A Beginning

It started with a snowball, or rather a misshapen mound of ice and mud, which was rolled up on the elementary schoolyard one day in December. The sky was the color of wet cement, the air hung still and cold, and an idea crossed the mind of Maxwell Finch whose fingers were freezing from packing dirty lumps of snow together.

Across the lawn, Liza Cromwell was busy blowing heat into her hands. Her coat hung off her matchstick body like a heavy quilt and her skin was tinted red from the cold. As she cursed herself for forgetting her gloves, something hard and icy smashed into her left cheek. She yelped in surprise and covered her stinging face with her hands. Her nearby classmates giggled with amusement, but Liza didn’t pay any attention to them – she knew who her attacker was, and as she wiped the last of the slush from her cheek, she prepared to go face him.

Across the yard, Max clutched his side with laughter. As he congratulated himself on his great aim, he noticed Liza marching towards him; her fists swung angrily at her sides and her face was scrunched in a furious expression. Unfortunately, Liza’s amount of rage could not make up for her lack of intimidating qualities. In fact, Max seemed to laugh harder.

“That wasn’t funny!” Liza said as she approached him.

“Oh, come on, Liza! Don’t you want to join the snowball fight?” Max teased, laughter on the edge of every word.

“You better shut your mouth, Max, or I’ll wring your neck!” She said.

“Can you even reach my neck?” He said, snickering. What a stupid face he had, and a stupid mouth that spewed stupid insults that always managed to worm their way under Liza’s skin.

Liza’s fists clenched. She could feel the heat rising to her cheeks. “Well maybe you aren’t as big as you think you are!”

“Oh really?” Maxwell asked. He flashed her an insufferable grin. “Prove it.”

His words hung between them. Snowflakes fell carelessly like white dust.

Suddenly, the air was split by Liza’s flying fist, which smashed straight into Max’s nose. There was a sound like snapping twigs, and a jolt of pain shot through Liza’s hand. Max stumbled backwards with a heavy grunt. Liza ignored the throbbing in her fingers and tried to take another swing at him, but Max was ready this time. He caught her arm and delivered a hard blow into her stomach, knocking the breath from her lungs. She fell to the ground, but not before latching tightly onto Max’s coat. They tumbled into the snow in a heap of tangled limbs and angry grunts. Kids gathered around them, cheering and laughing and pushing to get a better view. Liza took a blow to the side of the head. Max gasped as an elbow was shoved into his ribcage. The fighting kids rolled over each other, kicking and scratching and pounding. Snow was shoved into faces and faces were shoved into snow. It was a thrill neither of them had experienced before, and they were certainly making the most of it.

Their show barely lasted more than a minute before Liza was yanked away by the hood of her coat. She was jerked to her feet and found herself looking into the angry eyes of her teacher, Mrs. Grenwit.

She clenched Liza's arm in one hand and pinched Max’s ear painfully between her fingers on the other as she proceeded to drag them both through the crowd of their peers up the concrete steps and into the school. Liza watched the wide-eyed faces of her classmates through the slit of the door as it closed.

Of course, there was no other place for them besides the principal's office. Liza and Max sat in hard wooden chairs, both shaken and nervous and struggling to hide it.

In front of the two beaten-up children was a meticulously laid out desk, and behind it sat Mrs. Pennington. Her posture was that of a stick, and her bun was so tight and neat it was a miracle the skin of her scalp didn't peel away. Liza wondered why she always wore her hair like that; it looked painful.

Ms. Pennington surveyed the kids as they sat fidgeting in their seats. There was a tear in the knee of Liza’s tights, and a red welt stood out on the skin of her left cheek. Her hands rested in her lap, bruised and swollen and covered in blood that probably belonged to Max, considering that it was streaming from his nose at a rapid pace. Bright red splotches already stained the front of his coat, and Ms. Pennington cringed at the thought of it getting on her carpet. She slid a box of tissues across the desk towards him. He thanked her as he pulled a handful of them out and pressed them to his face.

Ms. Pennington cleared her throat and folded her hands on her desk. It was now time to do her duty as principle.

“Now then,” she said, “Which one of you threw the first punch?”

Liza stiffened in her chair. For some reason, it didn’t cross her mind that she was the one to be blamed. She hadn’t even felt guilty about it until those words left Ms. Pennington’s mouth, but as soon as they did, she realized how stupid she had been. Throwing snowballs wasn’t against school rules; throwing punches was. She wondered if the guilt was spreading across her face like it was inside her chest. “Well, then? Speak up!” Ms. Pennington pushed. Max glanced over at Liza, who straightened in her chair and took in a breath to speak, but he cut her off.

“I did,” Max said. “I hit her first.”

Ms. Pennington raised her eyebrows. After working in a school for over thirty years, she could sniff out a lie as efficiently as a dog would a steak. In fact, she considered it to be one of her greatest talents. However in this case, she had even more to go on than her superior intuition; her office window conveniently faced the schoolyard, a fact that Liza and Maxwell had seemed to forget. Yes, she had seen it, she had seen it all. She knew Liza had hit Max first, and she also knew that he deserved it, at least to an extent. Her question was not searching for an answer, but for honesty. Yet what she got was much more interesting.

“Why would you do such a thing, Maxwell?” Ms. Pennington asked, making sure to add a note of disappointment to her voice. She could almost see the gears turning in his head. She had been given a lot of made up excuses throughout her career, and the one Max delivered was not one of the best.

“Well…um…” He said, “I just felt like it.” Ms. Pennington almost laughed, but she must have done a good job hiding it because Max’s eyes were wide with nervousness.

“Two weeks detention. Not a day less,” She said to him. “And you will spend your lunch breaks in my office until further notice. Clear?”

Max nodded. Liza wore an expression of utter confusion.

“I assume you acted in self-defense, Liza?” Ms. Pennington asked. The girl froze for a moment, and Ms. Pennington almost thought she was about to spill the truth, but instead, she clenched her jaw and gave a quick nod.

Ms. Pennington looked between the two disheveled kids. They seemed at least semi-apologetic, but more importantly, they no longer contained the anger that would send them clawing at each other’s throats again. As far as she could tell, her job was done.

“Go home.” Ms. Pennington ordered. “Your parents will be getting a call the moment you leave this room.” Liza stood up from her chair and followed Max to the door. “Oh, and Maxwell?” Ms. Pennington said before he took a step out of the room, “I would get some on that ice on that nose of yours.”

“Yeah, I will,” he said, and they stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind them. Alone in her office, Ms. Pennington leaned back into her chair. She would need to keep an eye on those two.

Outside the principal’s office, Liza allowed her lungs to fill with air. The hallway seemed so huge in comparison to Ms. Pennington’s little room, and the atmosphere was ten times lighter. Liza was happy to be off the wooden seat; her backside was starting to hurt as much as her sore knees. But her relief was quickly overwhelmed by the sudden realization that she was now alone with the boy who had gotten her in this situation in the first place. For a moment, she considered telling him off for his stupidity, but then realized…she wasn’t the one with two weeks detention and no recess. Not to mention, she was the one who hit him first, even if he did deserve it. Which led to another question, one that Max had been waiting patiently for her to ask.

“Why did you take blame?” Liza said.

Max shrugged. “Think of it like a peace offering.”

“A peace offering? What does that even mean?”

“I want to be friends.”

Friends. For a moment, Liza wondered if she had heard him correctly. Surely he couldn’t mean it, could he? But in fact, he did. Although he did not accept defeat, Max couldn’t deny that Liza had guts. He respected it. He maybe even admired it, although he would never admit it to her. He did, however, stop walking and offer her his hand to shake, a gesture that in his eyes could settle any matter. Liza stopped next to him, but did not move to take his offer. Max glanced at her hand expectantly, which hung limp and purple at her side.

“If you’re going to fight, at least learn how to hit someone without bruising your knuckles,” he said.

"And you know how?" Liza asked as she resumed walking, her pace a bit quicker than before. Max let his hand drop to his side and followed next to her.

"Of course I know how,” he said. “Do you know how many fights I've been in?"

"How many?"

"None, besides this one, but that's only because everyone's afraid I'll beat them."

Liza rolled her eyes. "I wonder what they’ll think now after watching you lose,” she said.

“You’re the one that lost! I had you pinned from the start!”

“That’s not true! I wasn’t the one with blood pouring from my nose.”

“You had a lucky shot, my defenses were down.”

“Don’t test me again, Max, or I’ll make sure your nose is broken.”

A blast of cold air hit Liza in the face as she pushed open the door. The snow had stopped falling, and a thin new layer of white crunched under their feet as they walked down the concrete steps. Liza watched as Max’s words escaped from his mouth in a silvery cloud.

“So we can either shake hands, or I can go back to throwing snowballs at you,” he said. He extended his hand again, and this time made sure to look her in the eyes. “Friends?”

Liza paused for a moment, thinking. Finally, she took his hand. “Allies,” She clarified.

Bruised, bloodied, and surprisingly satisfied, the two kids shook hands in the same schoolyard they had fought in. From her window, Ms. Pennington smiled.