Trouble in Paradise Read Free Page B

he warned me.
    A noise caught my attention. Four more boys came out of the bushes behind us, blocking our getaway.
    “Too late now,” I said.
    “Watch my back,” Jack said.
    The group slowly surrounded us. They knew they didn’t have to rush because we had no place to go.
    “Where do you get off?” one of them, the biggest and oldest, demanded as he stopped right in front of Jack, his arms crossed over his chest. “You think you can just go around talking to whoever you want?”
    “I don’t know. Right now it’s like I have to talk to people I don’t even want to talk to,” Jack replied.
    The big guy looked thrown by Jack’s comment. He’d expected something different—maybe fear or an apology or Jack to back down or something. I was feeling enough fear for both of us, but I knew nobody was going to back down.
    “Do you know that was somebody special you kissed?” he demanded.
    “First off, I didn’t kiss anybody, and second, unlike you, only somebody special would kiss me.”
    The boy looked shocked, and a few of the others snickered before he silenced them with a stare.
    “And from the way he ran away after I punched him, I guess there must be somebody else who’s really special,” Jack said, “a special little girl, because no man would run away like that.”
    “Cheeky little blighter,” he said. “You’re going to regret your actions and your words. I’m here to teach you a lesson.”
    “Obviously you must not be much of a teacher if you need all these people to help.”
    “We stick together.”
    “Well … let’s see.” Jack started counting them. “Twelve of you … you sure you shouldn’t send out for more, just in case?”
    “I think we have quite enough to give you and this little pipsqueak the thrashing of your lives.”
    “Who are you calling a pip—?”
    “Shut up, you little pipsqueak,” Jack said, cutting me off. “She didn’t kiss him, so let him go.”
    “He’s not going anywhere. We’re not letting him run for help.”
    “I don’t need any help to take you down,” Jack said. “But I guess you know that, or you wouldn’t need eleven people to back you.”
    Why was Jack taunting them? He was just making them angrier … then I realized what he was doing. He was trying to shame them, make them feel bad about it takingall of them to fight us. That could work—unless it only made them madder. Then again, how much madder could they get?
    “So much for British fair play and all that garbage,” I said. “You’re nothing but a bunch of thugs. Good thing you’re smart enough to know you need at least a dozen Brits to take on two Canadians.”
    “Brave talk, pipsqueak.”
    “He is brave,” Jack said. “Brave enough not to need eleven guys to back him up. Tell you what, we’ll rather enjoy fighting all twelve of you.”
    Before anybody could say anything more, Jack grabbed a piece of driftwood from the sand. Good plan, we both needed a weapon, and—He started drawing a line in the sand.
    “Back up,” Jack ordered, and some of the boys shifted as he drew a big circle with me right in the centre.
    “We’re going to fight all twelve of you, but two at a time … starting with you,” he said, pointing at the big guy who’d been doing all the talking, “and anybody else you want to bring into the ring with you … unless you’re afraid to fight a pipsqueak and his older brother … who’s still a couple of years younger than you.”
    “Do you really think I’m afraid of you?” he demanded.
    “Actions speak louder than words. I’m not the one who’s standing outside the ring. Pick who you want to come inwith you. And then decide which two come in after we dispose of you and then the next two and the next two … you get the idea.”
    “And why shouldn’t we all jump you at once?” he asked.
    “Like I said, if you don’t have the guts to fight me alone, then that’s what you’ll do. I’m even giving you an advantage, because you get to choose