They had laughed when he demanded that I kneel.
They had laughed when the bill disappeared into the drain.
Whatever they were feeling now didn’t change those things.
Still, their silence had changed the atmosphere.
Brandon was the only person smiling.
And even his smile was beginning to disappear.
“You should’ve done what I said,” he told me.
I felt the strap of my backpack digging into my shoulder.
“I shouldn’t have to.”
He leaned toward me.
“What?”
“I shouldn’t have to beg for my own money.”
The words came out more clearly than I expected.
Somebody in the crowd murmured.
Brandon heard it.
His eyes flicked toward the students, then back to me.
“You trying to embarrass me?”
I almost laughed at the unfairness of the question.
He had taken my bus fare in front of other students.
He had demanded that I kneel.
He had thrown my money into a drain.
Now he wanted to know whether I was trying to embarrass him.
“I’m trying to go home,” I said.
His face reddened.
“Then go.”
I looked toward the road.
The bus was still somewhere beyond the school gates, but there was no point hurrying after it without the fare.
“You took my money.”
He spread his arms.
“Do you see it in my hands?”
I said nothing.
“Exactly.”
His friends remained still.
Brandon stepped closer.
“So we’re done here.”
I could have walked away.
But he was blocking part of the sidewalk, and I didn’t want to squeeze past him while he was angry.
I took a step backward instead.
He followed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You scared?”
I didn’t answer.
He leaned forward.
“Come on.
Say it.”
I glanced toward the school building.
A few more students had emerged from the entrance.
The crowd was growing.
I could hear footsteps, quiet voices, and the faint sounds of traffic.
Everything around us continued as though this were just another Friday afternoon.
But I could feel the moment changing.
Brandon was no longer trying to make me kneel.
He was trying to make me afraid.
And he seemed determined not to stop until everyone could see it.
I noticed the first phone clearly when a student standing beside the school sign raised it to chest level.
Advertisement
Hotel advertisement 7
The student wasn’t smiling.
He was simply recording.
I wondered whether he expected Brandon to take the money, laugh, and eventually hand it back.
Maybe he thought the whole thing was a joke.
Maybe he wanted proof of what happened.
I couldn’t tell.
But having a camera pointed in our direction made me more conscious of every movement I made.
I suddenly wondered how I looked.
My old hoodie was wrinkled from working in the auditorium.
There was a faint streak of dust near one sleeve.
My backpack hung unevenly because one strap had loosened, and I could feel the heat in my face.
Brandon, meanwhile, stood with perfect confidence.
His jacket looked new.
His sneakers were clean.
He wasn’t worried about what anyone thought because he believed he was the person deciding what everyone would think.
That seemed to be the difference between us.
For me, the crowd was something to fear.
For him, it was an audience.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Brandon said.
I raised my eyes.
“There.
Was that so hard?”
I looked at the storm drain again.
“Can you at least help me get it back?”
His eyebrows rose.
“Get what back?”
“The money.”
He glanced at the grate.
“Oh, that money.”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Maybe you should’ve caught it.”
One of his friends gave an uneasy laugh.
Brandon turned toward him.
“Right?”
The boy nodded.
“Yeah.”
But there was no amusement in his face.
I noticed the sandy-haired friend looking at the drain, too.
He seemed to be thinking about something.
I wanted to ask whether either of them had five dollars.
Then I imagined Brandon laughing again, telling them not to help me, and turning the question into another humiliation.
I kept quiet.
But the thought stayed with me.
If just one of them had been willing to say that enough was enough, the whole afternoon might have ended differently.
At the time, I didn’t know how close one of them already was to making that decision.
I looked toward the road again.
For the past few minutes, I had been thinking only about retrieving the bill.
Now another problem was beginning to become real.
The bus wouldn’t remain there forever.
Even if the money could somehow be recovered, I was running out of time.
I tried calculating how long the walk would take.
Six miles.
The number sounded manageable when spoken quickly.
But there were long stretches without convenient places to stop, and I was already tired from school and cleaning the auditorium.
