Within the Pages

Chapter 2

Thank you to everyone who has read this far. I hope you enjoy it. If you have any edits, comments, random words, feel free to comment. 

Chapter 2

There were things that I didn't tell my grandfather about school. When my grandfather talked about my friends he actually thought that I had some. In the past, I've told him I am quite popular because I haven't wanted him to worry about me. He was doing enough by caring for me. My friends were all characters from books that I read and the adventures that we had were from other tales that I had converted into reality. With a little tweaking, I had a full circle of buddies.

Most of the popular people at my school bully me and sometimes even the unpopular kids get in on the act. I am the only boy who reads so much. I am also the only person at the school who had lost both his parents and the other students like to tease me about my parents leaving because I am so ugly. They taunt me with comments about how my mom & dad left because they knew I would be a nobody in life.

Today was different. When I got to school, the people who bully me were being very nice to me. They patted me on the back and treated like a friend. They wished me happy birthday and told me how sorry they were for all of the times that they were cruel to me. They wanted to make it up to me on my special day. I didn't really believe them but I played along anyways just in case I was wrong and the kids had really changed. It wasn't too much to hope for. It can happen, right?

We all walked to my locker. The other students were still talking to me like I was their friend. I turned to my locker and I put in my lock combination. I took off my lock. As I started opening my locker, I noticed the kids backing away and I realized too late that it was a trick. I leaned into my locker to see what the trick was and the more I opened the door, the wider the string attached to a bucket of paint on the top shelf became stressed and finally toppled and spilled. The paint splashed all over me. I got soaked in the ugliest shade of brown as the entire widening crowd laughed. Their gales of laughter rattled my ears. Blood pounding in my ears, I couldn't think; I just acted. As anger changed my white face to red, I went up to the closest bully, the meanest of the bunch; I did something that I have never ever thought of doing. Well, maybe I had thought of it but I wouldn't have done it. I punched him right in the nose. Unfortunately he just happened to live up to his reputation of being the meanest and biggest of the bullies. He picked me up, carried me outside and threw me in the trashcan just outside the front door. I could hear the bell ringing as he shoved me in.

"See you later, booklover. Now you look the way you smell," he tossed over his shoulder as he and his buddies went back inside of the school.

Luckily the garbage can wasn't rooted to the ground so I was able to wiggle around until it fell over and I could get out. Unfortunately that meant that I bruised my arm and I banged my head against the pavement. I crawled out of the garbage can and put it back up in place. I stopped as I was heading up the steps. I thought about whether I should go in. I shook my head. Was it really wise to go back and let the whole school see that I was covered in paint and just shoved into a garbage can? There might be two or three people that missed the excitement. I decided that those people could do without. I would go home and clean up. I started to walk back as folks walking along the sidewalk stopped and stared. Some had pity written all over their faces. Happy birthday to me.