"Guess you went for a swim, huh?" And she said it with such casual malice that I felt that everyone had known, and I wondered why the whole damn school agreed in advance to possibly drown Miles Halter. But Alaska likedthe Colonel, and in the confusion of the moment, I just looked at her blankly, unsure even of what to ask.

"Give me a break," she said. "Come on. You know what? There are people with real problems. I've got real problems. Mommy ain't here, so buck up, big guy."

I left without saying a word to her and went to my room, slamming the door behind me, waking the Colonel, and stomping into the bathroom. I got in the shower to wash the algae and the lake off me, but the ridiculous faucet of a shower head failed spectacularly, and how could Alaska and Kevin and those other guys already dislike me?

After I finished the shower, I dried off and went into the room to find some clothes.

"So," he said. "What took you so long? Get lost on your way home?"

"They said it was because of you," I said, and my voice betrayed a hint of annoyance. "They said I shouldn't hang out with you."

"What? No, it happens to everybody," the Colonel said. "It happened to me. They throw you in the lake. You swim out. You walk home."

"I couldn't just swim out," I said softly, pulling on a pair of jean shorts beneath my towel. "They duct-taped me. I couldn't even move, really."

"Wait. Wait," he said, and hopped out of his bunk, staring at me through the darkness. "They tapedyou? How?"

And I showed him: I stood like a mummy, with my feet together and my hands at my sides, and showed him how they'd wrapped me up. And then I plopped down onto the couch.

"Christ! You could have drowned! They're just supposed to throw you in the water in your underwear and run!"

he shouted. "What the hell were they thinking? Who was it? Kevin Richman and who else? Do you remember their faces?"

"Yeah, I think."

"Why the hell would they do that?" he wondered.

"Did you do something to them?" I asked.

"No, but I'm sure as shit gonna do something to 'em now. We'll get them."

"It wasn't a big deal. I got out fine."

"You could have died."And I could have, I suppose. But I didn't.

"Well, maybe I should just go to the Eagle tomorrow and tell him," I said.

"Absolutely not," he answered. He walked over to his crumpled shorts lying on the floor and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He lit two and handed one to me. I smoked the whole goddamned thing.

"You're not," he continued, "because that's not how shit gets dealt with here. And besides, you really don't want to get a reputation for ratting. But we will deal with those bastards, Pudge. I promise you. They will regret messing with one of my friends."

And if the Colonel thought that calling me his friend would make me stand by him, well, he was right. "Alaska was kind of mean to me tonight," I said. I leaned over, opened an empty desk drawer, and used it as a makeshift ashtray.

"Like I said, she's moody."

I went to bed wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and socks. No matter how miserably hot it got, I resolved, I would sleep in my clothes every night at the Creek, feeling — probably for the first time in my life — the fear and excitement of living in a place where you never know what's going to happen or when.

"Well,now it's war,"the Colonel shouted the next morning. I rolled over and looked at the clock: 7:52. My first Culver Creek class, French, started in eighteen minutes. I blinked a couple times and looked up at the Colonel, who was standing between the couch and the coffee table, holding his well-worn, once-white tennis shoes by the laces. For a long time, he stared at me, and I stared at him. And then, almost in slow motion, a grin crept across the Colonel's face.

"I've got to hand it to them," he said finally. "That was pretty clever."

"What?" I asked.

"Last night — before they woke you up, I guess — they pissed in my shoes."

"Are you sure?" I said, trying not to laugh.

"Do you care to smell?" he asked, holding the shoes toward me.

"Because I went ahead and smelled them, and yes, I am sure. If there's one thing I know, it's when I've just stepped in another man's piss. It's like my mom always says: `Ya think you's a-walkin' on water, but turns out you just got piss in your shoes.' Point those guys out to me if you see them today," he added, "because we need to figure out why they're so, uh, pissed at me. And then we need to go ahead and start thinking about how we're going to ruin their miserable little lives."