Rite of Passage

How I remade myself in one crucial encounter

Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

I was eleven when my mother left my father, moving with six children halfway across the country to London Ontario. She rented a tiny, rundown house. As we adjusted to our diminished circumstances, I nervously counted down the days until school would start.

Shy and introverted, I had done well at a country school where boys and girls spent recess on different playgrounds. Though I didn’t have many friends, I felt safe there.

That first school day my younger brothers and I walked an unfamiliar route to a new school. As we approached, the yellow-bricked building seemed massive, the noise from the schoolyard deafening. Passing through the opening in the chain-link fence surrounding the grounds, the sheer number of children — boys and girls together — overwhelmed me.

Though it was a cool day in September I broke out in a sweat. I started to shake. I couldn’t do this. My feet refused to take me any further. I might have turned and run home if I hadn’t known the house was locked, my mother already gone to work.

My younger brothers pushed past me, eager to join in. My fear of embarrassment overcame my fear of this new and daunting school. If Marc and Matt could do it, so could I. I followed them. The boys disappeared into the crowd, leaving me alone. Too shy to approach anyone, I stood there, on a painted hopscotch grid, stinging eyes threatening tears I dared not cry.

I immediately noticed a group of girls eyeing me. I didn’t know enough to look away, or even to put more space between them and me. Their leader, a tall black girl I later learned was named Angie, led the pack toward me. Once again, my feet betrayed me. Once again, I felt the cold sweat of fear.

Angie stepped up, too close for this to be anything but intimidation. “You’re new,” she said, a nasty smile broadcasting her intent. Four girls at her back leered at me, waiting for the show to begin.

“Do you want to fight?” Angie, if possible, loomed even closer, fists raised.

My world narrowed to those fists. I had been bullied before, but never physically threatened. In a moment of clarity, I realized that if I backed down, I would be a victim at this school forever. I also knew I couldn’t fight this girl. Right then, I made a decision that forever changed how I presented myself to the world. I sneered back.

“It isn’t worth my time to fight you. I have better things to do.” I assumed an air of confident indifference.

I waited for the punching to begin. Miraculously it didn’t. Angie looked genuinely puzzled. She had expected me to either fight or cower. When I did neither, she shrugged her shoulders and walked away.

Though alone, I stood taller, somehow more confident than before. I walked up to a red-haired girl and said hello.

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This, as best I remember the incident, is a true story. I initially wrote it for a Medium publication called A Few Words. Of necessity, it had to be short and to the point. The red-haired girl, by the way, turned out to live on my street. We’re still friends.

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