“You like tripping kids who are smaller than you?” he asked.
“What? That was an accident.”
“Like hell it was.”
Chase’s face twisted into a foul expression. Whenever Mason saw him, he always looked like he was pissed about something, but right then, he wasn’t just mad—he was furious.
Chase shoved him again.
“Stop it!” Mason said.
“Come on. Push me back, wuss!”
For a small kid, he sure was a feisty thing.
Mason wasn’t planning on getting into a fight, but Chase lunged at him, throwing a fist.
Mason grabbed his wrist and attempted to restrain him. They wrestled about until Chase knocked him down. Soon, they were rolling across the ground. Mason grabbed hold of Chase’s wrists and pinned him down.
“I didn’t mean to trip you!” Mason insisted, feeling horrible that the kid was so sure he was being mean.
The other kids circled around them, and Chase stopped resisting, his expression shifting as he seemed to hear Mason for the first time.
Someone grabbed Mason by his arms and lifted him off Chase.
It was Mr. Kruger, his fifth grade teacher.
“Okay, boys,” his teacher said. “You know where we’re heading.”
Mr. Kruger helped Chase to his feet and guided them back into the school. They were escorted to the main office where Principal Edwards lectured them about the potential consequences of their actions. He said he wouldn’t punish them that time since neither of them had been injured, but he was calling their parents, and they would be forced to go home that day. Mason would have to explain the fight to Ma and Pa, and they sure wouldn’t be thrilled about being pulled away from the dairy to drive an hour out of their way to deal with him.
When the principal was finished scolding them, they waited in the main office for their parents to pick them up for the day.
Chase kept looking over at Mason, who couldn’t figure out why he was looking at him.
About an hour went by before the double doors to the main office opened and Ma stepped in. The rubber on her boots made a loud sound as they hit the tile floor. She wore dirty overalls and reeked of the more unpleasant dairy fragrances, which suggested she’d come right over after Principal Edwards had called her.
She gave Mason a cross look before talking with the assistant at the front desk, and when she finally approached him, she placed her hands on her hips. Her long, strawberry-blond hair was tied up, a few stray locks falling over her face. She looked to Chase and then back at Mason.
“You’re going to apologize to him is what you’re going to do. You know that, right?”
But he hadn’t done anything wrong. Chase had freaked out on him. That was the only reason they were even in that mess.
Before he could explain, Ma said, “Come on now. This isn’t about whose fault it is. I don’t care. This is about learning that the only fight you need to have is with your ego sometimes. Now I don’t want to make you do it.”
She grabbed Mason’s arm and guided him to Chase’s chair on the other side of the room.
“What do you have to say to him?”
Mason could tell by the look in Chase’s eyes that he knew Mason hadn’t been lying about not meaning to trip him.
An apology was going to be so humiliating.
“Sorry,” he forced out because he knew Ma would have her way eventually.
“No,” Chase muttered. He looked to Ma. “It was my fault, Mrs. Finley.”
Mason was so shocked by his confession that his mouth fell open.
