Chapter 2

Ignotus arrives at school, and has to deal with an old bully...but will things go too far this time?

Chapter 2

When we got to the school, after nearly being run over by another a*****e teenager speeding through a stop sign, we went our separate ways. I had football practice, after all. I wasn’t on the varsity team, mostly because the star quarterback, Seth Galtier, got to pick the teams and he and I…. disagree, let’s put it like that, and we have since grade school. You see, we had an incident in fourth grade. We were in the hallway, and he had been making fun of me for how short I was compared to everyone else (yes, I was short, all the way through middle school, even), and I just… snapped. With all of his friends watching, I shoved him so hard he fell and slid several feet down the hallway. Considering he was a foot taller and at least thirty pounds heavier, that was quite a feat.

He made it his mission to make my life miserable from that day forward. In seventh grade, he slipped a bag of marijuana into my backpack the day we were supposed to have the K-9 unit come to our school for a demonstration. The only reason I didn’t get caught with it was because I found the bag looking for my homework that I knew I hadn’t done in math class. I threw the bag out the side door of the school, and left my backpack in my locker the rest of the day. I threw it away on the way home and told my mom I had lost it. And that wasn’t even the worst thing he had ever done to me.

I sprinted the rest of the way into the locker room, throwing on my pads as the rest of the players left the locker room, including my friend, Andre Vargas, who gave me a thumbs-up and mouthed “happy birthday” as he walked out. “Thanks,” I muttered to the empty air, pulling on my cleats.

By the time I got out there, I was late, and one of the other coaches (I can never remember their names) told me to take an extra lap around the track as punishment. I shrugged. That was about what I had expected to happen.

The rest of practice was pretty standard. We did our warm up, did Offense drills since it was Monday, and as a running back that meant  lot of intense running and getting tackled.

“So what are you doing for your birthday,” Andre asked after one of those particularly nasty tackles.

“No idea,” I responded. “I’d love to know that myself.”

“Well, text me when you figure it out, so I can be there for the party. It’s your sixteenth, after all.”

I nodded, about to head back to practice, when Andre’s eyes flickered to something behind me. He opened his mouth to say something, but without me even thinking about it, my hand moved, and caught the football before it could nail me in the back of the head. I hadn’t even had to look.

I turned around to see Seth and his friends laughing from the other field. That was, until one of them saw me catch it, instead of it hitting me. The one that had seen me nudged Seth and said something to him. He stopped laughing and looked at me, then turned around and marched off, obviously angry.

Aw. Poor thing.

Andre was still staring at me, open-mouthed.

“How did you do that,” he said, in awe.

I thought about it. How had I done that? I mean, there hadn’t been any warning, and I hadn’t even turned around. I shrugged.

“I dunno. Does it really matter? I got to make Seth mad, and I didn’t get beaned in the head with a football. Sounds like a win to me, man.”

Andre just shook his head.

“You’re weird, man,” he said, his slight spanish accent showing through a little. I grinned.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Hayes! Vargas! Get back to practice!” It was Coach Smith, the head coach.

With that, we took off, and continued to work our collective asses off.

***

After practice was when things got bad. I had just pulled my pants on when Seth came sauntering over. I rolled my eyes. He was tall, just taller than me, and built like a bulldog, with sandy hair and brown eyes that all of the girls just fawned over. The thought of him with a girl, any girl, made me want to retch.

Here we go again.

“Hey, Hayes,” he called out.

I sighed. Somehow, he always made my last name seem like an insult. Like, somehow, by just being me, I was doing something wrong.

“How’s your mom,” he asked with a broad smile

“Fine,” I said, confused. Where was he going with this?

“Oh good,” he said. “I was worried I broke my favorite w***e.”

Ah, I thought. There’s the insult I was waiting for.

“As if, Seth,” I said.

“You’re right, Hayes,” he replied nastily. “I would never touch an ugly-a*s b***h like her, even though she begs for it. Those burns make her look like a monkey’s a*s anyway.”

Ignore it, Ignotus. Don’t give him the satisfaction. But it was hard when my hands were already shaking with the effort of controlling myself.

“Can’t say I blame her though. If I had a son like you, I’d set myself on fire too.”

That was it. My vision, for some reason, went red as I whipped around, growling, finally going to knock him right out after all these years….only to smack into a shorter, stockier person than me with dark curly hair. Andre.

“Back off, Seth,” he said angrily. It was a well known fact that Seth was afraid of Andre, probably because his whole family was rumored to be in drug gangs. I, of course, knew that wasn’t true, but Seth didn’t have to know that.

Seth stepped back, arms raised innocently.

“I was just kidding, man. Joking, you know.”

“Sure you were, estúpido,” Andre said quietly as Seth walked off. Then he turned to me.

“You gotta ignore him, man.”

“I know, I know. I’m trying. But it’s hard when he’s such an a*****e.”

“Tell me about it,” Andre breathed. “Anyway, man, see you third period.”

“Yeah,” I called after him as he walked off.

***

The next two periods after that passed without much event. Second period put me to sleep (English, ugh), and Andre and I joked back and forth while we worked in Mr. Clasz’s class.

Then, as I was walking from Math to Robotics class, I saw a group of people, like twenty or so, gathered in a circle, yelling: “Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Oh no. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

I went forward, pushing my way through the crowd, and I could hear the fight going on. From the sounds coming from the middle, it was going very poorly for one of them. I wasn’t sure how much I could do, but maybe I could at least split whoever was fighting up until the principals got there. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong. Then, as I burst into the center where the fight itself was taking place, I realized why.

Seth had my bruised, bloodied, and battered brother in a headlock, and as I watched, he went to hit him again.

Author's Note

hey guys sorry I meant to upload this yesterday, but it's here now. so enjoy!!! please, leave feedback!