Story series - trying to blend in anonymously, part two

Last week, I wrote about Bully #1 in my math class during my freshman year. Bully #2 was never in any of my classes, but we were both sophomores. He was someone I would walk by often in the hallways on my way to my classes.

My high school has 20 buildings on a sprawling campus. The campus was formerly used by a community college before my town got bigger and prompted the need for a bigger campus to handle the rising number of students. The vacated campus created a perfect opportunity for my town to split up into two high schools.

Bully #2 wasn't a jock, an artist, or even a popular guy. He was a nerd. Apparently, he couldn't stand the thought of having a deaf nerd in his clique. Yes, I was a nerd...how I acted with others didn't allow for me to fit into any of the cliques except for the nerds.

Physically, he was unremarkable - wore glasses, kept his hair short, didn't change his clothes often, and always preferred one pair of shoes. He was slightly heavier than me and about 2 inches/5 centimeters taller.

One day, he worked up some courage (or was it more likely his hatred moved him into action?) and he got physical with me by deliberately bumping into me with his shoulder, knocking the books out of my hands, pretending not to see me and get into my way.

I simply adjusted by getting a backpack (since I knew others would do the same thing) and stepping out of the hallway for a longer route to my classes. That drove him nuts since he couldn't get to me at all. Took him until the next semester before he could get to me again.

January came around and he put into action what he thought was a perfect plan. Let me explain the layout of the school. About half of the buildings are connected by hallways and every once in a while there is a small grouping of offices for teachers. One such cluster was largely abandoned (due to poor location and too few teachers) and that's where he was, hiding and waiting for me to walk by.

He came out and asked to talk to me privately. I knew what he had in mind and I wasn't scared of him at all. I followed him back into that "lounge" and he told me to go ahead and put my backpack down. The second I did as asked was the second he grabbed hold of me and pushed me back into a wall.

I was actually amused by that because of two things: 1) he wasn't really doing it roughly like he meant it and 2) his eyes were showing fear. Seeing my smile on my face scared him more and he twisted his fists deeper into my shirt. Big mistake.

I already knew what to do. Digging deeper into my shirt meant that his hands weren't readily available for defense and he was completely exposed. I had been in fights before; even took on three boys at once and lost that one...but not before I made the leader pay with a gash in his head and a lingering headache by making a brick wall meet his head.

I decided that the best way to deal with this scared bully was to make him temporarily deaf. I clapped my hands on his ears just hard enough to achieve that effect without bursting any of his eardrums. I wanted to burst one just for hassling me, but the school was notoriously tough on fighting - an immediate expulsion if caught.

He let go of my shirt in shock and cupped his ears. He stood there and did not say a word so I moved in and pointed at his face and said "Bother me again and I will burst your ears. If I see you in the hallway, I will burst your ears. You better turn around and walk away if you see me coming. Got that?"

He just stared at me, incomprehensibly. My voice got louder and sterner, "GOT THAT?" and he nodded. I smiled sweetly at him, picked up my backpack, opened the door out to the hallway, and walked away without even a glance.

I almost never saw him again until we graduated as seniors.

Part three will be published next week. This one is a doozy - you'll like it. ;)