Anton's Odyssey by Marc Andre Page A

protested.
    “Well it’s not yours to look at, douchebag!” the kid snorted rudely.
    Cotton took a step forward, “I just wanted to see —” but the kid shoved him back with his free hand. Cotton kicked the kid in the shin, and the kid dropped the ball so he could grapple Cotton unencumbered. An obvious neophyte to scuffling, the kid tried to knock Cotton over by driving his shoulder into Cotton’s chest, a terrible mistake that negated his height advantage and placed his center of gravity quite literally in Cotton’s hands. Cotton grabbed the back of the kid’s expensive shirt and inverted it, pulled it up over the taller kid’s head. As the kid struggled, Cotton spun so that he was no longer supporting his opponent’s weight. Blind and off balance, the kid took a few quick steps but couldn’t control his forward momentum. He crashed head first into the bleachers. Other kids encircled the ensuing melee and began shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
    Unharmed, the tall kid got back on his feet, but before he could fix his shirt, Mr. Fox had pushed his way through the circle of excited kids. Pointing at the door, he screamed at Cotton angrily, “Get out! Get out!” Purple veins bulged in his forehead.
    Cotton complied, and I followed close behind, knowing that it was futile to point out to Mr. Fox that the kid in the fancy shirt was equally culpable. Cotton could care less about getting kicked out of the gym. He got kicked out of places on a weekly basis. In the passageway, he grinned.
    “I could have taken that guy easy if that teacher dude with the funky hairdo didn’t stop me,” Cotton declared.
    “Yes,” I agreed, “and he would have deserved it too.”
    “He was much bigger than me, but he didn’t seem very tough.”
    “I imagine a lot of the kids here talk tough but aren’t tough at all. They’re not at all like the kids from our old neighborhood.”
    Cotton smiled widely. He finally understood we would no longer have to live in fear of the goons and gangsters who terrorize d our old neighborhood.
    “Be careful,” I warned. “Don’t go around starting scuffles just for the fun of it. Didn’t you see how Mr. Fox blamed you even though that other kid started it?”
    Cotton nodded. We had both accepted life wasn’t fair long ago. Without realizing it, we were pushing rules to the limits in a subconscious effort to figure out how to game the system.
    The door to the gym burst open behind us, and Hammond came running out.
    “Man, you totally took Charlie to school,” he said, beaming at Cotton and slapping him on the back with approval. “That kid totally deserves it too. Always walking around with his nose in the air, thinking he’s something special ‘cause his dad’s first mate.”
    Oh that’s not good, I thought, at least things didn’t get too far out of hand. Back home, I saw Cotton act like a gangster once when he was really upset. He stomp a kid’s head, and the guy’s teeth chipped as his face bounced off the pavement. If Cotton busted Charlie’s fine teeth, the first mate might very well turn the ship around for the sole purpose of evicting my family. Worse yet, the crew might shoot Cotton out the airlock and make it look like some sort of accident.
    “You guys going to sneak back in?” Hammond asked.
    “Probably not a good idea,” I said. “Mr. Fox will give us hell if he catches us.”
    “Well, I’m done lifting weights. You guys can hang out at my place.”
    Hammond’s living quarters were at least twice as big as ours. Neither of his parents were home. I asked him what his parents did, and he told me his mother worked in the mess hall as a cook. His father was a technician in the engine room.
    “He might even get rated able starman next voyage,” Hammond said, beaming with pride, “then he’d get a white jump suit, and we’d get to move into an even bigger place.”
    “How do the able starmen keep those white uniforms so clean?” I asked.
    “Some ships