The Bully Book (4 page)

“What are you two losers doing?” He laughed.

“Reading comics,” I answered.

“Oh,” he mumbled, looking confused. “Well, that's dumb.” He sat down on Colin's bed.

His butt sank the mattress and Colin heated with rage.

“If it's so dumb, Richard, then-why-don't-you-get-out-of-my-room!”

“You get out of your room,” said Richard.

“It's mine!” Colin screeched. He rolled onto his back and thrust his bare heels at his brother. Richard coughed and reared up on the bed. His entire weight dropped on Colin's fragile body, crushing him. Colin's fingers caught Richard's hair and yanked as his brother mushed his palm against Colin's nose.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Cut it out, you idiots!”

They froze. Colin let go of the hair and Richard slowly rolled off him.

“And who do you think you are?” said Richard.

“Well, I think my name is Eric,” I told him. “Eric Haskins.”

Richard looked me up and down.

“Eric Haskins. You're in Colin's grade.” His red face pulsed as he spoke. “Lemme ask you, how big of a loser is my brother?”

“Not as big a loser as you,” I said. I meant it in every possible way. Richard was large.

“Hey, don't you call me that!” Richard sneered.

“You're in for it this year, Colin.” He laughed. “You don't even know. You're in for it.” The sneer twisted into a smile. “You're going to be the Grunt.”

I perked up in my seat.

“Excuse me?” I said.

Richard bit his lips.

“What did you just say?” I asked.

I fixed Richard with my eyes.

“Did you just say Colin is going to be the Grunt?”

“No …,” Richard stammered.

“That is what you said.”

“Who wants to know?” He eyed me with suspicion. “Are you one of them? You can't be. They wouldn't be caught dead hanging around with Colin.”

“One of who?” I asked.

“Yeah, who wouldn't be caught dead with me?”

“Shut up, Colin,” Richard and I both said at once.

Richard looked me up and down. He stood and closed the door. He drew the blinds on the windows so we sat in the dark, silent.

“Okay,” he whispered. “But you gotta promise not to tell.”

I nodded seriously and said I promised. He looked at Colin. “How about you?”

“I promise.” Colin was shaking inside of his shirt.

“Have either of you,” said Richard, “ever heard about The Book?”

“The Book?” I said.

“Yeah.” Richard nodded. “When I was in 6th grade, like you guys, everything went bad for me. See, I was a normal kid before. Everything was good. But things changed when some guys got hold of The Book.”

The Book. Like what Donovan was talking about?

“They made fun of me, laughed at me, got other kids to do it. The whole class turned against me, like their goal in life was to make me miserable. The guys started calling me Grunt. I could hear them talking about me when they thought I wasn't around. The Grunt did this, the Grunt did that. We've gotta do this to the Grunt. They had some plan for me.”

My heart beat faster in my chest.

“They were having secret meetings in one of the classrooms after school. One day, I hid in the garbage can to see what they were talking about.”

“In the garbage can?” Colin said.

“They were ruining my life!” His face got red. “I needed to know.”

“What were they talking about?” I said.

“Me. How I was coming along. How they were doing, according to The Book.”

“The Book?” I said.

“The Bully Book, that's what I call it,” said Richard. “Teaches you to be cool. Tells you to pick one kid. Make his life miserable.”

“It tells you how to pick him,” I said, not thinking.

“Yeah,” said Richard. He gave me a suspicious look. “How'd you know that?”

I didn't tell him about Donovan. About how he said he didn't want me to be the Grunt. But that I fit the description. That they had no choice.

“Just guessed,” I said.

“Well,” said Richard, “I wish you could guess how they pick you. I can't figure it out. I was normal. I was different before all this. I was just a normal, regular kid.”

Richard crushed his big fist against his eye. He rubbed his forearm across his face. It took me half a minute to realize he was pushing the tears back in.

“Anyway,” Richard continued, “however The Book says to pick the Grunt, they picked me. And Colin's a littler, stupider version of me …”

“Shut up!”

Colin threw a bony punch. Richard caught it with his meaty hand and leaned in close.

“So this year, Colin, the Grunt … is you.”

I stood up. Not breathing.

“Gotta get home,” I said.

Colin trembled. He broke eye contact with his brother.

“But we haven't done the—”

“Forget the assignment,” I said. “Forget everything, Colin. You're going to be fine this year. Just …” I ran my hands through my hair, trying to organize my thoughts. “I'll do it myself at home. I'm leaving.”

“You need a ride.”

“I'll walk, Colin,” I said. “I've got to think.”

I didn't give Colin or Richard another glance, and I left that stinking house.

Once you've got your lieutenants on board with the plan, you need to get the rest of the class involved.

You need to invent a game.

A Grunt game. Something that everyone would want to play.

It needs to have clear rules and include everybody (except the Grunt, of course). Have the kids in your class hide the Grunt's things, or only talk to the Grunt in a secret language, or act like the Grunt has a disease that no one wants to catch.

These are only some ideas. Look around and you'll figure something out. Just make sure it's all about the Grunt, and make sure you're having fun.

Normally, a substitute teacher is cause for rejoicing.

Didn't do your homework? = It's not being collected.

Have a class book report? = Let's watch the movie.

Under most circumstances, a substitute teacher is a great thing. When isn't it? Funny you should ask.

Today we had our first weekly vocab assignment, but Mr. Whitner wasn't in school. In his place, we had a faceless, soulless sub. It was her job to make us spell and define the words on our list, one by one.

The first to go was Jason Crazypants. His word was yonder.

He stood up and spelled it. No one paid attention, because nobody cares how you spell yonder. But Jason smirked and glanced over at Adrian and Donovan.

Jason used the word in a sentence.

“Yonder. Over yonder field, I can see Eric Haskins's big head.”

Adrian laughed first, then Donovan. The class took a second to catch on.

I tensed up in my seat. “Your face is all red!” Ruth McNealy shouted at me from the next desk over. She was laughing with the other kids.

I turned to Melody. She glared at the sub: Why wasn't this lady doing anything?

Did she not recognize my name? She had just called attendance. But her eyes glazed over. More like a Human Substitute.

Adrian Noble went next. Circumambulate: walk or go around something.

“Whenever I see Eric Haskins, I circumambulate him to avoid the smell.”

Laughter. Mr. Whitner told us using the word in a sentence helps you remember its meaning. So I guess I was just playing my part in the learning process. Human Substitute stared out the window.

Donovan's word was biannually. Biannually: occurring once every two years. He avoided looking at my side of the room entirely.

“If I see Eric Haskins … if I only see Eric Haskins biannually, it's too much.”

He stuttered through it but still got laughs. Once people caught on to the game, no one even tried to be clever. Somebody's word was generally and he said, “Eric Haskins is generally stupid.”

People you wouldn't expect—like quiet Ashley Dickenson and Ruth McNealy, the girl who only wears puppy shirts!—they both used their words against me. And, of course, jerks like Nick Drumme. His word was mourn.

“I will not mourn at Eric Haskins's funeral.”

People didn't laugh as loudly at that. Pretty bad taste from a guy I never talk to.

There must have been something really interesting out the window, because Human Substitute continued to keep her brain out of the classroom as the rest of the kids hammered me. It only stopped when Melody took her turn.

“Blissful: a state of extreme happiness or joy,” Melody said when she stood. “It would be blissful if everyone in this room would stop acting like butt-holes.”

She stared directly at Jason Crazypants.

The Human Substitute yelled, “Language!”

“But—”

“Next,” she said. “Next student.”

Melody sat down. She turned to me. I saw the way her lips curved into a pout. Her eyes were eyelashy and sad.

It gave me a weird feeling.

“Don't listen to them, Eric,” she said. “Act like they don't even exist.”

She touched my hand and my heart beat faster. For a second, I did forget they existed. Melody squeezed my wrist and looked out at the classroom. I didn't take my eyes off her.

The next person went and they didn't make an Eric Haskins sentence. Melody let go of my arm but it took me a minute to start breathing normally again.

The Human Substitute called my name and I jumped back to attention. I was one of the last ones to do a word, and ended up with hazardous: full of risk, dangerous.

I hoped to fight back with my word, saying something really clever—but I choked.

“Many things in this world are hazardous,” I said.

And I meant it.

Everyone has at least some friends, even the biggest losers. It's something you have to deal with when you're making the Grunt.

Normal classrooms are made of minigroups of friends. This is bad. There should be one friend group with one leader: you.

A person can only be the head of one group, so there should be one group.

The Grunt is the only one left out.

If the Grunt has friends, they won't be part of your group. Then there will be two groups, and that will lead to three, and four, and five, and everything will just fall apart.

So you gotta stop this thing early on. You've got to ruin the Grunt's friendships.

It's not easy to do, and it's not pretty, but it's an important part of the strategy. You need to start fights between the Grunt and his friends. Spread rumors that will cause trouble.