Middle school kids could be so cruel.

Jack watched as a trio of kids began to tease and taunt another boy for not being able to take his book back from them. The guy had just been sitting there reading, minding his own business when the trio walked over and snatched the book right out from under his nose. Then they began to pass it around in a game of Monkey-In-The-Middle while the book-reader frantically tried to retrieve it but to no avail.

The trio began to taunt the boy with names of 'four-eyes' due to his glasses and 'chicken' for not having the courage to fight back. They began to cluck and pantomime flapping wings as they circled him. That was when Jack finally decided to step in.

"What's this?" he asked, grinning. "I didn't know we allowed chickens on campus."

The trio stopped and looked up. "Mind your own business, moron," a girl told him. "This chicken's ours to deal with."

"What? The only chickens I heard were you three. You were clucking so loud I couldn't have minded my own business if I'd wanted to." He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked at the bespectacled boy. "Noisy pests, aren't they, chickens?"

The bullied boy gave a weak smile in return, but was too tense to do much else. The trio that surrounded him began to advance on Jack.

"What, you think you're some kind of hero, stepping in to save the day?" a boy in the trio snapped.

Jack actually laughed at that. "Are you kidding? Heroes are stupid. Doing stuff for people without anything in return? Risking themselves for those who usually end up being ungrateful for their help in the end? No thanks. I only do stuff that benefits me."

"So what do you get from ruining our fun?" the second girl in the trio spoke up.

"Well that's simple," Jack answered with an odd look of amusement. "You three seem to have ganged up on this one guy because you were bored, you want to feel like you have power over someone else, you want to feel like you're a part of something else with your friends which makes you feel stronger, or any combination of the above. Could be a number of other reasons, but those are my main guesses because those are the most cliché and you seem like a cliché sort of bunch."

The trio stared at him in silence. Jack took that as a sign to continue.

"Likewise, I could put a stop to your behavior because I'm bored, because I enjoy the power I get from watching you all succumb to my superior reasoning as I lay bare your motivations and intentions, and/or because then glasses boy over there will be in my debt. Definitely not out of some misplaced sense of justice. I don't pretend to understand what that is since from my point of view, it's subjective."

The four kids - the two girls and guy in the trio as well as they boy they had been picked on - simply stared at Jack, all at a loss for words.

Finally, the guy in the trio rolled his eyes and turned away. "Come on, let's get out of here. This kid's messed up in the head."

"Hey, I was just explaining. It's not my responsibility if you can't understand." Jack shrugged. "But I guess that's what I get for wasting my time with chickens and monkeys."

"Why, you little…" As one of the girls headed toward Jack, her hands balled into fists, the other girl grabbed her arm to stop her.

She shook her head. "Just leave him. He's just trying to start a fight."

"Huh? I thought that's what you wanted?" Jack teased, sneering as he referred to the trio having taunted the bespectacled boy for not having fought back.

"Just shut up," the boy from the trio called over his shoulder, waiting for the two girls to catch up to him. He turned from Jack to address the girls. "I'm not going to stand here and be made a fool of while keeps shooting his mouth off. Let's go."

"Don't need my help to do that, 'friend'," Jack said, smiling as he watched the three kids walk off. "Now…about that debt…" Then he turned to the boy with glasses who had leaned down to pick his book off the ground and dust it off.

The boy looked up fearfully when Jack's shadow fell over him.

Middle school kids could be so cruel. Jack was no exception.