Zero Part 4

How the battle ended after I made my escape… to this day I do not know. I guess I never found it important to know. We made it to the staffroom and the Headmaster was told the story by Mr Stevenson. I had made it out unscathed; Mr Stevenson had not been so lucky and had a few bruises and shirt buttons missing. I watched almost in admiration as he defended me while telling the story. I remember some words he used ‘It was an all out assault on Kwame… Kwame defended himself as anyone would, but had I not been there it would have been a massacre’.

I was told to leave the Staffroom and wait outside. I was to be accompanied home by one of the teachers in case anyone was waiting for me outside. Mr Utkins, a geek of a teacher (reminded me of that Weasley character from Harry Potter – not that I have seen any of the movies) was given the task of my body guard. As we walked he asked me what happened and I gave him the full story. When we were nearly halfway to my home I sent Mr Utkins back. I had considered the situation. There was no evidence that I had been in a fight and a school teacher visiting my home would no doubt have resulted in me getting a beating worse than what Stanley and his crowd would have offered. When I got home, I told my parents I was late because I had gone football practice, they said nothing and that was that. I went to bed fearing what tomorrow would bring. I had to find a way to protect myself.

I woke up in the morning with a plan of defence. I found a bottle and construed a formulae that would cause pain to anyone that dared attempt to ambush me again. As I had not told my parents about the events of last night I was sent to school as normal.

I made it through the school gates undisturbed and unscathed. I walked through the corridor and there was Stanley, he had been waiting for me. I got into stance ready for battle. Stanley came up to me and said ‘calm down.. I’m sorry about yesterday and I just wanna talk’. Not quite sure what to think I retorted ‘If you want to go one on one we can do it now’. He looked back angrily; ‘Look I am trying to apologise here… I spoke to my brother and he told me all what happened and if I were in your shoes in the scenario I would have done the same thing. It’s just that he is my brother, I’m sure you would have done the same in my shoes?’ I replied ‘nah, I would have been a man and faced my adversary one on one!’. I had nothing more to say; I walked to my class leaving Stanley where he stood.

I entered my classroom and there were looks of surprise, ‘you are alive!’ someone exclaimed.

In the end Stanley and his brother were expelled. My popularity decreased among the school kids and I had realised that not everyone who I thought was my friend was really A friend. I had gone from Hero to Zero

Mr Stevenson was hated among the year 10s and he left the school when we, the current year 11s) had all finished our exams. As cool as a teacher he was, he wasn’t a good one, as we all got D’s in geography apart from Luis who got an A because he had studied a curriculum book his parent had purchased!

Zero