June 8, 2010 (12pm)
“Well,”
John said, calling everyone’s attention back to him. He made a handsome grin,
and said, “That’s all.”
He
walked back to his desk in Row 3, as his friends from each row led the
applause. “We don’t want students from 4th Project Town. They cause
big trouble,” the other students shouted. They began pointing at Chalano.
“Back
to the lesson, class,” the teacher called as she stood up and walked to the
blackboard. Good. That got their attention from the poor Chalano.
The
teacher wrote a long article on the blackboard for the students to copy to
their notebooks. The whole class was quiet again as the students got busy with
writing, but Chalano couldn’t focus. What was John saying? That they started the fight? How could that
be? It was John who started the fight. How did we end up being the
troublemakers? We weren’t doing anything bad to him. He was teasing Kim about
Kim’s family. Then he began to taunt me. Whatever made everyone think that we
were the troublemakers?! Did that mean that we shouldn’t have defended
ourselves ONLY because he was the leader here? Chalano’s jaw was tightening
with anger. He wanted to scream at Row 3, Hey! If we were the real
troublemakers, who’s starting the trouble this time? The class was so quiet and
peaceful, then you go around bringing up such an unreasonable topic?! What did
we do wrong? Chalano really wanted to scream at John, but he would look silly
suddenly starting a fight in the middle of a quiet class. I should’ve talked
back while he was doing his speech there at the blackboard. These thoughts kept
repeating in Chalano’s head as 12pm turned into 1pm, 1pm turned into 2pm, and
so on.
The
school bell. Finally. Chalano stood up, and quickly put his school stuff into
his backpack. He hurried out of the classroom before Kim could catch up with
him. He just didn’t feel like he would be able to stand Kim’s unstoppable noise
today. He walked to the back of the auditorium, which led to the parking lot.
John’s father allowed him to borrow
his car, and John always parked the car near the auditorium. Chalano waited.
After more than 30 minutes, John came with three of his friends. He ignored
Chalano, and walked to his black Kia Piccanto. Chalano approached John before
John got into the car. He’d never voluntarily speak to John before, but he wasn’t nervous because he was
very angry. He tried to calm down to keep himself from just attacking John, “What
were you saying at the classroom? We didn’t start the fight. We were not the
troublemakers. We didn’t even know that
you were there.”
John
turned to him, and tilted his head. Chalano couldn’t figure out whether or not
John was angry, because the twinkle in his huge, brown eyes was still there. John
tilted his head to an abnormal angle, and raised his thick eyebrows as he said
in a sing-song tone, “Are you saying that I
was the troublemaker ….?”
“If
that was what happened, just accept it. The class wouldn’t have known about the
incident if you hadn’t announced it.”
John grinned
to himself, and turned to open the door of his car. He just took a small, black
pillow from inside, and then he closed the door. “Let’s go under the shade,” he
calmly said, pointing to the back of the auditorium. He and Chalano walked to
the shade, and his three friends accompanied them. Once there, John said, “Are
you hinting that you will tell everyone that ‘John started the fight,’ ‘John
was the real troublemaker’? Are you hinting that you will be the beginning of
rebellion against me?”
It was
so quick. John placed the pillow on
Chalano’s abdomen, and punched it. The impact and the pain shocked Chalano.
Then he regained his focus and charged at John. John’s two friends grabbed Chalano,
and pinned him against the wall. John placed the pillow on Chalano’s abdomen
again. The punches were fast. Chalano closed his eyes in pain. He couldn’t keep
himself from screaming, “No more!” He was about to scream for help when Johns’s
third companion covered his mouth with one hand.
The
twinkle in John’s eyes had turned into a glisten. He stopped beating Chalano
up. His thick lips tightened as he said, “Maybe you know now that you should never
disagree with the leader. You should
never forget that you are in my town,
and not in your town. You should never talk back, and you should never fight
back. Deal?”
Chalano
didn’t really agree. John hit him once more, and asked again, “Deal?”
Chalano
stared up at John. He tried to remain as defiant as he used to be, but he felt
like a loser. “Deal.”
John
made a lop-sided grin as he saw the will to disagree fade from Chalano’s eyes.
Chalano looked weak. Scared. John left him, telling his friends, “Stay away
from the CCTV.”
They
left. Chalano collapsed to the floor. He’d never been beaten up before. He felt
so weak and helpless. He wanted to get back to his mother. He wanted to go
home.
“Hey!
What are you doing there?”
“Chalano?
Chalano? Chalano! What happened to you?”
“I’ve
been at the canteen. I was waiting for you to go out of the gate so that I
could come along,” Kim explained as he held Chalano’s shoulders and pulled him
to a sitting position. Chalano’s body seemed so limp. “It’s already 4 in the
afternoon. Your mother would be waiting
for you …. Hey, are you alright?”
Kim
held his friend’s chin, and looked at the boy’s unfocused eyes. “Hey. Hey. What
happened here?”
Chalano
grunted. Kim was beginning to get alarmed. “Something’s wrong,” he warily
looked around them. There was no one in sight. The place felt so gloomy. He
looked at Chalano’s messy uniform, and how Chalano leaned in such an abnormal
position. “Did somebody hurt you ….?”
“He
placed a pillow on me, and started beating me up.”
“That’s
what is done to keep from leaving any mark on the victim, so you wouldn’t be able
to report him,” Kim thought aloud. “Who is he?”
“I
wanna go home,” Chalano retorted, and suddenly stood up to leave. But he swayed,
and fell back on the ground.
“Okay,
as long as you promise that you’ll tell me what happened,” Kim said as he
wrapped Chalano’s left arm around his shoulders, and led him out of the shade. “You
shouldn’t have gone here alone. You
already knew that John had started some mob mentality among our classmates to
bully us. You shouldn’t have gone to where the school didn’t have a security camera.”
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