Sons of Thunder

He stood diffidently in his new uniform, the sleeves slightly too long and the collar slightly too big. His Grandmother spoke to the deputy and he tuned out, thinking about the last place and the place before that.
‘James’ he heard the deputy say in her soft Scottish burr ‘James’.
‘Yes’ he responded, back in the here and now.

She smiled, reminding him of a Crocodile.

‘Your Grandmother has explained your situation to me. And some of the problems you’ve faced. We’re sure you’re going to thrive here with us’.
He forced a weak smile as his Grandmother looked anxiously on.

A tall, plain girl showed him around the school. Library, hall, canteen; nothing out of the ordinary. He was introduced to his form tutor and given a timetable and a desk next to a skinny, nervous looking 14 year old named Chris.

They had double Spanish and at break stood in the corner of the yard as Chris introduced him to his friends. It was immediately apparent that his group weren’t the coolest in the school. They weren’t the friends he wanted, not this time.

He sat next to a tubby girl with bad skin for Geography; she did most of the talking for them until shushed by the pretty young teacher. A blonde boy called Barlow stared at him for a while daring him to stare back until he lost interest and started kicking the back of the chair in front of him.

At lunch he joined Chris and his friends in the Canteen, He ate fish fingers and chips as they asked him what bands he liked and what football team he supported. He told them they could call him Jim or Jimmy but not James and never Jamie.

A couple of older kids at the next table kept looking over and snickering. They threw a few chips at Chris who looked down, humiliated in front of his friends.

‘Pricks’ he said softly as they filed past after the bell had rung.

‘You what?’ the fat one exclaimed. He kept walking, trying to look like he didn’t give a fuck, but clenching his fists in his pockets to stop the shaking. He remembered his last two schools and knew this time it had to be different, he had to be different.

‘Oi you, you little bastard’ the fat one clattered into a chair as he tried to get up and after him.

‘Cheeky little wanker!’ his mate yelled, coming around the side of the table.

He could hardly breathe but he knew what he had to do. He remembered the last place, and the place before. The taunts, the ‘practical jokes’, that bastard Dobson waiting for him on the way home every fucking night. No cunt was ever going to terrorise him again.

He stopped and turned.

‘Cunts!’ he screamed, picking up a chair and swinging it wildly at his startled pursuers. ‘Fucking Cunts!’ as he smashed the fat fucker across his face and then hurled the chair at the other wanker. All he could see was a blur of open mouthed faces around him and a dull roar of noise. He pushed a table over and was preparing to hurl another chair when a pair of strong arms grabbed him and he was dragged kicking and cursing from the canteen.

‘There was an incident at lunchtime’ the deputy head said ‘in the Canteen’.

It’s a terrible thing to see your Grandmother with tears in her eyes and know that you are the cause. He stared at the floor as they discussed him, his Grandmother pleading and tearful as she explained what he had been through, the bullying, his father, and the beatings. The deputy head laying down the law.

He wanted to speak, but nothing would come. When asked a question he had to force a blurted out ‘Yes’ and ‘Sorry’. He wanted to cry, he knew he’d feel better if he cried but he felt nothing inside. A dark lonely calm. And something else. An absence. No one scared him any more.

Eventually, after a stream of stern lecturing and promises from his Grandmother and mumbled undertakings from him, it was agreed that he would be able to return the next day. She tried to talk to him when they got back home, she put her arms around him, he pulled away and ran up the stairs, no one was ever going to see him cry again.

There was silence when he entered the form room the next morning, followed by excited whispering as he nonchalantly took his place. Chris looked at him with a mix of fear and awe. At first break Barlow sauntered over and asked him if he smoked. He took leave of his old self, of Jamie, forever.