Creative Commons – The Plainsrunner – Chapter Twenty-Eight

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Tallgrass learns how to deal with bullies.

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Chapter Twenty-Eight – Bullies

His mother was waiting out on the street to walk him home. His face must have said something because she asked, “How was your first day? Is everything all right?”

“It was okay,” he said, not sure how to start.

“Okay,” she said as they turned for home. “Did you make any friends?”

That he could answer. “Yes,” he said, and went on to tell her about Seagrass.

“That’s good,” she said. “You’ll have to bring him home to meet me one day. You say he’s an orphan?” She kept smiling, but he could see a hint of deep sadness. “Does he have a family, or is he living in an orphanage?”

Tallgrass didn’t know. He briefly wondered how he could have a friend and not know that about them, but then something much more urgent occurred to him. “I’m hungry,” he said.

It all came out then. Sage was shocked but not surprised by the prevalence of such bigotry in children that age, but she knew they were just reflecting the values of their parents. Besides, in the brutal business of establishing a hierarchy, they would use whatever came to hand. It hurt her that her son and his friend were excluded like that, but it didn’t worry her too much. She knew he had a light spirit and wouldn’t let it drag him down. What did worry her was the bully. Having to deal with that every day would eventually have an effect on him.

As they ate an afternoon snack in their favorite café just down the street from their apartment, they discussed the problems and their possible solutions. They agreed that the behavior of his classmates, while unpleasant, wasn’t worth doing anything about. She encouraged him to just be himself and to try to enjoy the learning as much as possible. Anyone who was worth having as a friend might eventually come around. “You and I know how good you are, Tally. And Digger and Star. Anyone who gets to know you knows that. The kids who figure that out will be the lucky ones.”

He stood a little straighter at the table. He thought about the people he knew and he knew that she was right. They all liked him. He knew that. Anyone who took the time to get to know him, liked him. The people who didn’t like him didn’t know him. Like the ones who didn’t want him on the grass at the university. The ones who called him, “That little runner.” But the groundskeepers, who didn’t want him on there at first, had their minds changed once they got to know him. Tallgrass felt that acceptance wrap around him like armor, and he didn’t worry about being excluded any more.

As for the bullies, that was a tougher problem. She told him that he would meet people like them all his life, and it would be best if he figured out how to handle them now. “Or,” she said, “I could get my necklace and spear and follow you around everywhere you go.”

They laughed out loud at that, turning heads all through the café. Tallgrass was laughing, but a part of him wanted just that. Part of him wished his mother could follow him everywhere, protecting him from the world. But even as young as he was, he knew it wasn’t possible. For one thing, he didn’t see anyone else doing it. Digger, for instance. Or Street. He didn’t see their mothers following them around. He laughed some more at that image.

“So what can we do?” he said. He really wanted a solution, preferably before tomorrow when he would have to face the bullies again.

She said, “I’m afraid there isn’t a simple answer. If you were bigger, then you could just beat them up and they’d leave you alone. But bullies don’t pick on people who can beat them up. They pick on little people, preferably ones who are vulnerable or isolated. You and Seagrass, for instance. They know you don’t have any allies.”

“If only I was bigger,” he said.

“That would help,” she said. Then, with a wink, “But what about the university grass? They won’t let you on there when you’re bigger.” She watched the conflict in his face. “There’s something else you’re learning today. Almost every option has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. That’s a pretty grown-up thing to learn, you know.”

His disappointment was displaced by the pride of learning something grown-up. Then he got back to the problem at hand. “But what can I do?” he said. “I need something I can do tomorrow.”

He waited while she took a sip of tea, looking out the window at the people walking by on the street. Finally she said, “You say they’re after your money and your food?” When he nodded she said, “So, what about if you don’t take any food or money? They can’t steal what you don’t have.”

He smiled, then he frowned. “But what will I do for lunch?” he asked.

“I’ll meet you for lunch,” she said. “We can eat here. Or I can bring something and we can eat in a park somewhere.”

Tallgrass liked that. The prospect of having lunch with his mother every day was almost enough to make him glad for the bullies. So, with a definite plan, and something to look forward to, he could relax and enjoy his snack.

From then on, Tallgrass didn’t take a pack to school. What books he had to carry were just bound by a clever strap made by his mother and slung over his shoulder. That made the bullies angry. They threatened him and pushed him around. The sneery, fat-faced one told him he’d better start bringing money, or else, but he explained that he couldn’t. That his mother told him if he was going to let idiots take it from him, then she wasn’t going to give him any.

“Idiots?” said the bully. “Who’s she calling an idiot?”

“That’s just the way she talks,” said Tallgrass. “You can ask her yourself, if you want. I can introduce you when she picks me up after school.” The bully backed off abruptly. He didn’t want anything to do with someone who might be able to fight back. At least not until he found out more about her. Enough to know if she could stand up to his father. He smirked cruelly. He doubted if any Plainsrunner refugee would be able to do that.

Not having anything else, they took his books and kicked them across the playground. After a few days they were damaged enough to need replacing, and when he did he was scolded for not taking care of them as well as the local children did. When he explained that they were being damaged by local children, they told him he’d better learn how to fit in.

Meanwhile the bullies had turned their attention elsewhere, including to Seagrass. Tallgrass told him to stop bringing lunch – he didn’t have much money to bring in the first place – and they could both eat with his mother. She made him a strap for his books too, and soon the bullies lost interest in both of them.

That just meant that other small, vulnerable children were victimized, though, so this is where the second part of the plan kicked in. Over the next few weeks, whenever someone was bullied, Tallgrass and Seagrass went to talk to them. Most of them just wanted to keep their heads down and hope it would go away, but a few of them had more volatile spirits. Eventually they had enough allies, and one morning when one of them was being bullied, the rest of them moved in, surrounding the bullies in a mass of quiet resistance. The bullies tried to scare them back, but they just kept pressing in, led by Tallgrass and Seagrass.

The mob separated and isolated the bullies, and before they were done, every one of them had showed his fear. After that, they let them get away. The allies looked at each other and they somehow knew that there was a new paradigm in the schoolyard that day. As long as they stood together, they didn’t have to fear the bullies any more.

It couldn’t end there of course. Sneery-face had been shamed in front of his victims, and worse, his accomplices. His pride demanded retribution, and it would have to be on that little runner. Everything was good until he interfered. So they followed him away from school one day and accosted him in a quiet place with no one else around. Just the way they liked it: outnumbering a helpless victim with no way out. They just couldn’t understand why Tallgrass didn’t look frightened, which was an important part of it.

They got their answer when Street and Tiny walked in on them. This was part of Sage’s plan. They knew how the bullies would react, and they knew where they would do it. When they saw Street, Sneery-face looked annoyed, but when he saw Tiny, he gave way to abject fear. He abandoned any attempt to salvage his pride and concentrated on wheedling his way out of it any way he could. When Street told him to promise that they wouldn’t bother Tallgrass or Seagrass or any other children ever again, he couldn’t promise fast enough. Then they were allowed to scuttle away.

A couple of days later, while Sage and Tallgrass were having lunch at their café, a man came in and joined them. He accused her of hiring thugs to intimidate his son, who had obviously got his face from his father. He was an important businessman, he said, and he knew important people in the city. He leaned in, his face close to hers, and told her he was going to make her life a misery.

Then a shadow fell on the table and there was Street. He said, “Hello, Sage. Would you like to introduce me?”

The interloper straightened up and tried to back away, but he bumped into something big and solid. When he looked over his shoulder, there was Tiny. Tallgrass noticed that his face did exactly what his son’s had done two days earlier in similar circumstances.

He recognized Sage’s name and realized, with dread, that he wasn’t dealing with a helpless refugee. His confidence evaporated and now he only wanted to get out of this with minimal damage. He hoped he could keep it quiet so he wouldn’t have to explain to his friends at the club.

When Sage quietly explained how he was going to behave, he accepted immediately, though with a sour taste in his mouth. She said that if he made trouble with any of his “important people,” then she would sue him and them into the poorhouse. And if he or his son or anyone else made trouble for Tallgrass or Seagrass or anyone else, then they would be getting a visit from Tiny. She explained that Tiny particularly didn’t like people who abused helpless victims. Had he heard what happened to those traders who abused that poor girl?

He had, and he looked at Tiny in speechless horror. Now he knew that he was playing in a league that was far over his head, and his fervent hope was to get out of it alive. He swore that he would do as she said, and that his son would behave. He promised that he would have nothing but good to say about her, and about Tallgrass, and about anyone else she said. He was shaking visibly when Sage smiled and thanked him for coming, and it was all he could do to walk out without his knees buckling.

When Street and Tiny moved up to the table to join them in tea and biscuits, Tallgrass looked at them and at his mother. His heart was beating fast and his feelings didn’t know whether to settle on pride or fear.