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How does Paul know something goes wrong on Monday ? What do you think Paul hoped would happen ?

Paul Fisher and his brother Erik have never gotten along.  Until the end of the book, Paul can't quite remember why, but he has learned to stay away from his brother.  He considers him extremely dangerous, and often compares him to some kind of monster.  


Multiple times in the book, Erik is cruel to Paul's friends when they come to his house.  Because of this, Paul doesn't have friends over often.  However, he is very excited when the members of his science project group from Tangerine Middle are coming over to work on their project.  They all are having a good time until Erik shows up.  When Erik drives up, Paul immediately panics, but he doesn't know what to do.  He describes later that he "just stared...paralyzed with fear, while the scene rolled on."  


Erik walks up to them and casually says, "Look at this. I think it's great that these farm-labor kids get to spend a day away from the fields."  Erik begs Tino to just let it go, but Tino throws a few insults back.  Erik then walks up and hits Tino so hard that he gets knocked back onto the grass and doesn't move.  It's important to remember that Erik is a lot older than Tino, which is what makes this attack especially revolting.  Paul tries to apologize and help Tino up once Erik has walked away, but Erik is disgusted with his weakness, and ignores him.


When Tino's older brother, Luis, finds out that Erik attacked Tino, he goes to find him on the football field and teach him a lesson.  However, on Erik's orders, Erik's friend Arthur hits Luis over the head with a Blackjack, which is a very heavy and very powerful old fashioned weapon.  Paul sees the whole thing, but again feels powerless to stop it.  When Paul sees Luis a few days later, he tries to apologize, but Luis assures him that he has a plan.  Luis and a few players on Erik's team are planning to attack Erik on the following Monday when all the players are handing in their football gear.  Paul is almost thrilled by the idea.


This moment is a particularly poignant one, because Paul shows absolutely no concern or feeling for his brother. Rather, he is extremely excited.  On Monday, he stays home from school and waits anxiously for his brother to return home, hoping that he will be covered in bruises.  Instead, Erik returns home without a scratch.  Paul knows immediately that something has gone wrong.  He trie to convince himself that they must have just changed the plans for another day.  Instead, devastatingly, he finds out that Luis has died.  It doesn't take him long to realize that it was the hit over the head from Arthur's blackjack that killed him.  He knows that his brother and his friend are murderers, but again, he feels completely powerless to do anything about it.  

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