Please note there is another revision to the first chapter posted, not much changed except correcting the wandering tense. I did make a few significant changes to this one, though

And so, I soon find myself sitting in the grass near the hopscotch grid with the girls at West Elementary School in Mountain Home, Idaho. I am still in a daze from all of this, but at least there is strength in numbers, Numbskull Ned and his gang of knock-kneed nogoodniks are not about to cause me trouble with so many witnesses. All I have to worry about now is Tiffany and her prison princesses, it has been my painful discovery that her words hurt far worse than Ned’s noogies. I must admit, my mouth does get me in trouble, but all I can say is they started it first, so nyah, nyah, nyah!

“Why hopscotch?” I ask.

“It is the only place that the bullies won’t want to take away from us. Besides, it is Molly’s favorite,” says Gwen. Gwen is from Taiwan, a little overweight, and has very wealthy parents. She never has an attitude about it, though, in fact there are a couple of kids that she spends her money on to buy them lunch each day.

After a bit, when I had finished my turn at hopscotch, Deanna asks me, “Jackson, why did Tiffany say you were now a member of our club? Has she just found someone new to torment, or?????” as she lets the sentence hang.

Before I could crawl away, Molly, who was the red-head that was behind me at that table earlier, grabs my ankles and says, “Not so fast mister! I think that question is worth an elucidation, it is a very pertinent question.” I end up pulling her several feet since she is very slender, with beautiful emerald green eyes. Molly is one of the class brains, and last year’s winner of the State Spelling Bee. She’s also one of the nicest people in our grade, although I’ve never really had the chance to get to know her well. Gwen and Stephanie I have rarely talked to and I really don’t know much about them. Hanging out with the girls in 6th grade is a sure-fire way to tempt the plug-uglies, but by this time, what else can they do to me? I’ll be glad to get to know Deanna’s friends.

“Well, I have PE last period, and last Friday we were playing tag and my shirt got pulled nearly off of me. Needle-nose Ned came over and started to tease me…” and I start to cry.

It’s a strange experience to all of a sudden be surrounded in a group hug by a bunch of girls, let me tell you! I tried to pretend it bothered me, but that lasted all of two seconds.

Once I’ve pulled myself together I explain, “Since I’ve started to gain weight, I’ve started to develop a bit of a flabby chest and…” I sniffle and continue, “Ned said I had tits!!! I guess it took until today for that to get around the school and for Terrible Tiffany to find out.” I can’t help it, I swear, those names just come out of nowhere! When I saw Ned shove Deanna once, I tried to get in the way, and called him Nowhere Man Ned. He’s had it out for me ever since.

“Dea-” I cut myself off and start over, “Deanna, I’m sorry I haven’t been spending much time with you here…”

“Don’t you dare! I’m not about to let you apologize for that, we get plenty of time together out of school. None of this is your fault!” she interrupts. “Now say it with me – ‘None of this is my fault’ - come on now.”

“None of this is my fault,” I repeat along with her. “But…”

“Nope! Not going there Jackie! Whoops, sorry about that!”

“Watch it Deanna, I know a name you don’t want me to use!”

“What, Dean? They already know you call me that, in fact my nickname in our club is ‘The Dean’,” she replies. “Molly is the secretary, Heather is the treasurer…”

“You can have that job now Jackie, I’m not as good at math as you are,” interrupts Heather, a bit too loudly.

“Then you are now vice-president Heather, we have been needing someone to be that officially. The school wasn’t happy we didn’t have one. And Heather, careful with the name!” I think she would have had more to say, but the bell rang for the end of lunch. My next class is English, and the only club member that will be there with me is Molly.

As I start to head to class, I am ambushed with another group hug – I think I could get to like this, maybe. “IBTC, together, we are stronger than bullies!” they all chant before heading off to go to classes.

“By the way, most of the school personnel only know our club by the initials, and if anyone ever asks what they stand for, tell them it means ‘Intermediate Budokon Training Club’, oh, and by the way, we are meeting tonight with my dad for instructions.” says Stephanie as she skips away. “And you are required to be there!”

“Molly? What’s Budokon?” I ask as we head to English.

“Budokon is a martial arts form that combines Yoga with combat techniques from multiple styles including Japanese Karate-Do, Korean Taekwondo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It focuses more on defensive postures than offensive. We started taking it from her dad after Tiffany started bothering us. Stephanie is already a Purple belt, all the rest of us are white belts, although Deanna is testing for Red next week.” Both Deanna and Stephanie are very athletic.

“Molly, I’m more confused now, but let’s drop it for now, my brain feels like it is a County Fair funnel cake. Just one question, why does Stephanie’s Dad teach that?”

“He is an Air Force Special Warfare, Para-rescue member and he has been training in martial arts since he was three. He started Steph on it when she was 7,” she says as we arrive to class.

After English was Math with Deanna and Gwen, which I always enjoy, in spite of Ned’s Problematic Presence. I’m not going to bore you with my academic day, I’m sure just about everyone reading this went to 6th grade. PE… Well….

Coach Murowski catches me at the door, “Jackson Phillips Brown, come with me!”