The next day, Dana looked forward to classes as he trudged his way through the snow to the entryway of the classes building. Once inside the interior of the building, he was happy to be in the much warmer hallways. Unbuttoning his heavy coat, he headed toward the lockers. He’d stacked his books inside his locker the previous day so he wouldn’t have to lug them about with him yesterday evening. There wasn’t any major homework assignments yet, so he figured he could take them home today when his dad picked him up.

Dana pulled out his Biology book and closed the locker door. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he was confronted with Greg.The larger boy was leaning against the locker beside Dana’s with his arms crossed. He flashed a dazzling smile full of white even teeth.

“Hey Mitchell!” Greg greeted warmly. The sandy-haired young man looked handsome in his lettered jacket. Dana now knew Greg was the captain of the college basketball team and that most of the guys he hung out with were also on the team.

“Hey.” Dana answered shyly, but his hushed voice was mostly lost in the hustle and bustle of students filing in the hallway from classrooms that had released for the day.

Greg looked like he was going to say something else, but was interrupted when someone – Ian, if Dana wasn’t mistaken – suddenly wrapped his arm about Greg’s shoulder. The two tussled for a brief moment as Ian tried to put the larger male in a headlock, but Greg managed to shrug the slighter boy off of him.

Dana listened quietly as the guys talked back and forth, mostly about basketball, which Dana had little knowledge or interest in. Basketball – sports in general, really – was Kalen and their dad’s forte. Feeling left out of the conversation, Dana watched the other students milling about them.

He noticed a couple of Métis students approaching. Dana recognized the taller of the two from his Anthropology class. He was the same young man whose notebook Ricky had knocked from his desk. Dana still wondered how accidental it had really been.

The two young men seemed preoccupied in their own conversation, so they took no notice of the three of them standing at the lockers as they walked by. Ian took notice of the Métis boys, though.

With a swipe of his hand, Ian knocked the stack of books the one closest to him was carrying. It was obviously done on purpose. Ian and Greg immediately started sniggering.

“Opps, my bad.” Ian said, his voice dripping with false sincerity.

“Yes, just like last time.” One of the Métis boys retorted bitterly. “It’s always your bad.”

“What was that?” Ian sneered as he took a threatening step forward. The Métis boy, for his part, didn’t back down. He advanced toward them until he was standing nearly chest-to-chest with Ian.

“You heard me. You snot nosed brats with your big shot daddies. They think they own this town, but they’re just a bunch of crooks.” The Métis boy retorted. Then, he turned his furious dark gaze on Greg. “That goes double for your old man and his corrupt deal with that big time fracking company.”

“It’s just business.” Greg sneered. He leaned against the lockers, arms crossed, somehow looking both smug and exceedingly bored at the same time.

“It’s not business. It’s destroying our ancestral tribal lands. That’s not business. That makes your daddy a dirty crook and a bastard.”

Suddenly, there was a lot of pushing and shouting as Ian went for the Métis lad. Dana quickly moved aside when the fists started flying.

Everything happened quickly after that. One moment, the argument escalated to fisticuffs, and the next, school security was pulling apart the perpetrators. There was more yelling back and forth between both sides until one of the security guards pushed the Métis boy away from a bloodied-nosed Ian. The security guard pointed at the taller Métis guy, the one who’d bloodied Ian’s nose.

“Keep your temper, Joe.” The security guard snapped. “Do you really want us to have to contact the chief again? You know what he said would happen the next time he catches wind of you fighting?”