The Class “Bully” and I; A Fond Reminiscence

We were in 8th grade. I must have been 12. Year 2006. All was well and good until a problem came up at school in my class in the form of a boy. We’d been classmates since first grade and we had never had any problems with each other up until that year. At first he would do crazy stuff and make people laugh. Breaking rules was his thing. I admire that now when I look back. I think I was a goody two-shoes, on the outside at least, always on my toes, trying to be good enough. But that’s another story altogether. So by eighth grade, this boy had somehow managed to get himself tagged as the class brat or bully among classmates and teachers alike. Our teachers would often be exasperated at him and his antics. So, me having always been one to be open about my likes and dislikes, especially the latter, I would often show my annoyance at his mischief while others would just leave him alone to his business or for the teachers to deal with. He probably thought that I was a miss snotty-pants ,(maybe I was, a little bit, but his opinions might have been a little exaggerated there and hey, I was just learning to speak up for myself) and began to pick on me more and more as days went by. Of course I retaliated, but our exchanges mostly consisted of rude, childish comments or sarcastic responses, aimed-to-provoke jokes and such. I am not too sure how it all happened but gradually, we started to strongly dislike each other and would jump at the first opportunity to be mean to each other, passing comments and writing rude notes. He had his friends on his side and I had my friends on mine, though we all had been essentially friends. So, to me, it looked like his sole mission in coming to school was to make things harder for me and I was getting angrier by the day.

An uncle made this doodle when I told him this story. Thank you, uncle Alfred. You’re the best!

One particular morning, as I reached school and was walking to my classroom, I was met by my friends who came rushing out to tell me something was happening in there. I went in with them and was met with the sight of my name sprawled across the blackboard in huge letters with that boy laughing and making up funny words out of it and writing them all down, his friends looking on and joining in on the “fun” and the rest of the class staring, worried about what was to follow. That was it. The final straw. I had to do something to preserve my 12 year old dignity. And I was going to. Now, before I continue with this story, I would like to say that I am a firm believer in non-violence, that I have never agreed to or supported any form of violence, and I believe that no one should be subjected to it. So the only way to explain this is that I was all-horns-blaring-mad that morning. So, upon meeting with that scene in the classroom, I first told myself to calm down, walked up to him, who by this time had perched himself on a desk, and told him as calmly as I could(I don’t think I was that calm) to erase all he had done and to never do it again. I don’t remember what exactly he said in response to that but he didn’t care and he didn’t budge. Then I threatened to slap him and he said,”Go ahead.” I have a feeling he didn’t think I would actually do it. So I raised my hand as high as I could, then brought it down on his face as hard as I could. A friend told me later that the sound echoed through the room. The room went still and for a second, he just stared at me, taken aback, then his reflexes started to kick in. He pushed me, I fell down, then got up and half pushed, half threw the teacher’s table towards him, which he pushed back at me. Before we knew it, we were kicking, pushing, pulling, scratching, clawing and shoving. We were finally pulled apart by my friend and the biggest boy in class. Right after which the assembly bell rang so we had to stop there. As we were lining up for assembly, the boy who helped stop us came up to me with a handful of buttons asking if I had lost any. I was still furious and shouted at him saying no, so he left saying,”Alright, they must be his then.” I was still not done and so I challenged him to another one on one, telling him to show up at a spot near my house the following morning. That morning, I rose early and stood at my gate and waited for a while. When he didn’t show up, I took it upon myself to give the final verdict to the whole matter. I had won. Of course, we continued hating each other and didn’t talk again for the next 3 years. By ninth grade, we were placed in different sections, so that made things easier.

But at the end of those 3 years, when we all had left home for higher studies and would only come across each other on social media and sometimes during holidays at home, we got in touch again through friends and have been good friends ever since. Little did we know that whatever we did, we were creating memories, ones we would fondly look back on. Now every time we meet, we greet each other with knowing smiles and I ought to mention that our story has served as a worthy anecdote over the years to our friends. Everyone who was there that day still remembers.

Now I’m putting this up here because I know now how important it is to have memories and people who know you without you needing to explain yourself. The ones that you meet after 5 years and within the first five minutes realize that nothing has changed. It doesn’t matter who or what you may seem like to the rest of the world, they are the ones who have been there with you, seen where and how you started and can see most clearly how far you’ve come now. The ones who were there when you were creating those memories and who live in them now. The ones you can think about at 3 AM and laugh like an idiot with the lights out on days when the world seem particularly cruel. The ones I blog about here so that if I ever wake up one day with amnesia, I can log in and see this and maybe find a piece of myself even for a short while and smile for the first time in weeks. Here’s to you, my friend.