CHAPTER THREE: CHASE

"The one with my tattered t-shirt?" I asked. 

           "What else?" Helga answered, chuckling like a witch. I really hate her squeaky giggle. It's creepy.

           "I did!" I grinned. The corner of her mouth twitched. She put a hand on my shoulder and gripped tight. Aw.

           "Then. Why. Are. You, Still with my brother early this morning?" she asked. She glared at me with such hate; I silently thanked God she's not a Medusa incarnate. 

           Oh yeah. Did I forget to mention, Carlos is her younger brother? She has a severe brother complex if you ask me. Very disturbing.

           "Please, get your hands off me. It hurts," I said and grabbed Helga's wrist. She held on, and I did the same thing. "It's not trendy for a girl like you to have bruised wrists, Helga."

           She let go for a moment and then slammed my head on my plate. I quickly regretted ordering spaghetti.

           "Garcia again?" a voice from their left asked. "I didn't know we have the same favorite now, Helga."

           Helga's hand tightened on my head and pushed heavier. 

           "Hush, Rowan. I got here first."

           "You can bend that girl all you want but isn't it obvious that you can't break her?" said another voice, this time a girl. "She knows how much you value your perfection."

           "Can't break her? Look who's talking, ha!" one of Helga's friends said. They laughed.

           I heard a hmph and then, "Still, everyone knows you don't want that pretty face of yours getting ugly."

           "You had your fun now. It's my turn," said Rowan, the guy who rivals Satan.

           Helga lifted my head full of spaghetti sauce and slammed it on the plate again. She leaned down and said, "I'm not done with you, Garcia." and "Beware."

           They left as fast as they arrived. I sighed. I never enjoyed being bullied. I looked at the guy and felt a noodle slid down my cheeks. It's Rowan, and everyone knows Rowan. He's evil. 

           "Are you done eating?" asked the girl with biceps and eyeglasses. This girl is Killa, Rowan's tag team partner.

           "Er, No--"

            Rowan pulled me up from my seat and chuckled. I find it offensive. What's so funny about maltreating a person like this? They're rude. Kids in this place must've had very disturbed and dysfunctional families. They don't know what good manners are.  

           "What the hell's wrong with this school!" at last, I managed to say it aloud. "Why does everyone wants to bully me? Why me?!" I growled, frustrated, and harshly wiped my saucy face.

           The kids around, who were trying to conceal the fact that they were listening and watching my current predicament, laughed. 

           "We were wondering the same thing, dude," said the boy not far from me. 

           "But we never expected you to complain, so casually," said another one, two tables away from me.

           "We were expecting tears and dropping out, I think," said a girl from behind me. 

            I looked around, and oddly enough, they laughed, not ridiculing me but laughed really because they find my reaction funny.

           I ignored them and faced my new abductors.

           "What do you want?' I asked and rolled my eyes. "Want to beat me down? Go on and just do it so I can finally have my peacetime."

           Rowan dragged me out of the canteen. Everyone watched, but no one helped. Dang, this life. Yolly's gang started bullying me when I became her wimpy roommate, who didn't accept her invitation into her little club of bullies. And Helga's clique came to me like a wrecking ball when her squirt of a brother started talking to me. I thought stepping on her foot was bad enough until Carlos came into the picture. And lastly, under the top three lousy guy groups of my life is this guy's pair of rebels. They have been bullying me ever since that day I transferred two years ago.

           I managed to come across them after defending a pale-looking, tiny freckled kid named Billy from what they call patrol--- Rowan's parade of taking taxes. In short, bullying money out of every student he thinks is loaded with cash.

           Billy dropped out after watching them beat me down to a pulp. I can still remember those bloody lips and dislocated joints that I received from them. Thinking back, now I'm wondering why I don't cower before them at all. It was horrible. I was probably out for a month. I think I still have a picture of what I looked like, beaten and bloodied on my cell phone. He took a picture of me and sent it to everyone he knew, and it went viral around the campus. Too bad no one's brave enough to show it to a teacher. So much for a public school with over ten thousand student population. I was brought to the clinic and then to the hospital. Would you believe it when Rowan took me there himself? He looked really pleased to watch me shake in pain though, I think that was why he escorted me to the hospital. 

           "What do you want?" I asked, bracing myself from the right jab that was coming.

           Whoosh. The jab came.

           And I took a step back to avoid it. You see, almost two years of being bullied every day will give you some perks. Perks like memorizing the series of attacks your assailant is about to provide you with. And over the course of my two years in this place, flying objects such as food and stones, for example, and then out of nowhere, unprovoked attacks from bullies who want to destroy me permanently will evidently cause me more than bruises and wounds. I learned things the hard way, but I know I learned the right things.

Without my consent, no one can make me feel weak inferior. That says a quote I read from G****e.

           "You know how much I hate it when you dodge that," he said and stepped forward to grab my hair. Rowan, the 10th grader, and his henchwoman, Killa, are graduating this year. Well, for someone four years older than you, they're pretty childish. No matter how I think about it, everything boils down to the 'dysfunctional family' route.

           "What did I do this time, Rowan?" I asked and raised my hands before me. "I know your time is worth more than this."

           Passive resistance 101, PERSUADE. I've read something on the net about passive resistance. Suppose you find it hard on yourself to harm another individual seriously. In that case, you resort to a series of techniques to get out of the situation.

           He tried to grab me again, which I countered casually with a palm strike to the nose. But my palm hovered in front of his face like a barrier, stopping just an inch away. I don't want to hurt him, but I don't want to get hurt either.

 There's that thin line where I can cross if I can play this right. No matter what I do, though, this kind of encounter leads to either one.

           Rowan growled and took two steps back. Killa then stood in between us. She smiled at me and took over. Killa's attacks are straightforward. Although they're fast, her attacks are pretty predictable. 

           "Killa, please."

           Passive resistance 101, PLEAD.

           "You know what, Garcia?" she said and walked casually towards me. "I like your guts. You're the only wimp I know who hasn't given up yet."

           I laughed, uncertain. "Uh, was that a joke?"

           I just couldn't help but wonder.

           And she moved. Yolly! She's fast. Faster than Rowan, maybe. But being the favorite bullied kid of all time, I ducked. I can't just receive a palm strike indeed landing on the nose. It was the same move I launched at Rowan a while ago. In fact, I learned that move from this very girl doing it to me probably over a hundred times this year.

           And as expected, she kicked me on the side when I ducked. It hurt like always.

           The pain must've had a favorite because I'm pretty sure my daily pain quota's extraordinarily high.

           Passive Resistance 101. PRAY.

           God, if you can hear me. Please. Please save me from this sadistic duo. From now on, I'd be even nicer to the poor. I promise, and you know me, I won't lie.

           Just when Rowan and Killa started making their two-man attack, a tag team feared by most students in school, the intercom announced my name.

           Selena Garcia, seventh grade, Class Two. Proceed to the Director's office. 

           I raised a brow at them. "Well?"

           "Why would you be talking to the Director? No one's ever summoned to the Director's office."

           "Still, you don't want me to tell him anything about your conquests here in his school, don't you? Or maybe I'm his granddaughter all along, and now you're doomed."

           They were horrified. I laughed. Rowan growled like a dog which I audaciously waved off. 

           And as I went, I watched my back. Slowly, I managed to make a distance and ran.