Hero

Adrian Rodriguez

WLH Period 2

Ms. Tompkins

Hero

It was 10 minutes before the start of class, so I sat down in the grass and looked around me while I waited. To my left, I saw some kids were running towards the bench, with quite the frantic expression on their faces. I wondered why they were running, school hadn’t started yet. And then I remembered, we weren’t supposed to be here. I stood up, hurrying to get away from the soccer field as well. To my right, there was someone who was too slow. They were already next to him, and it looked like they weren’t going to let him get away. There were three of them, tall, big, and scary, like a giant right out of a children’s book. They were the people who made the rules around here: if they were hungry, you gave them your lunch; if they were short of money, you gave them whatever you had in your wallet; if they had been sick, you gave them your homework. If not, they would beat you up and take it anyway. They had been doing this for quite some time, and a few kids had already complained to the school. The problem was, their parents were very rich, and often made sizeable donations. As such, the school did nothing. The principal always said he would look into it, but he never acted. It was also their soccer field; so no one else was allowed to be there. The unlucky kid was already on the floor, his back pack open and its former contents haphazardly sprawled across the grass. One of them was counting the money he had just stolen.

The other two were still not satisfied. So they started calling out other kids that they had seen in the field before and had gotten away. Unfortunately, that also included me, and I had no other choice but to go. My heart was beating furiously, sweat running across my face: I was scared shitless. I wasn’t the first one to get there, or the last. In the end there were about five of us there, and in no time had been reduced to our knees. I looked at the other kids around me, their faces a mirror image of my own, fear taking hold of their hearts. This wasn’t the first time this had happened to them, but unlike what one might think, it doesn’t get better with each time, but worse. The hardest part about the whole deal was the fear, and not just the fear while you were on the spot, but outside as well: every minute it made you wonder, when and what they would do. It was unbearable, and it grew worse with each time.

When they had finished with the other kids in front, I was next. They grabbed me by my hair, and looked at me in the eyes. They noticed the sweat in my face, and they commented on it between themselves and laughed. The urge to cry swelled inside me. “Why, why did they do this? I hadn’t done anything to them at all; nobody had, everyone in my grade besides them was a nice person. I couldn’t understand,” I looked at eyes of the one who was grabbing me, and faced an expression that terrified me to my very core. His eyes were shining, gleaming with excitement. He was having fun; he was liking every second. The other kids were crying, terrified, barely getting up from the floor, or picking up their stuff. And they were laughing, they were enjoying it. And then, another feeling appeared within me: rage. It was overpowering, surpassing even the fear. I wanted to punish them; I wanted them to know, I wanted them to feel everything they had ever done to me or the others. I stood up, and noticed that the other kids had done so as well. I looked at them in the eyes, and once again saw my face reflected in theirs.

We were angry; we wanted them to know.

I looked around me, noticing that a crowd had formed around us, no, around them. I walked back with the others: we were now a barrier. They saw this too, and grew irritated. They said something to the kid in front of them, and pushed him away to pass. However, something happened that had never happened before: the kids around the one they had pushed, pushed them back.

Nobody knew what to do. We were surprised about what had just happened, and they were as surprised as us too. For a moment we just stood there, standing in awe, looking at their faces. Nobody knew what to do, but I did. My feelings burst, and my anger, my suffering, my oppression, all poured out into my words. I started softly, so that only a few people around me could hear. I continued louder, talking; now everyone could hear me. And then louder, shouting, shocking myself in the process, but didn’t stop, I continued, didn’t stop. All I wanted to say, all I wanted them to understand, why they did this, if they realized how much it hurt us, if they realized how much it affected us. All of this I said, and with me, all the other kids did too. Everyone was shouting, everyone was screaming to the top of their lungs. We were an angry chorus of a thousand voices, crying out the crimes that had been perpetrated against us. They were scared now, they retreated towards the center, and they themselves fell down on their knees.  We wanted an answer, we demanded an answer. But they didn’t answer, and this made us even angrier. Though I guess they couldn’t answer, they were too scared. We stopped shouting. They were on the floor crying, wallowing in fear. Once again we were at a loss at what to do, and once again I knew what to do. I stepped towards them, raising my arm. The other’s realized what I was about to do. They knew, they were like me, the oppressed, the ignored, they were my comrades. A group lunged themselves at them, pinning them down. I clenched my fist. My feelings, my friend’s feelings, everyone’s feelings: I carried all of them. I prepared myself to do to them what they had done countless times to us. I was going to pay them back with their own medicine, but I was different. They enjoyed it, they did it for fun, but I didn’t. I was justice; I was standing up for me, and for people like me. They were the villains, and I was a hero.