Of all the kids at the Twelfth Avenue school the one Rodney hated most was Jimmie Larkin. He was the one who’d started the hated nickname that Rodney now bore on the playground—”Owl Eyes.” Jimmie was the first one to die. Rodney did it for a tongue-tied little Italian boy named Salvatore Maggini. His reward was an 1898 Indian Head penny, which filled a vacant slot in his coin board. Of all the kids that Jimmie Larkin picked on, Salvatore was his prime target. It was Salvatore that Jimmie beat up every day for a solid week. It was Salvatore that Jimmie pummeled and ridiculed at every recess.

At first Rodney “Owl Eyes” Parish was merely relieved that it wasn’t he that was getting the lumps from overmuscled Jimmie. But then the idea that had begun some four months ago in fertile ground thrust out its first green shoots. People who were the way the man in the yellow-and-gray car had been couldn’t pick on you. People who were in the shoes of the man in the blue car-well, they would pay.

He caught Salvatore in the boys’ rest room, where he was spending a miserable recess hiding from Jimmie Larkin.

“How’d ya like it if that old Jimmie Larkin never bothered you again.”

The black eyes came up to his. “Go on,” Salvatore managed to stutter, “you can’t whip him.”

“You gimme your Indian Head penny and I’ll make sure he never bothers you again.” Rodney scuffed one shoe over the other. “By day after tomorrow.”

There was hate and fear in Salvatore’s eyes. But there was also hope. He nodded.

“Gimmie now,” Rodney said. He held out his hand. Salvatore filled it.

Jimmie was easy. Despite his muscles he was dull witted.

Rodney sidled up to him after school. “Hey, Jimmie,” he said.

Jimmie looked back at him with infinite disgust. “Whatcha want, Owl Eyes?”

Rodney smiled his most ingratiating smile. “I got something I want to give you if you’ll walk home with me.”