The Kids Are Alright
Rated T for language and bullying related violence.
Foreword
Another little Greg story—ha, get it…little Greg—featuring his mother. Super special thanks to everybody who enjoyed my three shots in "The Real Greg Sanders"—it means a lot :)
This particular story is quite different (and very random) and happens to take place in the late '80s, a time period that I know nothing about because I grew up in the '90s. But hopefully this is something you guys weren't really expecting…in a good way. If that makes any sense. And I apologize for not posting this as quickly as I thought I would. It's been more difficult to write and edit than I initially thought it would be. School's started again, so I figured if I don't start posting this now before things get really hectic then I never will.
Anywho…on with the story…
Chapter I: Greg has an Ingenious Plan
"This is it you guys…I'm totally going in."
"I dunno, this really doesn't sound like a great idea…"
"Yeah, man. Maybe we should just abort."
"You guys are kidding me with this, right?"
"It's really not a good idea…"
"You're most definitely gonna get your butt kicked."
"Okay, that's enough from you negative nancies," the smallest but loudest of the trio yelled with a slight, braces induced lisp and a shake of his tousled brown hair. "Nobody kicks Greg Sanders' butt and gets away with it!"
"Uh, sure they do, Greg," one of his friends pointed out in a slightly cracking voice. This boy towered over his two friends, and might have looked imposing if not for his stick thin, hunched over form and thick rimmed glasses that magnified his nervous, constantly darting eyes. "Quite often, actually…"
"Yeah like last week," the other added with a snort as he absentmindedly blew blonde bangs away from his eyes. The bowl cut was a very unflattering look, for this boy in particular as it only accentuated his overly round face and body. "Marty Geisman gave you a monster wedgie for lookin' at him funny."
Greg rolled his eyes at his friends' overwhelming lack of support. "Marty Geisman just caught me off guard last week, that's all."
"Just last week?" the blonde boy scoffed. "Don't you mean like every week?"
"Well at least I didn't get my fat head stuffed down a toilet," Greg growled back.
He glared at his so called friend, and for a moment the two looked ready for fisticuffs before the third—who was definitely the cowardly pacifist of the trio—intervened and changed the subject back to the point at hand.
"You know Greg, those kids are a heck of lot bigger than Marty Geisman," he said as he adjusted his glasses slightly. He glanced over towards the fence at the edge of school property where the kids in question were currently standing. "Older, too…they look like they're probably eighth graders…"
"Exactly," Greg exclaimed, completely forgetting about the argument he was having as his brilliant plan became the subject of their conversation again. "If Marty Geisman sees us hanging around with kids like that he's gotta leave us alone, right?"
His friends glanced nervously at each other. Clearly they were still unconvinced.
"How do you guys not think this is the most awesomest ingenious plan I've ever come up with?!" Greg groaned in frustration. "Look at it this way—sure Marty Geisman's big and mean, but he still goes to nerd school like us. Those guys over there look even bigger and meaner, and they go to the public school. That bully asshole Marty Geisman wouldn't even stand a chance with them around us."
His bespectacled friend winced slightly and made a nervous tsking sound in the back of his throat. "Greeeggg," he warned. "My mom says you're not supposed to say swear words..."
Greg gaped in muted horror while his blonde friend let out a high pitched squeal of laughter and fell back onto the dirt. "You tattled on Greg to your mom?!"
The taller boy just shrugged as a humiliated blush grew on his cheeks. "Well…I kinda…said something at home," he admitted. "It just slipped, but she asked me where I heard it so…"
"So you told on me?!" All the color left young Greg's face as another thought popped into his head. "Your mom didn't tell my mom, did she?"
"Uh…no, I don't think so…"
Greg sighed heavily in relief. "Oh, thank God. She would have freaked out…"
The portly boy ceased his giggling and sat up immediately with a somewhat panicked expression on his reddened face. "Wait—isn't your mom picking us up today?"
Greg nodded. "Uh, yeah, I think so."
"Okay, then nobody can say any swear words or anything about anybody saying swear words," the blonde said sternly. "If we do, she'll definitely tell on us."
"No she won't," Greg muttered defensively.
"Are you crazy, Greg?! Yes she will—your mom's like the biggest tattle tale ever." He nodded to the taller boy as he continued, saying, "not like your mom. Your mom's cool."
"Oh, thanks, I guess…"
"Hey, my mom's cool, too," Greg pouted, feeling for some reason like he should stick up for his over protective mother.
"No she's not, she's crazy!"
"Yeah, Greg. You're mom is pretty crazy…"
Greg felt his ears burn in embarrassment over the talk of his mother. He wasn't sure if he should continue to defend her and risk the chance of losing the few friends he'd managed to make and keep at school over the years or if he should agree with them and make a mockery of his own mother. He opted for doing neither.
"Whatever," he muttered. "Can we just get back to the plan now before our ride gets here?"
"What plan?"
Greg felt his temper rising as he growled through gritted teeth, "the plan where we go over there and make bigger friends. The plan I've been trying to explain to you guys for like two weeks now."
"Ohhh. That plan."
"Yes 'that plan.' So come on, ramblers," Greg said. "Let's get rambling."
They gave him funny looks.
"Ramble on? Get it?"
"Greg we know what ramble is," the blonde said snootily. "We're better at vocabulary than you, remember?"
"That's not what—oh, never mind," Greg mumbled under his breath as he recalled his friends' lack of musical taste. "So come on, let's go over there already."
But still neither of them moved. Greg turned to look at the group of teenage boys on the other side of the field, suddenly a little unnerved by the prospect of speaking to them alone. "Do I really have to go by myself?"
Both of his friends frantically nodded their heads.
"It was your idea, Greg," the blonde stated.
"Yeah, and just for the record, I'm fine with having Marty Geisman bully me around," the other, even more cowardly boy added. "My mom even gives me more lunch money now."
Greg stared at them for a long moment, hoping they would give in under his scrutinizing glare. They didn't, so he finally sighed in defeat. "Fine. But don't come crawling back to me when I have anti-bully friends and you guys don't."
Greg stuck his tongue out at them and pushed himself to his feet, wiping the grass and flecks of dirt off his school uniform as he did so. He hiked up his shorts, puffed out his chest, and took a deep breath. He glanced upwards through the boughs of the tree they were sitting beneath and felt the warm California sun beaming down on him. A wide grin grew on his face as he thought to himself, Gregory Sanders, you are a genius.
In fact he could already picture his future in his head—these three, casually dressed, grungy public school kids acting like Greg's body guards while they bore down on Marty Geisman and his asshole friends outside of the school every day. He could just see the looks of absolute horror on their faces when they saw Greg's new cronies. Too bad the older kids were not the kind of friends that Greg would immediately want to introduce to his parents, but who knows, maybe his mom would warm up to them someday…
"So go already."
Greg snapped out of his day dream to glare at his blonde friend. "I am going. Just cool your jets already, geez." He took another deep, calming breath and stepped out of their little shady spot.
This was where the three friends always sat, beneath the safety of a large tree in the center of the long, thin field located on the far side of their private school. Here they were far enough from the road and from the handfuls of other students lingering on the school grounds so that they could wait for their ride home in secluded peace. The wait generally wasn't a long one—twenty minutes at the most depending on whose mom was on carpool duty—but they didn't mind, even when it was cold out. Greg especially enjoyed these brief social times outside of the classroom, as his mother rarely let him hang out with his friends by himself after school or over the weekends.
Greg found it increasingly frustrating as he got older and more sociable with kids his age to have a mother who worried about everything. Literally everything. No sports, no sleepovers, no nothing that she didn't deem completely safe. He didn't know what she was always freaking out about—his friends' moms let them do almost anything they wanted, and they were fine. But as Greg took slow and steady steps across the school yard, he was confident that his bully problem was one thing she wouldn't have to worry about.
Marty Geisman was one of those kids who were sent to private school more for the discipline than for the advanced education. He was in Greg's class, but was at least a year older and grown in height and girth to about twice Greg's size. And he and his other large, dim-witted friends took pleasure in picking on those who were unfortunate enough to not be as tough and cool as they apparently thought they were. So, naturally, Greg and his pair of nerdy cronies were prime targets for their harassing on a daily basis. Greg had hoped that over the summer Marty would have matured from his bully ways, but now, a little over a month into their sixth grade year, the boy showed no signs of easing up on his behavior.
Greg, unable to take the teasing and the taunting anymore, had been on the lookout for some sort of protection from the bullies. He'd learned that he couldn't just tell on them to his mother or the teachers, as that would only make him more susceptible to their cruelty and deem him a "snitch" or a "tattle tale." And Greg couldn't have that, especially as he began his ascent on the school's social ladder.
It was by pure chance that he happened to notice the group of older boys standing just across the field where he and his friends regularly sat. They'd been hanging around for a few weeks now by the far chain link fence that separated the private school grounds from a dense row of trees that Greg knew ended a dozen yards away in the public middle school's baseball field. He didn't know why these public school kids hung out in the back of the private school—they never talked to anyone outside of their own little trio. Maybe they stood there because it was so much nicer and less crowded than their own' school's facilities. Or maybe they just preferred the shade of the trees from this side of the fence.
Whatever the case was, Greg wasn't sure. He knew that the public school was just a block away from Greg's school, but it seemed like such a different place from a distance. The kids wore whatever they wanted, they hung out wherever they wanted, and they all took bright yellow school buses back and forth from school. Greg didn't even have a bus stop on his street. Oh how he longed to take a real school bus and not have his mother drive him back and forth to school…
Before he knew it, Greg was almost to the fence. But each new step that took Greg closer to his destination slowed to a nervous crawl as he began to rethink his brilliant plan. Now that he was closer to them Greg could see that these boys were much bigger than he had thought, and he realized suddenly that he could smell smoke. He wrinkled his nose at the stench in disbelief. He was always warned by adults about the dangers of smoking, and he couldn't fathom how these boys—who couldn't have been more than a few years older than he was—had started up the nasty habit.
Greg swallowed hard against his nerves and stopped a few feet outside of their circle. He was too close now to turn back—surely the older boys would think even less of him if they saw him running away. Greg glanced over his shoulder and saw his two friends watching him eagerly from where they sat. The blonde nodded his head to silently egg him on while the other nervously gnawed on his nails. He turned back to the purpose of his mission, now feeling somewhat reassured by the attention he was getting.
He hadn't realized until now how tall these boys were. He had to crane his neck just to see their faces and the puffs of smoke that rose up from their mouths. Greg coughed from the thickness in the air and they finally turned to acknowledge his existence. And as they found the source of the noise and glared down at the small intruder, they looked less than enthused by his presence.
"What the hell do you want, twerp?" The largest of them asked as he dragged on his cigarette.
Greg shuffled his feet while he let out a short, obviously nervous chuckle. "Ha, 'twerp'—like I haven't heard that one before." He grinned up at the older boys, who glared back at him. He cleared his throat and wished the feeling of drunken butterflies dancing in his stomach would go away. "So, uh…what's up, guys? …I mean hanging—what's hanging? H-hanging out by the fence, I see… Well that's fun…cool…that's cool… I like hanging out, also… I'm Greg, by the way…"
He put his hand out first to shake hands with them, but they did not move to return the gesture. With an audible gulp and a very forced smile, Greg casually moved his hand to instead lean casually against the fence. The rusted chain links wobbled unsteadily even under his light weight so he quickly amended his mistake and stood straight again, opting for burying his now slightly shaking hands deep in his pockets. The three older boys continued to stare down at him like he was nothing more than a revolting insect.
"Ah, anywho," Greg continued, the pitch of his voice rising with his nerves. "I just wanted to, ya know, hang out with you guys and stuff."
"Why," the biggest boy—who must have been the leader—growled not as a question, but as a demand.
Greg swallowed hard. "Um, well, it-it's just 'cause you guys are always…over here…" he gestured to the fence "…and me and my guys are always…over there…" with his free hand he pointed back to his friends, who frantically shook their heads and looked away to avoid any involvement in what they considered to be Greg's very idiotic plan. "So I thought maybe we could hang out…somewhere in the middle…together...I guess…" He brought his hands together and folded them all the while grinning timidly up at the bullies that he'd hoped would save him from his own bully problems. "…maybe?"
A look of amusement crossed the older boys' faces simultaneously, but their smiles only sent chills down Greg's spine. Now he was not only a tiny, insignificant insect to them, but he was an insect that was just standing there begging to be squished, or set fire to, or torn meticulously to pieces.
Greg paled at their expressions and took an unsteady step backwards, almost tripping clumsily over his own feet as he did so. He looked down and noticed numbly that one of his shoe's laces were untied while he muttered, "uhh, actually…never mind…I'm sorry I, um, bothered you fellows. I'm just gonna…go now…"
Greg glanced up again just in time to see the leader of the three pulled his massive fist back. Greg's eyes widened in surprise and he was barely able to mutter a small "oh, crap" before pain exploded on his face and everything turned black.