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It didn’t matter that he was small for his age, or that the other
kids liked to tease him by calling him ‘stubs’ or ‘stubby’ to his face. It didn’t matter that his parents had routinely failed to help him put a stop to his problems at school or that his teachers (the male ones anyway) all
considered him to be a patsy, incapable of standing-up for himself in even
the most basic of aggressive situations. None of these things mattered to
Jacob as he walked past the smoking section and entered the long hall in
the east-wing of James A. McCombry high school.
He considered going to the cafeteria first, to go over the plan one
last time before putting it into action – half-turned in that direction and then
decided it wasn’t such a good idea after all and kept walking past the cafe
toward the stairwell by the gym instead. “Too many teachers” he thought,
reminding himself that the cafeteria was patrolled by a minimum of two
teachers every morning until first period started.
He ascended the stairs. The soles of his Converse sneakers, which
were now little more than hanging flaps of worn-out rubber, flopped against each one as he made his way to the first floor where his locker was situated. On
his way to the hall, he passed Mark Pelter, who yelled, “Hey stubs! – you gotta be more careful. I almost stepped on ya that time!” and then he
was gone down past him before Jacob could think of a reply.
“Bastard,” Jacob thought, and then, “It doesn’t matter. Not
anymore.”
He rounded a corner and came to his locker. A group of girls were
hanging around about three-locker lengths further down. He paused at the foot of the row, out of sight and peered around the edge of the first locker. He
could see the three of them clearly from where he crouched. Jenny Googan,
Nancy Grenshaw and Holly Ciarro were all girls he knew, although he doubted
if any of them would know anything about him, except of course, that he
was short. He sort of had a crush on Nancy, the blonde with the killer
legs that seemed like they went all the way up to her shoulders, but he’d known
better than to try with her because no girl was interested in dating a boy
who would never be taller than four-foot eleven, especially not one with a
killer body like Nancy Grenshaw.
“..is like, such a bitch,” he heard Jenny Googan say, in
teenspeak, the language of all school girls aged eleven to seventeen. The basic difference between the English language as it is usually spoken and teenspeak was the simple insertion of the word ‘like’ several times into each sentence, Jacob mused.
“Oh my god, I know,” Holly Ciarro added.
“She like, doesn’t even own a car. What a loser” was Nancy’s
grand contribution to the conversation.
“If she thinks she can just like, walk in and steal my boyfriend
that way without a fight, she’s like, one crazy bitch.” Jenny continued.
“Crazy and wrong,” Nancy added, bobbing her head to the left and
snapping her fingers, doing her best imitation of the women she sometimes saw on Springer. This got the other girls laughing pretty hard and Jacob had to
stifle a small chuckle. Her impression had been bang-on.
He waited patiently for nearly ten minutes, while the girls
prattled on about this boy and that class and how homework sucked – the usual morning topics of any self-respecting high-school student. While he waited, he took to trying to figure out whether Nancy Grenshaw was wearing a thong, and at some point about seven-minutes later, when Nancy bent over to pick-up a math book she’d dropped, he pleasantly discovered that she was. “There are
benefits to being short after all,” Jacob thought with a boyish smile.
When the girls were finally gone, Jacob approached his locker with the kind of care only a kid of his height could appreciate. You always had to walk with a slight sidelong-tilt, so that you could see clearly if one of the
guys from the rugby team decided it was your turn to spend the morning
crammed inside of your locker. It was a trick Jacob had been known to
employ ever since freshman year when Slim O’Connor had slammed him and his
friend John Zane into Zane’s locker and left the boys there until last
period. “Never again,” he’d declared, but of course, that had been wishful
thinking.
He rolled the dial on the lock two turns right to twenty-one, a full turn left to fifteen and then back right to thirty-six. The lock popped open. He drew back the metal door, heard the familiar squeak of the hinges, and
then peered into the dank darkness that was the inside of his locker.
The object he’d come for lit-up almost immediately, and he stared at
its mounting luminescence like a zombie in one of those late night horror
flicks, one that is trying to figure out how to open a window, so it can
get at the people cowering inside.
He’d found it by sheer luck, two days ago – out by the railroad
tracks behind the Ash street convenience store. He’d been walking home, alone as usual and nursing a fat lip he’d procured at the hands of Mark Pelter
during fourth period gym class. They’d been playing ball hockey and Pelter had
clipped him in the face with the butt of his stick as he dashed by Jacob on
his way to scoring the game-winning goal. It had been a cheap shot, but
Mr. Kurr had either not seen it or had decided to ignore it. Either way, the
result had been an inflamed lip and a damaged sense of pride.
He’d marched with his head down along his usual route when all of a sudden, he’d caught sight of the mystical, glowing orb out of the corner of his eye.
It was strange to admit, even now that he suspected what the thing could
be used for, but it had called to him. He was sure that it had meant for
him to come along and find it. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but the idea was there just the same.
He reached out and touched the surface of the glowing ball. The area where his fingers met the smooth glass of the orb glowed even brighter and that glow lingered even after Jacob had taken his hand away. He reached out again, this time actually lifting the strange globe. He set it inside of his tote-bag, shut the flap, and then closed the door of his locker. He replaced the lock and then trotted off to first period, hoping to make it before the second bell (the one that meant you were late for class).
He made it just in time and took his seat at the far left of the
classroom.
“Don’t bother taking out your textbooks,” Mrs. Lewis announced.
“All you’ll need is a pencil. We’re having a pop-quiz today.”
There was a collective moan from the students.
Jacob opened the flap of his tote-bag and saw the orb-light dance
as the light of the classroom washed over it. He gently eased the ball aside and began routing around the bottom of the bag in search of a number two
pencil.
His hand closed over one, but feeling the tip with his thumb, he
discovered that the point had broken off and decided to keep searching
until he found one that was still sharp. Something small zinged past his ear, just as he was examining the tip of another pencil. Another object ricocheted off the surface of his desk and landed with an almost inaudible plop to the left of his bag. A spit ball!
Jacob wheeled around just in time to duck out of the way of the
next wet-bullet. He looked around the room, determined to find out who was
attacking him (this time…) and saw Pelter sitting in the desk beside him,
hollowed out pen in one hand, piece of lined paper in the other. He was
chewing another spit-bomb, but he was still wearing that stupid grin – the one
that said he was an a-hole who thought picking on people who were smaller
than him was the funniest damn thing ever!
Jacob didn’t hesitate. He drew his arm slowly out of his tote-bag,
still holding the pencil, and then without warning, he turned and whipped it as hard as he could at Mark Pelter’s stupid, grinning face.
For a moment, it looked as though the pencil was going to hit its
mark (Mark), but just as it flew out of his hand, Mrs. Lewis turned the corner
and stepped directly in front of the wooden projectile. Jacob had one
horrible second to hope it would miss before the pencil hit-home, striking
Mrs. Lewis right in the boobs (which were unfortunately dangling at the same
level as Mark Pelter’s infernal smiling face).
Pelter let out a howl of laughter, adding more fuel to the rapidly
burning fire of Mrs. Lewis’ expression of shock and outrage. She grabbed Jacob by the arm, twisting it uncomfortably until he had to stand-up in order to
ease the pain. She dragged him by that same arm, past the gawking looks of his
classmates, and out into the empty hallway.
Mrs. Lewis slammed the classroom door behind them. Jacob watched
as the entire front row of the class winced at the sound of the slamming door.
“Just what in the name of Pete did you think you were doing?” she
shouted.
Jacob had no idea who Pete was, but he thought it best not to ask just now.
Being a smartass almost definitely would not help him get out of this
sticky situation.
“But Mrs. Lewis, I wasn’t trying to-“
“I don’t care what you were trying to do. You should know better
than to throw ANYTHING at another person.”
“I’m sorry – and I do. It’s just that Mark-“
“Pelter again?” She folded her arms and relaxed her posture a
little bit.
“Jacob, when are you going to learn that if you let a bully get to you,
he’ll just keep pushing until you break. Besides, Mark Pelter is the least
of your worries, now. I’m going to have to report this to Principal
Morris. This is the third time this month you’ve done something like this.”
Jacob, who had been casually staring at the floor, looked over at the window to the class. Pelter was leaning over his tote-bag, fishing around inside. Half of the class was staring at this invasion of Jacob’s privacy, while the other half was watching him get lectured by Mrs. Lewis. Pelter’s face lit-up suddenly. “He’s found the ball,” Jacob thought, and his heart sank deep into his chest. Now Pelter would have the advantage. It had all come to nothing.
“…you need to straighten-up – fly right. Do you understand?”
Mrs. Lewis was saying.
Jacob nodded absentmindedly and continued to watch as Mark Pelter
emerged with the glowing blue ball in his hands. He turned to face Jacob and
mouthed the words “Well, look what I found,” from behind the glass window
of the classroom door.
“…because I don’t want to have this discussion with you again,
young man, and IF I do let this slide, I had better see an improvement in your
demeanour from now-on,” Mrs. Lewis continued. Jacob was no longer
listening; he was too busy watching the spectacle that was unfolding inside
of the class.
Pelter was now carelessly waving the ball around with his hand. He
was pretending (in his best “Jacob the short, little loser voice”), to be some
kind of a goofy sorcerer. Suddenly, the light inside of the ball grew
violent, sending ripples of electricity all across its glass circumference.
“OW!!!” he heard Pelter cry and watched as the bully dropped the ball.
Jacob was sure it would shatter when it hit the floor, but it didn’t.
Instead, the electricity from within grew in force and magnitude until it
was sending blue beams all over the classroom.
Inside there was pandemonium as his classmates tried desperately to
avoid being hit by the charged light.
Suddenly there was a brilliant flash. The light hurt Jacob’s eyes, and he raised his arm over his face for protection.
“What’s going on in there?” he heard Mrs. Lewis shout. She opened
the door, and Jacob, who had once again lowered his arm from his face so that he could see, looked into the room, an expression of shock appeared on his
face.
“Where have they all gone?” Mrs. Lewis managed to whimper before sitting down heavily on the barren floor. She turned her head and looked back at Jacob.
The room was completely empty. No more desks, no more books, no more bullies, dirty looks. In the corner of the white-tiled room that had,
until just moments ago, been a fully stocked classroom, kids included, sat
the now dormant, blue orb.
Jacob walked over and retrieved his ball. He wasn’t sure what had
happened, wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t be blamed for it, and he
certainly wasn’t sure what to make of the dazed looking teacher sitting
where the front row of desks had, until just recently been, but the one
thing he was sure of – the one definite to come out of all of this, he
thought, was that he, Jacob Green would never, NEVER, be picked on by
anybody, ever again…
