I run down the uneven sidewalk taking larger strides than I ever have before. I hear the gears in the bicycles grinding percussively with the clattering of the wheels on the street. I dare a glance back and see their satanic sneers coming unnervingly close. I feel like I am breathing in scorched desert sand, but I don’t stop because I would rather suffocate than let them catch me. I have to get home, I think, I have to get home to my family. I’m safe with my family. I have to get home.
     I turn into an alley hoping they won’t follow, but I find myself trapped in a dead end. I look back at where I came from but they turn the corner and drop their bikes to the ground. Their grimy faces sneer in excitement while their baseball jerseys hang loose off their frames. They march towards me drawing out every step and I become a mouse sharing a cage with a rattlesnake.
     “Hey, nerd!” the biggest one shouts while his team of hoodlums laugh and cajole him. His buzz cut looks sharp and deadly in the backlight if the afternoon. “My… buddies and I didn’t appreciate you ratting on us for cheating off you. We all failed. So it looks to me like you owe us a favor.” I didn’t know his whole gang was in cahoots about this cheating debacle. I scramble back towards the dusty brick wall, still sitting on the filthy asphalt. my skelaton presses through my thin skin and curls of brown hair fall in my eyes. They all step out of the shadows. He smiles like he is watching salt kill a snail. “I expect payment in cash… or blood.”
Inside my pocket some coins jingle around, and I pull them out, offering them to him.
"What a sweet thought!" He says, "but blood sounds more fun." He shoves them away and I kneel to collect them. While I am still on the ground, he raises his white sneaker to crush me and I cringe in anticipation of his kick. Just then, I imagine my friends bursting in at the end of the alleyway and saving me, but I know there is no one to come defend me.
In that moment I see the expression of my father from the first time they beat me up. I remember how devastated he was when his eldest son came home with a black eye and no blood on his knuckles. I remember how worried my mother was the time after that when I came home with a fat lip instead of my bike.
     The impact on my stomach jerks me back into the moment. He takes another blow at me and my arm folds into me with a solid “THWACK!” A fugitive tear drips off of my eye. I try to stand up, and he shoves me into the wall. I straighten my back again and he punches me in the shoulder. I shield my face with my forearms so he hits me with his knee. The pain pulses in yellow and orange patches all over my body. Each one sends radiating signals that feel like bubbles in a pot of acid.
     I see my father frowning like he has failed in some way and I tense up like a balloon about to burst. With full force, I swing at my attacker, closing my fingers to a tight ball and yelling a valiant battle cry. I hear a crunch when my fist hits his face. My bones all rattle when they collide with his skull. He turns his head back to me slowly with blood streaming out of his mouth. his lip twitches and his nose shrivels in disgust. I step back, my shoulder pulling back taught and my back getting straghter. I might be sharing a cage with a rattlesnake, but I’m no mouse.  The entire cabal stares at me in a stupor. My fist feels hard and brittle like I am clad with the brass knuckles of a gladiator. I look down at the red liquid glistening on my fingers and I hear my father cheering me on. Think of how proud of me he will be when I come home a hero!
     I bolt. I leap over the bikes and push aside his minions, running along the sidewalk with larger strides than I ever have before.