Principles

“I’m a pacifist,” he’d told Eddie Arnold, a foot taller and two grades ahead of him.

“So that means you won’t fight back if I hit you?”

“Violence doesn’t solve anything,” he’d said. “It’s barbaric.”

“What did you call me?” said Eddie, who immediately whipped him two hard blows in the face that knocked him sprawling to the pavement.

He wiped the blood from his nose and stared up at the jeering kids

Pussy. Weakling.

“Had enough?” said Eddie Arnold.

He got to his feet, stood defiant.

“Pussy,” repeated Eddie.

The kids dispersed.

One girl stayed behind. She was smiling.

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16 comments

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  1. granonine

    You’ve done an excellent job of describing a typical schoolyard bully picking on a smaller, weaker kid who won’t fight back.

    My question is, did the girl stay for Eddie’s sake, or for his victim’s?

  2. Na'ama Yehuda

    Well done describing the realities of bullying and the power that is fed by the mob, but can be drained by decency. I hope the gal stayed for your hero.
    Also, I wonder who hits Eddie. Not that this is always the case, but all too often the bullies assert their own need for power over the helpless because they’d learned it, someplace, from others who’d brutalized them.
    Good story!

  3. msjadeli

    Some kids will do anything to make a girl smile ;) One day geneticists will identify the bully gene and then we can send them all somewhere together and let them sort out who is the meanest.

  4. patriciaruthsusan

    A good story, Josh. What a bully. He picks on both younger and smaller children. The other children standing around must be of the same mind. The girl at least admires a pacifist. :) — Suzanne

Don't just stand there.