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For Marlon, school couldn't have gotten out any sooner. Today had been particularly rotten for him; during 2nd period, he had stumbled in the hall and boweled right into a poor nerdy kid with a stack of books half his height and causing a pileup in the school's busiest corridor, the cafeteria had done its worst (pizza that looked like it had been stolen from the pantry of a doll house and tasted like the plastic it looked like), and in front of study hall he had gotten into a shoving match with the same little nerd he had accidentally run into; the kid had thought he'd done it on purpose. Naturally a teacher had entered and broken it up, but now people would think he was picking on a poor asthmatic nerd and think he was a jerk. That's how it always happened.

Even now he could feel eyes on him as he walked out; it just wasn't fair. This was just the sort of thing that had made people like his parents think he needed a school like this. He wasn't a problem child; he just had rotten luck. He didn't even have any friends in this crummy school, except maybe..... The voice of the very person he had been thinking of reached his ears, and he raised his eye and looked around, smiling as he caught sight of Eolande's two-toned hair. Hoisting his backpack into a better position on his back, he walked the rest of the way until he was closer to Eolande to hear the rest of what she said. "No plans here, and sure. Maybe we could stop somewhere for a burger; inedible's too nice a word for what they had at lunch today."

Well, perhaps today won't be complete and utter crap after all, Marlon thought as he cheerfully followed Eolande toward the parking lot. "If I brown-bagged it, I don't know if I'd get anything better. My folks don't trust me to pack anything other than junk food, and if I left it up to them, I'd probably be unpacking towlettes and those little packets of crackers that come with soup. They don't have much time on their hands, you know?" More like they didn't make the time, but he didn't have to say that. In any case, he welcomed the detour; his parents probably wouldn't be thrilled if the school had called and told them about his 'fighting'.

"Don't worry," he said with a grin, "My head's hard enough to be its own helmet, and you don't seem like a reckless driver." He thought for a second. "Hardees has some pretty good burgers; ever tried their monster burger? That thing is so good....and so unhealthy."

"No, they're not too good at that. We do a lot of eating out; well, they do. I'd rather stay home and just snack." This was the most he'd ever spoken to anyone in this school besides a teacher, and those were usually questions regarding schoolwork, not an actual friendly conversation.

"Really? Aww, you don't have to do that....." Marlon rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "But if you want to you can. I would have sat with you anyway; I usually sit alone at lunch. Too much noise, you know?"

He chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. "When I'm late, I just accept it; after all, rushing won't make you NOT late." He smiled nodded his head, "Oh you'll love the monster burger then; it's full of bacon and gooey cheese."

"Oh man, tell me about it. Kids can just be stupid." He didn't have to try very hard to recall all the times he'd been picked on for various things, from his clumsiness to his hat. And even if he wasn't the target, someone else always was. He sometimes found himself pitying the sorry louts who only found completion by making others feel as though they were better off dead.

Shaking the gray thoughts aside, he nodded and got on behind Eolande, holding on as they started to move. "And have you seen the way they mix their food? I saw some boys the other day dunking cinnamon mini-donuts from the machine into the cheese from their nachos. Disgusting."

He grinned at her when she found a moment to turn and look back at him as she drove. "Do you take any cooking classes at school? I bet you'd be really good at them." He himself wasn't the best cook, but he liked to feel that he knew his way around a box of mac n' cheese or a packet of hot dogs.

He looked ahead, trying to spot the Hardees as they sped along. "I try to discourage myself from running. See, I'm clumsy as Hell. You.......you know that mess in the corridor this morning, with all the books? That was my fault."

Marlon smiled and nodded; it didn't matter if it all ended up mixed in your stomach, that was no reason to do your stomach's job for you and mix it up beforehand. Maybe their taste buds were dead; he could only imagine what sort of things they liked to eat that would shock their taste buds into sterilization.

As he climbed off of the bike and brushed himself off, his whole face practically lit up at the mention of books. "I like to read too. What other kinds do you read besides the cooking books?" But at the mention of the incident that morning, his face fell along with his spirits. "I didn't pick on him. I told you before I was clumsy; I tripped on someone's shoe and bumped into him in the hall. He came up to me near the end of school and confronted me because he thought I did it on purpose. He kept shoving me, and I know I shouldn't have shoved back but.......I'm always being thought of as a big bully; maybe it's my clothes or something, but in any case, I got a little mad and shoved back. I thought the kid was going to have an attack right there."

He signed and looked down at the ground. "It always happens that way; it seems like I'm the only one who knows what really happened and everyone else believes different, that I did it on purpose or I'm the one responsible. In this case I was responsible, but I didn't do it on purpose; you gotta believe me."

If Marlon had seen what Eolande was thinking, he would have been in complete and total agreement. He too had been astonished that the little guy had come up to him. But he had seen the look on his face; anger and fear. The kid probably knew he was no match, but had just been picked on one time too many. Just his luck that the one final act to push the kid over the edge would be a total accident and not a bullying instance at all. Well, at least if anything, he had a lot of admirers for standing up to a kid Marlon's size, and Marlon, unlike the true bullies that roamed the halls, would gladly let his pint-sized opponent walk away rather than whaling him for being so bold and impertinent.

He smiled a little as he looked up at Eolande. "Thanks for listening. I think to a lot of people, the first explanation is always the easiest to grasp, so they don't choose to look for any others. It's a shame, but what can you do?" He chuckled a bit as he looked down at his clothes. "Well, I guess to some this would be the clothes of a bully; nothing really distinct here to suggest otherwise. Truth is, I don't make much effort to get noticed; I'd rather just be in the background, you know? And yet I always seem to get in the center of attention eventually, whether I like it or not."

Smiling a small smile, he reached out and took Eolande's hand. "Thanks so much for listening. It's good to have a friend."

Marlon could just feel the relief washing over him like warm water. Someone believed him, someone wanted to be his friend! Suddenly the troubles of the day didn't seem so bad. At least his mother would be thrilled that he had finally found a friend; always before she had been bothering him to step forward and make friends; like it was his fault that more often than not, he didn't really see anyone worth making friends with.

But now he'd finally found one that WAS worth making friends with. And he was at least going to get a decent meal today before coming home to what would doubtless be an empty house full of Twinkies and potato chips and soda. He moved his hands into his pockets to check and make sure he still had his small roll of bills. His parents gave him an allowance, but every once in a while, after his mother had been a little too celebratory after a really good job, she'd give it to him in 10s instead of 1s; more fuel for those who would see him as a bully running amok and stealing lunch money. He often thought of himself as a butterfly in a flower garden that had fallen prey to Lady Luck's bug zapper.

He smiled and walked in, enjoying the assault of burger and grease smells in his nose. "Well I like my hat; it gives me hat hair in the worst way, but it's comfortable."