated Valentine’s Day as Romantic Willimantic, and each year crowns a prominent leader or citizen as its Cupid. A few miles north of Willi is Storrs, site of the main campus of the University of Connecticut, where three Ash Creek High girl friends were enrolled in the School of Business. Two, Pam Jagoe and Mari Kyd (to whom I will always be grateful), urged me to attend a meeting of the UConn chapter of the Newman Club. Although we had graduated high school together, my three friends were seniors while I was a first-year student. I had mistakenly thought that the Newman Club was, in the main, a social circle. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Yes, I quickly saw that there was a social dimension, but foremost were the pastoral services, for at its center, or better said, at its heart, there pulsed the teachings and ministry of Roman Catholicism.

My life began to change at my second meeting of the Club, when I met a member of the regular clergy, a Holy Cross priest named Father Samuel Shroyer; and although I didn’t realize it at the time, it would change even more when, at the third meeting, I met a tall, gangly, and seemingly shy young man, a junior at UConn, named Jesse Nye.

Now that I introduce Father Sam and Jesse into my narrative, it occurs to me that I’m putting the cart before the horse, and that before I go into detail about these two good Christian men who, as God’s instruments, became bellwether supporters of my spiritual journey to the priesthood, I must first acquaint you with my parents, Linda and Fred Biggs. Why? Well, what child’s life is not shaped or influenced or, sometimes with a heavy hand, even controlled by Mom and Dad? And perhaps even to a greater degree if one is an only child, as I am.

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It wasn’t that my mother didn’t love me; I just never lived up to her high expectations. And those expectations—let me state at the outset—were rooted in her perfervid (some might say fanatic) Catholicism.

From the time that I was a little girl in the third grade at Our Lady of Good Hope grade school in Loon Lake, a town that lay some fifteen or so miles north of Ash Creek, I didn’t, in Mom’s judgment, say my nighttime prayers aloud with sufficient ardor. When I thought about it, and that didn’t happen until many years later, what nine-year-old on her bare knees on a bare hardwood floor would understand the necessity of a pious posture to pray to a little understood God? My head had to be bowed just so; the palms of my hands had to be pressed together just so (if my thumbs and fingers were not aligned, Mom would align them for me); and my voice had to be just so, soft and reverent and with feeling (and if it wasn’t, Mom would lead by example). To be fully clear what I mean by example: she, too, knelt alongside me on that bare floor, her knees as bare as mine. Her goodnight, after tucking me in bed and kissing me on the forehead, was always the same: Love Jesus as much as He loves you.

All the students at Good Hope, first through eighth grades, attended daily Mass. Mom, together with two of her women friends, also attended. I’m trying to remember whether, as young as I was, she did it to support and nurture me, or to keep an eye on me to see whether I was whispering to my friends and not paying attention. While that’s a hazy recollection, I know I was proud that all the nuns and priests knew her. And how could they not? Every Wednesday she brought home altar linens and cloths to wash and iron. It was my job to fold them, and if you understand how important it was for my hands to be pressed together in such-and-such a way at nighttime prayers, you’ll understand that I learned to exercise the care of precise folding so essential to origami.

In those early grade-school years at Good Hope, from the third grade through the seventh, I learned much about the many rules and regulations of Catholicism, but little about the omnipotent God who promised an eternity of happiness if we didn’t sin and if we loved Him and our neighbors as we loved ourselves.

One incident in particular stands out in my mind, and it’s because of the effect it had on two women—my teacher and my mother.

My reputation as a troublemaker took root the day I asked Father Anthony Impellitteri a series of what I thought were innocuous questions after his weekly talk to the seventh-grade class. Father Imp (as we kids referred to him) was a sexagenarian who had a full head of snow-white hair, stood six feet tall, had big brown eyes that normally twinkled with good cheer, and sported a girth that stretched the button holes of the black cassock that he always wore on school grounds. Father’s talk that morning centered on what he termed the embrace of God’s love, the cocoon of God’s love, a love so powerful, so absolute and unconditional that His Church (for it was drummed into us that Roman Catholicism was the one true path to salvation) cleansed the soul of original sin through the Sacrament of Baptism and that God Himself, through his ordained intermediaries, forgave our transgressions by the grace of what used to be called the Sacrament of Confession. He went, as I recall, into much greater detail than the old Baltimore Catechism ever allowed with its question-and-answer format. He made frequent mention of priests who acted as God’s ministers in the course of our earthly life, and I kept hearing the names of the hierarchy of righteous men—bishops and cardinals and popes—who all served to propagate His Church and our religion.

Can I explain what, at the conclusion of his remarks, prompted me to ask the questions? I was thirteen; I was puzzled; I didn’t understand some things; and I thought the questions, or rather the answers, would help me to better understand both God and the Church. God loves us equally, doesn’t He, Father? With his benign expression Father Imp replied, Yes, indeed, Nancy. Rich and poor, young and old, the humble and not so humble, the powerful and the powerless, and the important and the unimportant. God loves all of us equally.

I think I raised my hand again. Whether I did or did not matters little. That’s not what I meant, Father, I blurted out. After the slightest of pauses, he said, spacing his words, his voice changing and becoming wary, Exactly what did you or do you mean? As he drew near with his arms across his chest he looked askance at me. And that I do remember, for I cringed. His proximity rattled me and yet I had no alternative except to clarify. I mean boys and girls, you know, men and women. If God loves us equally, why doesn’t His Church love us and treat us equally? His usual good cheer and buoyant countenance disappeared as he clasped his hands behind his back. I don’t follow, Nancy. Silence reigned in the classroom. I glanced uneasily at the pain-racked, blood-streaked visage of Jesus that hung above the chalkboard. Had I ever tried to understand the torment of a crown of thorns, to comprehend being subjugated by injustice and cruelty? How could I have at the age of eleven or twelve or thirteen? I don’t believe that I truly understood the meaning of the word antagonize either. I would, though, from that day on. And I repeat: I was only trying to understand some things. "I mean … why aren’t there altar girls? In the stony quiet that ensued I plunged ahead—inspired either by fear or stupidity, I don’t know. How come there aren’t women priests, women bishops, even cardinals and popes?"

It seems, in hindsight, that Father Imp’s red-faced reaction took an eternity, when in actuality I’m certain it came with the celerity of lightning streaking across the sky. His paternal warmth vanished in a nanosecond. The clipped, frosty response that replaced it turned him, at that unguarded moment, into an impatient, irascible defender of the status quo.

That, young lady, is no concern of yours. You are not to question the traditions and mandates of Holy Mother Church.

I don’t believe he saw the irony of the Mother portion of his retort. Nor, of course, did I at the time. As Father glowered at me, a number of my classmates shifted uncomfortably in their seats, an anxious hush having enveloped the room.

What happened next made my heart race with panic. Sister Mary Virginia, her ankle-length habit a swirl of black, reached me in a trice, having hurried to my side in a bound that rivaled one of Mercury’s swift flights. She grabbed me by the wrist, yanking me from the writing desk to my feet, her features etched with uncompromising severity. "How dare you, Nancy Biggs? How dare you? You apologize to Father this very instant, do you hear me?" she said icily, tightening her viselike grip on my wrist.

I collapsed into tears—big, fat, copious tears that rolled down my cheeks. Although I was afraid and trembling, pain overrode my fear as I looked up at her through watery eyes and blubbered, You’re hurting me! I clawed at her fingers, and she raised her other hand to stop me, but in a way that she could just as easily have struck me. And Father Imp, with electric speed, stepped between us and spoke immediately.

We’ll discuss this later, Sister. I’m sure she’s sorry for the fuss she’s caused.

And just as immediately Sister Mary Virginia released my wrist, as red-faced as Father had been earlier. Like one of those images you can’t erase from the camera of your mind, I’ve always been able to picture her expression at that instant—it projected disbelief. What I could not determine was whether the disbelief resulted from the fact that I had put my hand on hers or that she had very nearly lost control of herself. Because in addition to the color, I glimpsed something I had never before detected in my seventh-grade teacher: concern.

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Whatever it was, it didn’t prevent Sister Mary Virginia from making a telephone call to my mother to inform her of my shocking and inexcusable behavior subsequent to Father Impellitteri’s talk on God’s limitless love for us.

Mom was waiting for me at the door when I came home that afternoon. With her arms folded over her bosom and indignation cloaking her features like a veil of shame, she launched into an acrimonious lecture made all the worse by the measured language she used. I was arrogant; I was disrespectful; I was presumptuous; I was insolent; I was antagonistic. And I needed to go to confession, for I had been proud, and pride was one of the seven cardinal sins. Did I know at the time that the seven were also called the seven deadly sins? I doubt it. What I did know was that by the age of thirteen the Roman Catholic Church had already instilled in me a fear—bordering on terror—of hell. We weren’t talking about your run-of-the-mill venial sin. Pride was mortal. It was, as I recalled from another of Father Imp’s talks, the sin from which all others sprang.

Not once did she ask my version of what had occurred. But Dad did.

And he asked because he happened to leave his electrical supply shop early that day only to be met with Mom’s account of the events that Sister had related to her, which—although the choice of words may seem infelicitous—she accepted as gospel truth.

At Dad’s urging, I began. I remember degenerating into tears once more as I recounted what I had asked and how Sister Mary Virginia had grabbed, actually wrenched, my wrist and how much it had hurt, how I had tried to free it, and what she had said that I must do. He turned to Mom, as if to inquire, and from the stony, put-upon look on her face he understood that Sister had omitted that part of her report.

Had I apologized? No. Because Father Imp had intervened. He nodded; good, I had done nothing to apologize for.

Mom, wide-eyed and incredulous and driven by asperity, attempted to argue with Dad. He cut her off with one softly yet forcefully spoken word. Stop.

By most yardsticks Fred Biggs was a calm, easygoing, mild-mannered man. We had moved from Loon Lake to Ash Creek because he needed a more spacious warehouse for his electrical supply firm, one that also afforded him better distribution outlets. He had succeeded in expanding the business, which allowed him to take on three new hires, the result being that he could have the occasional afternoon off. Like Mom he was tall, six-one to her five-ten, and like Mom he had dark brown eyes and light brown hair. Differences came in their faces. Mom had thin lips and a pointy jaw, whereas Dad had full lips and a round jaw. And while Mom more often than not had a pained look on her face, as if she were living a life of adversity, Dad’s features almost always projected good cheer, a contagious sort of bonhomie.

With that one word, that Stop, his face became creased with an anger rare in him.

He had draped his coat over a chair in the living room. He picked it up and put it back on while fixing his eyes on Mom’s.

I’m driving over to Good Hope right now. There will be an apology, all right, but it won’t be made by Nance. Pausing a long moment, making certain that my mother could not misinterpret his words, he added, "We’ll talk, all three of us will talk when I return."

And my father hugged me and kissed me on the cheek before heading for the door.

TWO

Y oung Timmy McNally’s seventh-grade class at Saint Gregory the Great parish school in southeastern Stonington, Connecticut, exited the building for recess mere minutes after the eighth graders. It was a sunny, breezy, late spring morning, the sky laced with patches of stringlike clouds. The crisp air, redolent of the smell of the choppy water of Long Island Sound, invited deep breaths while hinting at the warmth to come. Alone because his great pal, Patrick Noonan, had to remain indoors with his cold, Timmy set off for the bluff at the corner of the waterside playground, as it afforded a clear view of a lighthouse in neighboring Rhode Island.

Timmy liked to draw, and what he most liked to draw were churches and lighthouses. The case that he carried, given to him by his big sister Maureen on his last birthday, contained two sketch tablets of eight-by-fourteen paper; a dozen number two wooden lead pencils; a hand-twist pencil sharpener; several hi-polymer plastic block erasers; and two retractable eraser sticks for tight line erasures. Still puffed with pride because Sister Mary Scholastica had pinned his drawing of Saint Gregory’s campanile to the cork backing of the glass-enclosed bulletin board at the entrance of the school, he didn’t notice that Danny O’Connell, the eighth-grade bully, pointed at him while saying something to his friends Frankie Davis, Mario Ucci, and Carol Hooper, a girl who always seemed to be at Danny’s side.

He noticed when he heard the four of them laughing.

He licked his lips, a tic in moments of stress, as they began to approach him.

He wanted to be brave, but decided to walk around them.

He didn’t see that Danny waited until the last second to stick out his foot.

He tripped with a thud, and the clasp of his case became undone and most of the contents spilled onto the moist ground.

What happened, bulletin-board boy? Danny taunted him. Did you trip? He guffawed along with his three friends.

Enraged, Timmy shot up and yelled at him. Look what you did! Look what—

Momentarily frozen, unable to repress the tears that welled up immediately, and breathing rapidly, his hands clenched as he stared at his tormentor. He took a step, but before he could close the gap between them, Danny O’Connell, a smirk uglifying his features, approached in a trice and slapped him in the face.

Yeah. And what’re you gonna do about it, you little shit?

Timmy put his hand to his cheek, the sting of embarrassment hurting more than the smart sensation of the sting. And yet, although the slap mortified him, Carol Hooper’s laughter humiliated him. She was seventh grade, too, which somehow made it worse, because now he would have to go back into the same classroom with her where she would tell her girlfriends.

What’re you gonna do about it, huh, shithead? sneered Danny while repeatedly thumping Timmy’s chest with the palm of his hand and pushing him farther away from his drawing materials. You wimp. You’re worse than a girl, ’cause even a girl would fight back.

Frankie, Mario, and Carol, who snickered as they saw him struggle and fail to suppress tears, started the chant that Danny had dreamed up one other time when Timmy didn’t give tit for tat.

"Sally McNally. Sally McNally. Sally McNally.

A maelstrom of occurrences flooded Timmy’s mind. He desperately wanted to gather the contents of his case. Thank God the sketch pads were strapped in, so only the pencils and erasers lay scattered on the grass. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that a mixed group of seventh and eighth graders had congregated to watch. I’m not a coward, am I? If I am, I don’t wanna be. No. I’m not. And I’m not a wimp either. Size. Danny’s size. Danny O’Connell stood at least two inches taller than Timmy and easily outweighed him by some fifteen pounds. He had told his brother, Clancy, about that first time, which was a punch in the gut that took his breath away. And he’s so much taller and heavier