I was tiny, and geeky, and introverted (Aspie much?) through school. There was one kid (out of 400) shorter than me – and he was less than 5′ tall at graduation. And he outweighed me by 20 pounds. (Food? What is this food I keep hearing other kids talk about?)
(Side note – My Mom taught me how to cook. On Saturday, make dumplings in chicken broth, with the leftover bones and the wilted carrots and soft potatoes the grocer sold us for half price. On Sunday, boil stew beef for eight hours, or roast a chicken for three. Serve leftovers all week with day-old factory seconds from the Wonder Bread plant.)
In 4th grade, four other boys thought it would be fun to attack me with pocket knives, clothes line, and a length of cable. I was fairly passive until they started damaging my bike. Then I sent them to the hospital. I gave their knives to the cop who showed up at my house a little while later, and showed him the cuts on my hands, arms and back.
I was absolutely tormented through middle school. Even one of the teachers got in on the psychological abuse. Until this one girl just walked over to me in gym class and punched me in the crotch. I knocked her out. The teacher sent her to the office for starting it – he had watched the entire incident (all 5 seconds of it). I didn’t get physically picked on after that.
In high school, thank goodness, I found a group of other outcasts. We really didn’t have much in common other than nerdosity and loneliness. We played chess and talked about The Destroyer (Remo Williams) novels at lunch, played D&D after school, and went to the local Bell Lab to play with their computers once a week. It was wonderful.
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