Bullying is something I've always known to make the storylines of most highschool fiction books and movies. I have never really met bullies in reality and when I did, I just couldn't understand why they actually enjoy making the learning environment uncomfortable for other people who haven't done anything wrong to them. I was really excited to finally get into highschool and it never occurred to me that I was getting into a new system in learning which means I was to expect a whole lot of characters, both the positive and negative.
During my highschool years in Gilford Memorial College, I had this guy in my class, Michael Sunday by name who ticked all the boxes of everything you can describe a bully as. He was exceptionally tall for his age and really overweight. He joined us in the second junior year and turned out to be the most disruptive character in our class. Of course, securing a seat at the back row gave him the edge to comfortably carry out all his mischiefs and shenanigans with little notice from the teachers.
He showed noticeable signs of truancy, but his presence in class was never a peaceful one. His study notes were never up to date and he wouldn't care less. The only time he paid attention in class was when he wanted to make jokes out of what the teacher was saying. All distracting side talks during class always emanated from his corner and none of his seatmates were bold enough to tell on him when the teachers demands, except Pascal Godwin who was his main victim.
Pascal had a rather calm personality and slender physique contrary to Michael, which made him more vulnerable to his attacks. The whole saga started one day during our English class with Mr Hilary, a teacher who popularly known to tolerate no mischief during his classes. On that fateful day, Michael was having his little chatter with his group while Mr Hilary was busy teaching the rest of the class, and unexpectedly, we heard "your time is up sir". That was a very impolite way of asking a teacher to quite his lectures when the lecture period was not yet over. Everyone knew whom the voice belonged to and when the teacher demanded to know who made such comment, Pascal didn't spare a second before calling him out. Michael was made to stay out the rest of the English class even in subsequent ones until he appealed to the teacher, which he didn't care to do.
After that incident, Michael and Pascal became what I describe as the predator and the prey. Michael will always ambush Pascal every chance he gets. Sometimes he would scatter his books all over the dirty floor or even hide some of it during the time for exams just to disarm him and make him fail.
Pascal reported those mistreatments from Michael but it didn't seem to solve the problem. Michael only grew angrier with each punishment he got from attacking Pascal, which left Pascal with no other choice than to stop involving the teachers in his ordeal.
I for one got into a few altercations with him but it was mostly verbal and I already knew him to be a trouble-maker, so I avoided crossing paths with him at all costs. Things changed when his family move into the neighborhood we lived and I found that he was from a broken home, having only his mom to take care of him and his two other siblings. I concluded that it might have been one of the reasons why he's always so hostile to everyone.
Michael didn't last so much in my school. His constant aggression towards everyone who crossed paths with him became intolerable. The last straw that broke the camel's back was when he physically assaulted our biology teacher, Mr Patrick. He was suspended after the incident and he never came back. It was such a relief to us all all when we heard that he has finally left. At least when were able to know some peace in the classroom and the school management didn't have to deal the constant reports from both within the school and outside. Never again did we have such a troublesome character in class.
