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A New Kid in Town - Part 1
 
It’s not very common for someone to be transferred in the middle of the year, at least, not in our school. That’s one of the reasons why Mark Coleman stood out among the students.

There was something else about him, though. He was quite short, he had a lovely face, and his gestures were sometimes a bit girlish. He obviously wasn’t a hunk, but he was kind of cute nonetheless.

Of course, that didn’t make him very popular among the other students. There are often some bullies who want to claim the disputable honour of being the first to harass whomever wasn’t an alpha male, and also the scavengers who wanted to scale up in the food chain by pushing others down.

In any case, Mark wasn’t a wimp either; he certainly knew how to defend himself. The first time he was bumped into a locker, he broke a couple of noses, and the second time he was ambushed, he did far more damage than he received, even though there were three against him. The teachers decided to look the other way, and no one bothered him again, the other students decided it would be better if they just left him alone.

My name is Paul Trey, and I’m 13 years old. Some of my geek friends sometimes call me Atreides or some other weird name from the book Dune, just for the name similarity, to annoy me, but I don’t really like it, so please don’t do it.

Mark was a year older than me, so we didn’t share any classes. That didn’t stop me from knowing everything about him, of course. He was the main topic everyone in school was talking about.

I think I was attracted to him since the first time I saw him. It wasn’t the first time I have had those kinds of feelings for another boy, though. I already knew that that probably made me gay, but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I kept it to myself, though, as I didn’t want to purposely become the new target of all the bullies in the school.

My closest friends were a mixed group of two other boys and two girls: Jake, Terry, Sue and Becca. All of us were quite geeky, and fans of fantasy and science fiction in any format in which it could be delivered.

Jake was a nerdy, slender and tall guy with glasses and very short hair. He had a great passion for anything that had to do with the stars, other planets and civilizations, space operas and science fiction in general.

Terry, short for Terrence, was a slightly chubby boy whose main purpose in life was apparently to collect comics and books - we often joked that some day his mother would have to throw him out of their house to make space for his stuff!

Sue was also nerdy, and loved physics and was, since kindergarten, absolutely determined to become an astrophysicist when she grew up.

Becca was a very smart girl, who was extremely suited to maths and science, played chess and was an avid reader, but being a bit underdeveloped for her age, it was usually hard work for her to be taken seriously. She was very optimistic, and often smiled.

I’m a skinny boy, and a passionate reader, my main hobby was to design and make and paint scale models of things, and sometimes used them in role-playing games. I had already made several vehicles, different kinds of buildings and even a couple of whole fighting fields. Luckily, our garage was big enough so that I could store all my stuff there.

Mark usually had lunch alone at the edges of the school canteen. None of his mates seemed to want to have anything to do with him, and he also didn’t seem too keen to interact with the rest of the students. I kind of felt bad for him, he seemed to be a nice guy and I was sure that he didn’t deserve it. I liked him. There were just five of us at our table, so there was an empty seat. I was sure that he would be thankful for a friendly face.

“Hey, dude!” I called, as he passed us by, “You can sit with us if you want”. That earned me some weird looks from my friends, who didn’t really expect anything like that, and who honestly couldn’t really care less about the new kid.

“You mean, me?” he asked, with a surprised expression on his face.

“Yeah, you”, I answered, “You’re welcome at our table, if you want to join us”. I smiled at him.

He doubted for a second and I nodded to him again. He finally sat down and joined us.

“I’m Paul, and these are my friends Jake, Terry, Sue and Becca”, I made the introductions.

“Nice to meet you all, I’m Mark”, he said. All of us already knew who he was, everybody at school did.

“So, how do you find this place? Do you like it?” asked Sue, trying to make some casual conversation.

“It’s okay, I guess”, he answered, noncommittally.

“I bet you miss your friends in your old school?” she asked.

“Not really”, he replied. “In fact, I don’t miss them at all”, he added, mysteriously.

He turned out to be a nice guy, not the stuck up idiot as which some of his own peers had pictured him. He didn’t seem to want to talk much, though, as he was still not comfortable enough with us, but I had the feeling that sometime he might be. My friends might be idiots sometimes, but they’re good guys.

“I’d like to be your friend, if you don’t mind”, I told him after lunch, offering him my hand, which he shook friendlily.
 
 
As the days went by, we became used to having him with us for our lunchtime, and sometimes he met us at the end of school. He was slowly becoming a part of our group, and started to join us in some of our games. Even though his peers kept avoiding him like the plague, the students in our year seemed to also be becoming friends with him.

Of course, the bullies in his year didn’t much like that, and we started to get some harassment from them, especially me.

Once, I was bumped hard against my locker, and found myself surrounded by three big boys, a year older than me.

“So you’re hanging out with the faggot now?” started Josh, apparently the leader of the bullies. “Maybe he’s a queer too?” he added, looking at one of his friends.

“Yeah!” the other one replied. “Maybe he’s his boyfriend", he exclaimed. "Mwah, mwah”, he mimicked some kisses with his mouth.

“Stop it! Leave us alone!” I confronted them. “Listen", I added trying to keep calm, “We don’t want any problems, okay?”

A teacher was coming towards us, so they stepped away to avoid any problems for the moment.

“We’ll see about that, fairy boy”, said Josh finally, with a grimace on his face, before turning away and leaving. I just picked up my things and went to class.

Of course, I was not going to be intimidated by those bullies. I had already seen Mark stand up to them, and so would I. I decided to try to keep myself away from them as much as I could. I wasn’t eager to be looking for problems if I could avoid them.
 
 
The first time I went to Mark's house, it was weird. As we entered, his mother called to him from the kitchen.

“Laurie, that you? Back from school?” she asked.

“Mum, I told you not to call me that!” he exclaimed, upset. “There’s one of my friends from school with me”, he added.

His mom came out of the kitchen, to greet me.

“Oh, it’s a boy.” she seemed surprised.

“Of course he is a boy, mum!” he exclaimed, raising his voice. “It wasn’t going to be a dog!”

“Okay, hun, don’t get upset. I didn’t mean it in a bad way”, she replied. “Do you want some lemonade or something?" she offered. “You can play here or in the yard. I'd prefer if you don't get into your room together, but if you do, please leave the door open.” she warned.
 
 
“Your mum is weird”, I told him, when she was gone. “Why did she call you Laurie?”

“Ehm... It’s.... It’s my middle name, Laurence”, he explained. “I hate it when she calls me that. Let me change clothes and lets go out. Wait for me here, please, I’ll be right back!” he added, running up the stairs.

I took the opportunity to glance around the living room. There was a big plasma TV, many books, lots of decorative stuff, paintings, and also many photos around. There were photos of Mark and his mum, also someone who seemed to be his dad, older people who seemed to be his grandparents and photos of what appeared to be other members of the family and friends. There were also many photos of a girl with Mark’s parents and grandparents, and I wondered if he maybe had a sister. There was enough similarity between them to make me sure that she was. I would have to ask him sometime.
 
 
“Hey! Treides! Mark! We’re here!” called Jake when we were approaching the park.

“You dork, shut up! Don’t call me that!” I crumpled a sheet of paper into a ball and threw it at him. He just made a face at me and dodged it. I stuck out my tongue at him.

Many of our classmates usually met in the park when we were not at school. There were usually some 20 of us there during the day. Us nerdy ones, used to sit on the grass and talk about things. Others were playing sports or games, some roller-skating or skateboarding, and there were also some other groups around, chatting. Unlike those in the school year above us, we generally got on well with each other, and we had somehow adopted Mark as one of us.

Jake, Terry, Sue and I, were discussing sci-fi, Becca was talking with some of her girlfriends and Mark was playing ball with a few of our mates, when we saw Josh and his two minions in the distance. I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to be a very promising situation.

“Oh! Look at this!”, they exclaimed, walking towards Mark. “If it isn’t the faggot trying to play with the guys!” The three of them become confrontational as they approached the guys playing sports.

“Oh, fuck!”, I exclaimed unwillingly. “Well, what the heck, there’s no way to avoid this”.

I got up and went towards the bullies.

“Leave us alone, we are not bothering you!” I told them.

“You shut up, weirdo”, exclaimed Josh, annoyed. “This has nothing to do with you. You stay out of our way”, he added. His friends grinned at me scornfully.

I stepped forward. “He’s my friend, this has to do with me. I’m not gonna stay out of it!” I said, angrily. Our friends were amazed at my behaviour. I have always kept a low profile and had never done anything like this before.”

“Okay you girly, wanna stay in, I’ll grant your wish”. I never saw his fist coming. When I regained consciousness, I was laying in the grass, my nose bleeding, surrounded by many concerned faces. I sat up slowly. The bullies were gone.

“Now, that was really brave, Paul!”, exclaimed Becca, hugging me. “Are you okay?” I nodded.

“Come here, bro”, Mark offered his hand. “I’ll take you home”. He helped me up and held me. My head was still spinning a bit so I hung onto it.

“Where are they? Have they gone?” I asked.

“Yeah! We threw them out! If they know what’s good for them, hopefully, they won’t dare to come back!” said Sean, one of the guys in my class. I smiled, I liked how our class always stuck together when it was important.

Mark helped me going home. As I hung onto him, I perceived something I had not found out before. Under his loose clothing, he seemed to have a noticeable bandage around his chest. I looked at him, concerned that he might have been hurt or something, and he noticed what was bothering me. He put his finger to my mouth and whispered “It’s okay, Paul. We’ll talk later”.

End of Part 1
 
 
Lots of thanks to Amrad for helping me fix most of the mistakes in the text! The remaining mistakes are still my fault, and I apologize for them.