On my way to the bus one afternoon, I got seriously Kropped. Four football players jumped me, ripped my backpack from my shoulder, and knocked me upside the head with it a couple times. They took off, leaving me rolling in the grass.
I heard a girl’s voice above me.
“Hey, are you all right?”
I peeked at her through my fingers. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Tan.
“You’re Alfred Kropp, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“I’m Ashley.”
She had a round face and blue eyes—very blue, maybe the bluest eyes I had ever seen, big too, about the size of quarters.
She sat down beside me. We watched as my bus pulled from the curb, belching black smoke.
“Wasn’t that your bus?” she asked.
I nodded.
“You need a ride?”
I nodded again. Nodding made my head hurt.
“Come on. I’m parked right over there.”
I followed her to the car, a bright yellow Mazda Miada convertible. I dropped my backpack into the tiny backseat and climbed in.
“How do you know my name?” I asked.
“Somebody told me. I just moved here from California.
My dad got transferred.”
“Are you a senior?” I figured she was, since the car was parked in the senior lot.
She nodded. I thought this was it, a perfect example of the luck-o’-the-Kropp: I get a lift by a gorgeous senior and nobody’s around to see it.
“Why were those guys beating you up?”
“Kropping.”
“Kropping?”
“You must be new,” I said, “if you’ve never heard of Kropping.”
“Why don’t you turn them in?”
“It’s not the code.”
She glanced at me. “What code?”
“I don’t know. The code of chivalry, I guess.”
“Chivalry? What, you’re a knight or something?”
I started to say “No, I’m descended from one,” but then she might peg me for a freak, which I kind of was, I guess, but why give that away now?