"I'll always protect you."

Time to stand up straight.

Monday came a bit sooner than Chris would've liked. Their weekend had been fun. His Saturday soccer game had gone well. He even kicked the winning shot. Then they had to stop Zach from using squirrels for his next bad idea. A perfectly fun and eventful weekend.

Chris had a lot on his mind. There was lots to go over before their next American History test (thankfully, they got to play Kahoot to review), report cards coming in a week, and what he and Martin talked about on Friday. Part of him still didn't think he could stand up to Zach on his own. But he wouldn't know unless he actually tried.

Before he knew it, the lunch bell was ringing just as they finished Kahoot and Chris earned a spot in the top five. Chris picked up his lunch and headed to the cafeteria to meet Martin. He hadn't gone far when he heard an all too familiar voice, "Hey whiney, come back for a second helping of pounding?" Chris rolled his eyes, blew a lock of his hair out of his face, and kept walking. Almost immediately, he was pushed from behind. Chris waited a moment before getting back up and looked at the faces of everyone who seemed to be holding their breath waiting to see Chris's fate decided. Chris turned back to face a laughing Zach, "Uh, Zach?"

"What?"

"Umm. You do notice you're the only one laughing at this, right?"

"So?"

"I heard somewhere that if you're the only one laughing, it's a pretty bad sign."

"Your point? Who's going to stop me?"

"Well, I can't really..stop you from doing anything. But why even do all this? All it shows is that your bigger than me." Chris looked him up and down sizing him up, "I can already see that and so can everyone else...I think." He looked at the crowd watching, "Can anyone not tell that Zach is bigger than me?" There was silence, "I thought so. But, whatever you were going to do next, you can go ahead. But I can't stop coming to school. I'd hate for Mom and Dad to get put in jail. But I guess you'll have to keep doing this 'cause... I'm not afraid of you anymore."

Everyone was still waiting for Zach to do something. Finally just said, "Ugh! This is lame!" and left without another word. The crowd dispersed and Chris went off to lunch.