Skipping a Beat Read Free

something—the crunch of a twig under some-one’s shoe.
    “Get off her!”
    I registered a blur from the left as a guy leapt onto Jerry’s back and punched him in the head. Jerry released me and spun around, shaking the guy off.
    “Run, Julie!”
    It was Mike Dunhill, the skinny boy in my class whose hand always shot up before the teachers finished asking questions.
    I jumped up and started to run, to get help, but a sickening sound made me turn around. Mike was already on the ground, and Jerry was kicking him. Jerry must’ve weighed twice as much as Mike, and he was in a fury. Mike was going to get hurt, bad, unless I did something now. I didn’t even remember that I was still holding the bag of ice cream until I reached into it and sent a half gallon of Breyers strawberry sailing toward Jerry’s head.
    If the ice cream had been frozen, it probably wouldn’t have stopped Jerry. He was obviously a man who could take a hit. But that unseasonably warm day turned out to be a gift in more ways than one. The lid flew off, and the softened pink ice cream spattered across Jerry’s face and eyes. He stood there, temporarily blinded, his foot raised for another kick. That was all the opening Mike needed. He uncoiled and grabbed Jerry’s ankle, yanking him off-balance. As Jerry tumbled backward, Mike sprang up, as if he hadn’t been hurt at all, and shot out the side of his hand to clip Jerry in the throat, hard.
    “Run!” Mike shouted again, and this time, I obeyed. Together, we sprinted another fifty yards down the track, cut left onto the dirt path leading to Becky’s neighborhood, and wove through the streets for a quarter mile, until we’d reached her little single-story brick house. I jabbed her doorbell over and over again, stealing glances behind me, certain Jerry would appear from out of nowhere again.
    “Hang on! Geez!”
    The door opened agonizingly slowly. Mike and I burst inside, breathing hard.
    “What’s wrong?” Becky’s mother asked while I slammed the door shut and double-locked it.
    “It’s okay,” Mike said. He bent over and put his hands on his knees as he sucked in great gulps of air. “He didn’t follow us … I checked.”
    “Who?” Becky’s mother asked, looking back and forth from Mike to me. “Are you guys playing a game?”
    Tears flooded my eyes as I remembered Jerry’s cold smile, and his lazy, insistent finger tracing a hot trail across my skin. Suddenly my stomach lurched and I almost gagged.
    Then Mike saved me for a second time.
    “All the books I’ve read about self-defense,” he said, grinning at me, “and not one of them mentioned the dreaded ice-cream counterattack. Do you have to be a black belt for that?”
    We stared at each other for a second, then started laughing. Mike clutched his ribs and tears ran down my cheeks as we both leaned against the wall, unable to talk.
    “Guess you had to be there.” Becky’s mother shrugged, walking away. That made us laugh even harder, howling and bending over and gasping for breath. And when we finally stopped laughing, I reached into the bag and pulled out the half-melted carton of chocolate ice cream that I’d somehow held on to the entire time.
    “Are you hungry?” I asked Mike.
    A slow grin spread across his face. “Starving.”
    I pretended to be fine, and even though I was so jittery my skin felt electric, I must’ve done a pretty good job, because I convinced Becky’s mom it was okay for her to go to her afternoon shift at the pharmacy. The sheriff was on his way to take my statement, and Mike offered to stick around, in case he could answer any questions. But I sensed the real reason why Mike hadn’t left was that he knew I was terrified Jerry would somehow spring out from behind the shower curtain the moment I was alone.
    I was looking out the window while Becky chattered on about the new Nancy Drew mystery she’d checked out of the library, and I didn’t see Mike take our ice-cream bowls to the kitchen.