Aaron, who was perpetually hungry and felt something knawing at his stomach lining, took the cookies gratefully. "Thanks." Looking around, then back to her. "Later." And, in the true style of a distracted teenager, he wandered off across to the opposite building, bag over his shoulder.
It was sort of like Moses and the Red Sea; people just got out of his way. If he noticed, it was too far away to see his expression, not even after two football jackets plowed through the crowd in his direction. The first one, the same one Aaron had noted in the cafeteria, put his hand against the wall in front of Aaron, impeding his path. When he tried to back up, the other one stopped him. A crowd started to form almost immediately, and it was hard to see what happened next. A short conversation took place, and it appeared that Aaron did reply, and whatever he said wasn't real popular with his listeners. The first one took his hand off the wall and made a move in Aaron's direction.
Everyone was watching the football player's fist, and not Aaron's heel, so to most watchers it looked a lot like the big guy just sort of lost his balance and went down on one knee, even though what he'd done was give him a sharp kick to the back of it. They did see Aaron catch him in the chest with an elbow in midair as he fell, though, and nobody, including the teacher that happened to walk up right at that moment, missed him sliding across the pavement three feet into a locker.
The crowd erupted after that, scrambling ants still craning to see what was happening as three more faculty members pushed through the crowd, and before anybody could do more than watch the football player stagger upright, Aaron was hustled off to the office, leaving behind a babble of teenage speculation as the bell for class shrilled.