All day long, the boys had been teasing him. All week long, they had been picking on him. All year long, they had been making fun of 10-year-old Mycroft Holmes, simply for being himself.
He was out the door the instant the bell rang, half-running home. His too-large backpack, weighted with several thick reading books, bumped painfully against his legs with every step. Hot tears pricked his eyelids, and he angrily blinked them away, lifting his backpack further up his shoulders and hunching over.
He was running away from the words, the harsh words that scorned him and burned his ears.
"Freak!"
"Wimp!"
"Pathetic swot!"
"Can't stand up for himself!"
He shook his head, but the words would not go away. They stayed, running around his head, an inescapable relay of scorn and hate and prejudice.
Finally, after what seemed hours of running, he arrived at his front gate and burst inside. Inside this fence, he was safe.
Mycroft arrived in his bedroom a minute later and shut the door, dropping his bag on the way over to his bed. He collapsed onto the bed and let the tears run in earnest, sobbing silently into his pillow.
For now, he was contented to cry like a baby. But later, he would work out a way to make a stand against the bullies.