The Attack — To Kill a Mockingbird

On the way to the school Cecil Jacobs jumps from the dark and scares them witless. Then he laughs, and the fright becomes a schoolboy prank. They go on with their pulses still high. The pageant is a long parade of local crops. Scout, sealed in the ham, misses her cue. Mrs Merriweather is not gentle. Scout keeps the costume on afterward rather than face the crowd in her dress and her shame. When the house empties, Jem waits with her. They start the walk home later than the rest of Maycomb, Scout still trapped in wire and cloth.

The second walk is not like the first. Jem hears someone following. He tells Scout to be quiet. At first they hope it is Cecil again. The follower does not call out. The steps match theirs, then close the gap. Under the oak near the school road the following becomes a rush. Scout cannot see. She is thrown, rolled, and held inside her own costume. Someone tries to crush her, pressing down on the wire. She hears Jem's arm go, a wrong sound she will later know as a break. She crawls and cannot help. Then the weight changes. Another pair of hands is in the dark. The fight shifts away from her. An unknown man lifts Jem and carries him towards the house. Scout stumbles after them in the ruined costume.

At home the house comes awake in the wrong way. Heck Tate is called. Dr Reynolds comes for the broken arm. Scout sees a pale man standing in the corner, quiet as furniture, present in a way she cannot yet name. Heck goes back to the school road and returns with the rest of the news. Bob Ewell is dead under the oak. A kitchen knife is in him. The pageant, the ham, and Cecil's joke have ended in a body on the ground and a stranger in the Finch house.