“Hey, look! It’s Cecil Jacobs!”

I cringed as I heard my name echoing down the hallway.

I turned around reluctantly, and found myself face-to-face (or rather, face-to-chest) with Andre Simmon’s immense figure.

Andre was the typical bully you found in all elementary schools. His towering six-foot frame and ‘battering-ram arms’ were enough to terrify the living guts out of any who dared cross his path. He was constantly surrounded by his lesser minions, who not only served to add to his air of fear and intimidation, but act as ego-boosters as well, by laughing at everything he said, even though they weren’t very funny at all.

My first option was to look around for possible avenues of escape. Unfortunately there were none, the truth of the matter being that all of them were already blocked by Andre and his gorillas.

Plan B, then. Play it cool. Hopefully acting unfazed would back him off this time. I tucked my hands into my pockets, and tried being as casual as I possibly could, slouching against the lockers to support my legs, which had apparently turned into the margarita Jell-O I had for breakfast that morning.

My cover was blown instantly. Andre grabbed me by the collar, and looked down at me; a terribly unpleasant and frightening act, given his menacing simian countenance.

“Gimme’ all ya’ money, or I’ll punch yer’ face in,” he barked.

Laughter began to erupt around me; whether at my misfortune or Andre’s barely discernable English, I couldn’t tell.

I began to empty out my pockets hurriedly, and placed a few crumpled notes into his palm.

He let go of me, and scrutinized the bills for a moment. Then he looked at me straight in the eye.

“Just joking,” he said, with a grin on his face which made me feel rather uncomfortable, because initially I didn’t get the humour behind that.

It was only then that I realised, that Andre was going to punch me anyway, regardless of whether I paid up or not. In a moment of blind hope, I forgot that. This was a prime example of one of his unfunny jokes.

Well, next thing I knew, he socked me straight in the eye.

I thought the world had ended there and then. I heard a faint cacophony of laughter before everything went black.

That took about three weeks to heal. But at least I didn’t end up like poor David Bowie or something.

Surprisingly enough, I actually made it through the next six years of school and graduated; free, at last, from the horrors of educational institutes. I still remember how happy and optimistic I was at that time, being able to leave my nightmares behind, being able to leave guys like Andre behind…

A loud thud woke me from my wistful reminiscence; the stack of files dumped on my desk greeting my return to reality.

“I want them cleared today,” my supervisor barked, indicating the pile of financial statements on my tabletop.

It was all such a terrible irony, really. Somehow, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being cheated out of something. Sighing, I started on my paperwork.