Chapter 48: Nobody Takes Her

Troy was across the gym before anyone else had moved.

The floor shook under him, and the mats flew.

"Hazel!"

He hit the front door with his shoulder and stood in it.

Hazel had stopped on the sidewalk.

She had not stopped because she was told.

She had run straight into a wall of legs.

The baker was there in her flour-white apron, and the retired mailman with his cane, and the laundromat owner with both sons.

The girl of nine had caught Hazel around the middle and was holding her up.

Her free fist was raised at the black car.

Behind them stood thirty more.

Nobody had called them.

Nobody had told them where to stand.

They had come out of the gym at a run.

They had made a line across the pavement, shoulder to shoulder, with Hazel in the middle of it.

Troy stopped on the step with his chest heaving.

He had not been needed.

"I got her, Mr. Falk," the girl said, out of breath.

"I see that."

"Nobody gets past us."

"Nobody will."

The car door opened.

Every person on the sidewalk went rigid.

Celia came out of the gym behind him with her hand on the frame.

Molly came with the baby clutched to her chest.

Giselle came last.

A man climbed out of the driver's seat.

He wore a cap with a flower on it and a green apron.

In both arms he carried a bouquet of enormous silver balloons.

They bobbed in the wind.

"Delivery," the man called. "Sorry. Traffic."

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