Author's Notes: This chapter starts a humble tribute *cough ripoff cough* to a certain Swedish movie called Evil (Ondskan). Its climax is in the next one. If you want to do something nice for me, get your hands on that movie and watch it if you haven't already done that. It's on YouTube, if you're desperate. If you like Bully, you're bound to like it: it has pretty much the same premise and same character archetypes but it's handled with both more sophistication and brutality.
Chapter 8: Team Spirit
When Larry more or less came to, he had been carried off somewhere, apparently. His jaw hurt like hell and the insides of his head felt like jelly that hadn't stopped jiggling yet. Around him, he heard agitated male voices bickering about something.
"... And really, 'punch delivery'? For heaven's sake Bif, that was awfully tasteless and you know it", said a somehow bubbly, flamboyant voice with a bad English accent.
"Well, I thought it was appropriate! I mean, Spencer Shipping and all that. Besides, the prefect didn't notice us, so I don't see any problem here", defended a man with an unashamedly American way of speaking.
Oh great, those were probably Gord Vendome and Bif Taylor. This was it then, they had come for Larry.
"Just shut your traps, both of you! Gord, stop whining like an indecent street urchin and Bif, he's right: have some dignity and think before you talk, you fool! Good lord, no delivery man gets to socialize with me, much less live in my house!"
That vicious, snobby voice... Derby Harrington, no doubt about it.
"S-Sorry Derby. It won't happen again", Bif apologized, sounding a bit hurt by Derby's scolding.
"Ah, and Tad, our little guest seems to have awakened. Get on with this plan of yours", the preppie clique leader announced nonchalantly.
"With pleasure. Bif, if you would be so kind as to take a bullet for the team and touch that wretched thing to get it to face us, I'd be most grateful", said another faux English accent.
Larry was grabbed by two unsteady hands and turned around gingerly on his other side as he laid on a cold floor. Bif probably wasn't being gentle because of concern for Larry, but for his attire. The prissy bastards. They were gathered around him, looking down on him in amusement as he was still cooperating from the loss of his consciousness.
"Thank you, Bif old boy. But oh dear me, it seems that you were right Gord! That disgusting substance the greasers have in their hair really is something they have to actually apply themselves. I'm both relieved and disgusted", said Tad Williams with an exaggeratedly delighted tone. The other preppies chuckled at him lightly.
"Fuck... You...", Larry mumbled faintly and tried to blow away the strands of hair that were blocking his sight.
"Feisty, aren't we? Well, hopefully that trait serves you well when you clean up our personnel's shoes", Tad said with a smirk and suddenly extended his hand in front of him to peer at his watch.
"Hmm. I think we'll give you... One hour. Yes, one hour should do it. Clean them up nicely before we come back and you'll be let to go do whatever a stray mongrel like you likes to do", he announced.
"That's it, Tad?" Bif asked, baffled.
"I, too, thought that this would be something more interesting", Gord joined in with an unimpressed voice.
"Don't you worry chaps, this will get very intriguing indeed if this dirty peasant doesn't manage to get his task done in time", Tad assured meanly.
"Now then, let's toss this tosser in with the shoes, shall we?" he said and stepped towards Larry while pulling up his sleeves.
The preppies lifted the ex-greaser up from his legs and arms and started to heave him somewhere. With a swing, they really did toss him: he landed in a very small, poorly lit space, right on top of a pile of dirty, muddy shoes.
"Good luck, Peanut my old friend", Tad said with a chuckle as he closed the door.
When Larry grunted and sat up, he looked around him. There was a brush, a rag, some kinds of ointments presumably for treating leather, and loads of dirty shoes. Tad had probably told his fellow trust fund babies to bring their gardeners' footwear. Whatever the case, there was no way Larry could ever clean up this many shoes in one hour. Neither was he even thinking of actually doing that even if it were doable and if his life depended on it.
Bring it on, he thought.
As time passed Larry got more and more bored and tired. He just sat, and waited. He would have smoked a cigarette, but he found that the preppies had taken his lighter and smokes away, which made him all the more annoyed. What's more, Larry's thoughts kept returning to the time when he had been stuck in Spencer Shipping warehouse.
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit", hissed Larry Romano, 15, very soon 16 years of age.
He certainly was in a pickle. After smashing probably several hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of luxurious items and spraying a big nice hello in the window of the office, the youngster was in very, very serious trouble if he couldn't get out soon. As the boy had squeezed between a large container and a wall to hide from the workers, something had knocked him to the ground. When he had come to, he had been greeted by the face of a bronze horse statue, staring at him with its vacant eyes.
He had been lucky not to have been crushed to death. He had probably been saved by the container: when the statue had toppled over, it had probably scraped against its sides and lost some momentum when it pushed it further away from the wall. Now the statue laid on top of Larry, its legs bent and broken by the impact of its fall and the statue's stand crushing the young man's left leg. If the stumps of it limbs also gave out, the statue's chest would also be resting against Larry's torso, which could make it very hard for him to breathe.
It was already hard to breathe, though. He couldn't see anything, but he heard the workers and policemen returning from their futile chase. While Larry was very, very tempted to raise his voice and yell for help, he was absolutely terrified: what would happen to him if they found him? The police would take him away, then... He'd be the laughing stock of the school, once again a target of his stepfather's cold scrutiny, and he'd have to compensate for the damages to none other than Tad Spencer's family. Johnny and Lola would laugh at the memory of him while his brain rotted away in juvenile hall.
He then decided: he'd rather die. He laid under the colossal waste of metal and took agonizingly short breaths, only making his breathing more shallow and noisy as he tried to control it. He was seriously going to start hyperventilating soon and someone was bound to hear it. His eyes felt strained and cheeks scorching hot as tears started to push through his ducts.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang. In his hysterical state, Larry hardly heard it, but the workers and the police did. Some of them felt reluctant to leave the warehouse, but their curiosity and stupidity got the best of them and they all went outside through the main door. Then, one of the side entrances opened, and hasty steps spread around the warehouse.
"Larry? You here?" Hal's voice echoed through the warehouse while the loud bangs continued outdoors.
Larry tried to desperately raise his voice, but all that came out was a pathetic whine. Hal didn't hear it.
"I know what'll get to him if he's really here", said another voice.
Larry perked up and his frantic breathing came to a halt for a moment. Johnny, the annoying, hotheaded thorn in his flesh since his first year at Bullworth Academy, had come to get him.
"Ahem... PEANUT! WHERE YOU AT?"
Just for that stupid, stupid nickname, a part of Larry's brain felt like not answering him. Thankfully, his survival instincts won.
"I'm... I'M HERE!"
The search party scrambled and everyone scurried to where Larry was.
"Shit... We're gonna have to be pretty quick, the cops will be back any minute!" said Debbie, a long since graduated greaser.
"Let's do it, then. I ain't leavin' no greaser behind", Johnny growled, as if to challenge the mauled horse statue.
It took the whole group's combined effort, but they managed to pry their friend from the underside of the metal equine. Too shaken and dazed to even utter a thank-you, Larry just hung on to Debbie and Johnny as they started taking him out the same way they had came from. Throughout the trip to safety, Johnny kept saying meaningless, but reassuring things to him. "You're gonna be okay, shorty." "C'mon, it's only a few blocks." "Only a bit further, walk tall now, Peanut." The relief blew over him and he really did feel that everything was going to be okay from then on.
Larry "Peanut" Romano, now 17 years of age, smiled faintly at his memory. Hal, a supporter of his back then, had snapped at Johnny for using the dorky nickname even in such a dire situation.
"He can call me whatever he wants", Larry had then managed to say, and the rest of the agonizing walk he had remained silent. It was deeply infuriating to him that now, even the lowest of the low were misusing that name.
"It's time, Peanut", an arrogant voice said from the door to the small, dingy room with loads of filthy shoes, untouched by Larry's hands.