Low men in yellow coats by Stephen King

The three St Gabe’s boys pulled up even with them. Then two of them — the one with the dangling cross and the one Carol had called Willie — came a little farther, standing around the forks of their bikes now, walking them. With mounting dismay Bobby realized he and Carol had been surrounded. He could smell a mixture of sweat and Vitalis coming from the boys in the orange shirts.

‘Who are you, Maltex Baby?’ the third St Gabe’s boy asked Bobby. He leaned over the handlebars of his bike for a better look. ‘Are you Garfield? You are, ain’tcha? Billy Donahue’s still lookin for you from that time last winter. He wants to knock your teeth out. Maybe I ought to knock one or two of em out right here, give im a head start.’

Bobby felt a wretched crawling sensation begin in his stomach — something like snakes in a basket. I won’t cry again, he told himself. Whatever happens I won’t cry again even if they send me to the hospital. And I’ll try to protect her.

Protect her from big kids like this? It was a joke.

‘Why are you being so mean, Willie?’ Carol asked. She spoke solely to the boy with the auburn hair. ‘You’re not mean when you’re by yourself. Why do you have to be mean now?’

Willie flushed. That, coupled with his dark red hair — much darker than Bobby’s — made him look on fire from the neck up. Bobby guessed he didn’t like his friends knowing he could act like a human being when they weren’t around.

‘Shut up, Gerber Baby!’ he snarled. ‘Why don’t you just shut up and kiss your boyfriend while he’s still got all his teeth?’

The third boy was wearing a motorcycle belt cinched on the side and ancient Snap-Jack shoes covered with dirt from the baseball field. He was behind Carol. Now he moved in closer, still walking his bike, and grabbed her ponytail with both hands. He pulled it.

‘0w!’ Carol almost screamed. She sounded surprised as well as hurt. She pulled away so hard that she almost fell down. Bobby caught her and Willie — who could be nice when he wasn’t with his pals, according to Carol — laughed.

‘Why’d you do that?’ Bobby yelled at the boy in the motorcycle belt, and as the words came out of his mouth it was as if he had heard them a thousand times before. All of this was like a ritual, the stuff that got said before the real yanks and pushes began and the fists began to fly.

He thought of Lord of the Flies again — Ralph running from Jack and the others. At least on Golding’s island there had been jungle. He and Carol had nowhere to run.

He says ‘Because I felt like it.’ That’s what comes next.

But before the boy with the side-cinched belt could say it, Robin Hood with the homemade bat-sling on his back said it for him. ‘Because he felt like it. Whatcha gonna do about it, Maltex Baby?’ He suddenly flicked out one hand, snake-quick, and slapped Bobby across the face. Willie laughed again.

Carol started toward him. ‘Willie, please don’t — ‘

Robin Hood reached out, grabbed the front of Carol’s shirt, and squeezed. ‘Got any titties yet? Nah, not much. You ain’t nothing but a Gerber Baby.’ He pushed her. Bobby, his head still ringing from the slap, caught her and for the second time kept her from falling down.

‘Let’s beat this queer up,’ the kid in the motorcycle belt said. ‘I hate his face.’

They moved in, the wheels of their bikes squeaking solemnly. Then Willie let his drop on its side like a dead pony and reached for Bobby. Bobby raised his fists in a feeble imitation of Floyd Patterson.

‘Say, boys, what’s going on?’ someone asked from behind them.

Willie had drawn one of his own fists back. Still holding it cocked, he looked over his shoulder. So did Robin Hood and the boy with the motorcycle belt. Parked at the curb was an old blue Studebaker with rusty rocker panels and a magnetic Jesus on the dashboard.