In this chap­ter of “Mani­ac Magee,” John McNab, an accom­plished young pitch­er who has nev­er struck out a kid, faces a chal­lenge when he encoun­ters a small, seem­ing­ly unre­mark­able boy, known as Mani­ac. To McNab, this is a blem­ish he can’t accept, lead­ing him to make a plan to deal with the “runt” in what he con­sid­ers an equiv­a­lent way—by beat­ing him up. Along­side his gang, the Cobras, who have instilled fear in the West End, McNab sets out to find Mani­ac, rumored to fre­quent the park and rail­road tracks.

On a Sat­ur­day after­noon, they spot Mani­ac, who is run­ning along the tracks with a book in hand. The Cobras are momen­tar­i­ly stunned by the sight, unsure of how to react. McNab, frus­trat­ed and eager for revenge, picks up stones to throw at him, shout­ing that they should con­front him. Mani­ac, sens­ing dan­ger, jumps off the rail and begins to run, seek­ing refuge.

In a fran­tic escape, Mani­ac choos­es to stick with the tracks, recall­ing a mem­o­ry of safe­ty asso­ci­at­ed with a house where he had enjoyed spaghet­ti. He nav­i­gates through some dif­fi­cult ter­rain, evad­ing the Cobras, who are now throw­ing stones and attempt­ing to catch him. As he races through the town, the fast-paced blur of faces and places sur­rounds him, ampli­fy­ing the ten­sion and urgency of his flight.

Remark­ably, Mani­ac real­izes the voic­es of his pur­suers are fad­ing as he out­paces them. It dawns on him that they’ve stopped, remain­ing on a street one block away, laugh­ing rather than chas­ing. The Cobras are at Hec­tor Street, which serves as a social bound­ary between the East and West Ends—marked by racial divi­sions. Their laugh­ter reveals their assump­tion that Mani­ac, a white boy, would face grave con­se­quences if he crossed into the East End, illus­trat­ing the deep social divides in their com­mu­ni­ty. This chap­ter skill­ful­ly cap­tures the ten­sion between belong­ing and the fear of cross­ing bound­aries in a racial­ly divid­ed town.