Friends Again “Good luck on your first day of school, Bill,” my dad Bob said. “Get lost. You have never done anything for me!” I said as I got out of the car. I haven’t liked my dad at all for four years now, because he doesn’t understand anything about my problems at school. I walked into the school and wondered what middle school would be like. I was sure that I would be good at academics, but I had never done well in sports. When I walked to my first class, I tried to talk to some people, but they either made fun of me or just ignored me. “Welcome to English. My name is Ms. Ford,” the teacher said. “In this course we will have 500 points total.” English is my favorite subject, this will be easy. As she started talking on about English I thought about “Runescape,” a game I had overheard in a conversation near my locker right before 3rd period. They said it was addictive and was a really good game. Finally after 40 minutes the bell rang for next period. But then the teacher stopped me. “You have to pay more attention in class. If you don’t, you probably won’t do very well,” she said. “But English is my easiest subject.” “I don’t care; this year is totally different than your previous English classes.” “Ok,” I said as I sighed. “I have to go to class.” “Pay attention!” She yelled as I walked out the room. The rest of the morning went well until it was time for lunch. As I walked through the crowded hallways. I was practically pushed down every time I got up because there were so many people, so when I got to my locker I had a million bruises on me. I opened up my locker, put my backpack in, and took out my Spider Man lunch box. I had been obsessed with Spider Man all through elementary school. I then walked back through the crowded hallways to the lunch room. At lunch I started to look around for a table, then it caught my eyes and I saw my friend from middle school named Jacob. When I went over to the table he was sitting at, I noticed there were two strange faces sitting on both sides of him I have never met. When I started to sit down Jacob interrupted me. “What are you doing here?” “I came to sit with you.” “Don’t you notice I have better friends than you? Go be friends with some other nerd.” “Don’t you remember, we would play video games together?” “Those days are over. Now move it!” Suddenly his friends started laughing. I knew it was about me, but what? I thought. As I started pushing my way through the crowds to an empty table I thought more about what his friends were laughing about. Was it my clothes? Was it me trying to sit at their table? Then it hit me they were laughing about the fact that I was even friends with Jacob, being the nerd I was. I decided to walk into the empty hallways where nobody could give me mean faces or push me around. But in ten minutes lunch was over and it was back to being pushed around. As I made it to my locker I overheard kids talking about what a nerd I was. Then finally I made it to my locker and I thought, How could it get around the school that fast?! It seemed like an eternity to get there even though it was only a minute. When I got to my locker there was graffiti all over it. Most of them said, “NERD” or “YOU SUCK.” But then I saw one that said, “MEET AT FLAGPOLE AFTER SCHOOL.” For the rest of school it, seemed like days wondering what my doom would be after school. Finally the last bell rang. I thought one last time. One side of me said Maybe meeting this person isn’t a good idea. But the other side of me said, You can’t back out now, everyone will think I’m scared. Then I got the nerve to go. When I got to the flagpole there was nobody there so I started biting my nails nervously. Then out of nowhere comes the toughest kid in the grade. “So you’re Bill?” Eric said. I nodded. “I’ve heard roomers that you’re an annoying little brat, and I’m here to end that. Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is to just stay out of my sight, or you can have yourself made into part of the pavement. You’ve got one day to make your decision. Now move it, twerp!” I ran away scared to death. As I was running I saw my uncle’s car pulling up and I jumped in. My uncle was really nice and picked me up each afternoon. He was the only person I could trust. “What was that about?” he said. “They want me to leave the school because they don’t like me.” “I’ll be right back.” I watched him as he walked to the bully. I saw him start yelling, I could only hear a few words. ? “…just leave…alone!” I saw the bully start pushing him and then he started walking back to me. “Don’t believe anything he says about you, they are all lies” my uncle said. “Thanks for standing up for me” I said as he drove away from the school. “How was the rest of your day?” “Terrible, I was pushed constantly in the hallways, my friend dumped me, my teacher got mad at me, and my locker had spray paint all over it saying ‘YOU SUCK’ or ‘NERD.’ “It is only the first day so people don’t know anything about you and can’t have an opinion on you.” “That’s a good point; I don’t have any friends because I don’t express myself” “Now you’re getting it, you have to be more open to new people maybe leaving your old ones behind” “Thanks for the help” I said as I got out of the car. I ran to the computer ramming through the front door and dropping my backpack so I could play runescape. As the game loaded I thought about how I would express myself to other people. Finally the game loaded and told me to create an account. When I made an account it started playing some bad music so I turned it off. The game taught me how to kill stuff and make money. I started out with bronze, then iron, then steel, mithiril, and finally dragon right before my dad forced me to go upstairs. “Its 10:00PM go to bed.” I had been playing for six hours. He was right it was addictive…too addictive. In the morning my alarm woke me up at 7:00 to the sound of the Beatles my favorite band. I slowly got out of bed knowing I had to wake up. I went downstairs to have breakfast to see my uncle there. “Where is my dad?” I asked. “He’s on a business trip and will be gone for a few days so I’m going to take care of you.” “Awesome” I said as I poured my Wheat Thins. As I ate my Wheat Thins I thought about how awesome it would be to be just me and my uncle together. After 10 minutes he said we had to go to school. I put my half eaten cereal bowl in the sink. I picked up my backpack and went through the door to the car. As we pulled into the school drop-off zone my uncle said. “Remember to be open to people” “Ok, bye” I said as I got out of the car. While I was walking through the glass doors for the second time. I got pushed around and tripped. Finally, I got to my English class. “Everybody would you please take out your homework” Ms. Ford said. When she came to me to take my homework she asked where it was and I said. “I didn’t know we had homework” How did I miss a homework assignment I said to myself. “I told you to pay attention in class; you get a 0 on the assignment.” “That’s not fair!” “Yes it is now sit down and shut up!” By now everybody was staring at me. I was too embarrassed to say anything so I just sat down. She finished picking up the homework and went to the front of the classroom. “Today we will be having a pop quiz on yesterday’s class” she said. “This will be an open note quiz so you can use whatever notes you took on yesterday” As she finally got too me I asked her. “I didn’t take notes for yesterday.” “You’ll just have to use your memory, maybe next time you should pay attention!” she emphasized in an angry voice. When I read the top it said ‘150 points.’ I skimmed through the test and said to myself I don’t know anything on this test. “This is ridiculous!” I yelled so loud the whole school probably heard me. I quickly covered my mouth and thought I am such an idiot. Ms. Ford walked swiftly to my desk as she quickly noticed I was the one who yelled. “You just got yourself another 0” she said as she took my paper. I quickly did the math that that was 1/3 of my grade meaning the best grade I can get for the year is now a D. I had never gotten anything lower than the time I got an A- on a small homework assignment. “That’s not fair!” I said as I jumped out of me seat giving Ms. Ford a punch in the stomach. I ended up in the principals office before I could say ‘I hated her’ which on was planning on saying right after I punched her. I handed the note to the principal. I couldn’t believe how much she hated me. As he was skimming through the page I saw his face turn from a smile to a frown. I knew he was going to yell right after, and I was right. “How could you do this to a teacher, she’s our nicest teacher and she’s mad! You should be ashamed of yourself!” As I looked down at the floor trying to hold my anger in suddenly in the blink of an eye I was the one yelling at him. “You think it’s easy to listen to that teacher for 40 minutes, hand in homework you don’t even know what it’s on, and then take a pop test on yesterday’s stuff that’s worth 1/3 of your grade and then say nothing when you know you’re going to fail the test!” “None of this would have happened if you paid attention in class!” Right there I couldn’t take it any farther and tried to push Mr. Straw onto his desk but he quickly got a hold of me and that just made everything worse. “I hate you!” I yelled at him. “That’s it, you have gone to far your suspended for a day so that you can think about your actions.” “You can’t suspend me, I’m supposed to be your best student.” “Not at this rate you aren’t now go to 3rd period before you get in trouble again!” As I walked out of the office I wondered what my dad would say. He’s going to kill me. I imagined what would happen to me if I just got a B. The rest of the morning past and everyone knew that I was in trouble. Everybody thought I was so stupid trying to punch the teacher. The secretary came to me during 3rd period and told me my uncle was picking me up at the end of lunch. When I got to lunch I sat down at a table by myself in the back of the lunchroom but was shortly after interrupted. I looked up I saw it was the bully with the whole school behind him. “Didn’t I tell you to get out of this school!” the bully said. I remembered yesterday and that he told me to get away from here. I first thing I thought of was Run, Run till my legs are fire so I don’t get humiliated. And of course that is what I did. But I was quickly stopped by one of the surrounding kids. The bully started walking towards me and said “You too much of a wimp to fight!?” I looked around only to notice that had made it only more humiliating. So I thought again I can’t get away so I’ll just have to punch him. “I’m not a wimp; I cold beat you up any day” I tried to throw the hardest punch I ever did. But instead of hitting the bully I fell off balance. Suddenly everyone was laughing at me. I quickly got up but then the bully punched me and I fell again. “You better just leave now” the bully said. Suddenly I saw my uncle walk into the lunchroom. He quickly noticed that I was being beat up. He came over to me and helped me up. “Looks like Bill is too weak for me” the bully said “You better stop punching him right now” my uncle said. “You think you can stop me” Suddenly my uncle started throwing punches at him and soon enough he had the bully pinned down. Finally the bully said, “Fine, you win.” My dad let go of him and said, “If you pick on him one more time your dead.” My dad and I then silently left the lunchroom. As we walked down the hallways I thought about whether they would stop bullying me after that. As we walked out the big glass doors my uncle said. “Sounds like you have had a really bad day.” At first I didn’t respond. Then I said “Nothing has gone the right way for me today.” “How about I take you too the ice cream parlor.” “Ok” When we got into the car I noticed the bully was being escorted by the principal somewhere. The rest of the trip we just listened to the radio. When we got to the ice cream parlor and I got out of the car I noticed that Jacob was there. At first, as I walked through the doors and I ignored him but then he interrupted me. “Hi, Bill” “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?” “I was too afraid too go to school.” “What about your friends, how could you be afraid of them?” “The thing is, there not my friends.” “So were friends?” “Yeah.”
Copyright © 2005 Eli Robbins |