'Hey, buttwipe.’

‘Lost your way, Freckles?!’

‘Oye, look who's here –'

‘It’s that loser from –'

‘Ew, is that who I think it is – ?’

And so on.

These are some of the first few remarks I heard when I set foot back in the jam-packed campus of {Undisclosed} School of {Undisclosed}.

In class, people acted just like they did when I sat in Dad's medieval car. Only this was so much more worse, because I could hear what they were saying. Like, they weren’t even whispering or trying to be even mildly polite. Exactly how shameless are kids these days?

And one would think at least the teachers would be nice, sensible human beings. I'm not saying they didn’t try, but their efforts to tranquilize me only made things worse. There was this one teacher, who introduced me to the class and all (when she said “some of you might know Mr. Marra here from earlier forms,” half the class snickered; I recognized many faces from before, almost all the jocks, even more gigantic and terrifying now; and that copper-haired girl who'd rushed to help Jason but tripped over herself, and a few other vaguely familiar faces), and at the end of it, she turned to me solemnly and said:

'I'm sorry about your mother, Mr. Marra. I’m sure she’ll make it through. Just stay strong.’

And she said it out loud. Loud enough for the entire class to hear.

Great. {Undisclosed} is a small town, and now by tomorrow, someone will have found out about my Mum's tumor. And then the whole class will know. And then the whole school.

And that’s exactly what came to past.

Most of the kids were somewhat decent in this matter and didn’t use it as an insult. Some even tried to sympathize with me, which I hated.
But the jocks. Nuh-uh. They made a point of making my Mum's disease a joke. Calling her “baldy-waldy oompus” and telling me I had “a dead brain”, just like my mother’s.

I swear, I wanted to punch them all in their unsightly, odious faces, but I held back. I may be Unkillable, but I do feel pain.

I did, however, hope in my heart of hearts that all of them beget brain tumor and diseases even worse than brain tumor. I think they could use the lesson.

The teachers noticed the jocks weren’t exactly being subtle on the new, special kid and asked me if I needed any help. I said no, of course; I didn’t need any more attention than I had already garnered. Without even doing anything, can you imagine!

I don’t even know why the jocks trouble me in the first place. I've never done them any harm. They probably get spanked by their father's belts and direct their rage on us Innocents. Because yes, not just me, everyone is the jocks' victim. They steal kids' lunchboxes and water-bottles and bags and sports clothes and shoes. (There was this one kid, who I heard had to go home naked-feet. And he walks home.)

The Jocks don’t know the meaning of the word mercurial. But I don’t think they'd be as bad – as bad, mind you – if not for their leader. Let's call him . . . I wanna call him something that oozes his personality.

How about “The Great And Big Abomination”? GABA, for short. (I'll pronounce it Gaah-Baah, though it hardly matters.)

If not for Gaba, I think the rest of the Jocks could have been better humans. Or be just humans. Or at least just be humans.

(See how I played with words there? Patting my back.)

Give me a second. Aar has dozed off on my shoulder, let me get him off. Boy oh boy, he's heavy . . .

. . . which gives me an idea. Maybe it’s time to introduce Aar to you.

He's a scrawny thing, Aar is, much like me. We even look a bit alike. The same, pinched eyes. The same jet black hair. The same short-for-our-age height. We could be brothers.

So, when I first met him, he was getting “Jocked”, if you know what I mean. Gaba stood in front of him, cracking his knuckles and grinning like the dumb GABA he was, while two of his goons held Aar by the arms.

(The following dialogues - in fact, all the dialogues in this book - are made by me. This isn't what they actually said, no one talks like this - but I figured there's no need getting you to hear the dreadful things people around me say.)

'You!’ Gaba was saying. ‘You will do my project!’

'Why would I?’ Aar said.

'Because I said so!’ Gaba barked. His goons sniggered, as if he had just cracked the funniest joke of the century.

‘So what if you said so?’ Aar asked, genuinely confused.

Gaba frowned, his dense mind processing a response. The best he could come up with was: 'You will do as I say or I beat you up!’

I could see torrents of spit splaying onto Aar's face even from the cautious distance I was maintaining. Poor guy, I thought.

'I. Will. Not.’ Aar gritted through gnawed teeth.

He has spunk, I’ll give him that. That’s how I immediately knew we’d be good friends.

Gaba nodded and his jocks twisted Aar's arms painfully. The poor guy could barely stifle a scream. Meanwhile, Gaba was enjoying himself.

I knew this stupid, thin kid wouldn’t give in to the jocks' torture. Get himself killed, maybe, but not give in.

Now, I was still relatively new to the {Undisclosed} School of {Undisclosed}, and I wanted to lay low for a while. Sure, everyone made fun of me. It's amazing, really, how cheap humor has gotten these days.

Still, seeing an innocent get beaten up – especially an innocent who was so much like me, in looks and in spirit – I couldn’t just stay silent. If they broke a bone or two of mine, it would hurt, sure, but on the more positive note, what could they possibly do at worst? Kill me?

Sorry to disappoint, folks, but – clicks teeth maladroitally– not happening.

‘Hey, how's it going?’ I casually said, walking up to the giant hunk that was Gaba and placing my hand nonchalantly on his broad-as-a-river-bank shoulder.

Gaba glared at me. I gulped, retracting my hand from his shoulder, lest he break it. He didn’t say anything, just kept his mean little eyes fixed on me expectantly.

'You need any help with your homework?’ I continued, quietly eyeing the boy who looked like me (didn’t know Aar's name was Aar back then).

The two jocks holding Aar perked up, sparkles in their eyes. Of course they’d want nothing better than for someone else to do their homework for them. Those big brutes. Maybe if I kept them distracted for time enough, Aar could wriggle free of their hold.

If I had to actually agree to doing their project for them in exchange for releasing Aar, I’d do that. Of course, afterwards I’d tell Aar to do their project; after all, I’d saved his life. But it did not come to that.

‘You’re that Buttwipe guy, aren’t you?’ Gaba said, his dumb features alit with recognition.

Ah, you go straight for the throat, don’t you, buddy?

‘How do you know I need help with my project?’ Gaba questioned.

‘I just heard you say it.’

Because you're a loudspeaker, you dumb garbage, I wanted to add, but didn't. I'd rather not go through the bother of regrowing my head if he ended up decapitating me for being too quippy.

'Why do you want to help us?’ one of the jocks holding Aar bawled, apparently very proud of having come up with a smart question.

'Oh, I just love doing all that project stuff,' I said, waving a hand.

I saw the jocks growing eager at the prospect and loosening their grip on Aar. He gave me an imperceptible nod.

‘But you know what?’ I said. ‘You guys really should do your homework yourself. Your brains could do with the sharpening.’

And then I ran. And Aar ran with me, yanking free of the jocks’ now-loose-thanks-to-me hold.
Before the jocks could realize what had happened, we were already gone.

Once you save someone from getting beaten the daylights out of, they automatically become indebted to you. And Aar paid his debt by becoming my first ever friend at the {Undisclosed} School of {Undisclosed}.

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