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kids

November 7, 2022
By Anonymous

When the bell of freedom rings at the end of the fourth period all the enslaved souls rush out to lunch. After waiting for eternity in line I finally got my sustenance and walked to my usual sitting area. as I look around for my friends I see this lonely kid who I recognized from some of my classes and he looked sad, so I went to sit with him. As I sit down the kid looks at me with a fearful look in his eyes. I tell him, “hello my name is max, I thought you could use a friend.”, and he says, “oh, thank you.. I guess.”. So we start eating and I notice for the first time that his face has a long scar along his cheek and little scratches as if he was in a fight with a lawnmower or something. I also notice that when he eats his lunch he winces with each bite and sometimes I see glimpses of his chipped and broken teeth. I ask him what his name is and he says, “My name is bobby”. Bobby tells me how he moved from Minnesota to Alabama and how he grew up with a pet bear that he found in the forest with a bear trap clenched to his back leg and how he nurtured it until it grew into a huge beast. We exchange experiences about our past and my curiosity gets the better of me so I ask him, “yo, bro what happened to your mouth”. And he looks nervous so I say,” oh I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me anything”, but he sighs and tells me how he got attacked by a huge wolf in the forest and his bear saved his life but died in the process. And his mom tried to fix his face with home surgery with tree fiber and a splinter. Lunch ended and we went to our fifth period. I went home thinking about my encounter with Bobby and I kept thinking about him and how hard his life must be throughout the next day. I packed up my stuff 5 minutes before 4th period even ended and when the bell rang I was the first one out of the door. I got my mystery meat lunch and went to the spot where Bobby and I sat yesterday and I saw him getting harassed by some of my old buddies. I drop my lunch in the garbage and get over to them as fast as possible. When I get there I say to my friends, “what the hell dudes, why are you guys annoying him?” and they tell me, “we’re sorry man, we were just playin” and they stalk off leaving just me and Bobby. I ask him if he is okay and he says he is fine they didn't touch him and we try to ignore what happened and he starts to eat. He sees that I don't have lunch so he splits his chicken sandwich with me. I refuse but he says, “it's fine bro, you helped me so I gotta help you” and we sit together quietly pondering about life.


The author's comments:

its a rough draft


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