Mr. Guterres asked the class, “Who is ready for recess?”
“I am!” “I am!” “Me!” “Me, too,” shouted the students.
Mr. Guterres lined the students up by the door in a straight line before opening it. He was a big believer in rules.
When he opened the door, the students bolted into the schoolyard.
“Just a minute,” Mr. Guterres said in a booming voice. “Remember what I told you yesterday.”
He took Hamoodi by the hand and led him over to one corner of the playground. “Farid and Aisha and Gamal, you come here, too,” he told some other students. They joined Hamoodi. “This is your area to play in. Try not to disrupt the other students too much.”
He brought Faisel and Tariq and Layla and Hakeem over to another corner, and told them the same thing. Kamel and Arash and Fatima and Syed got another corner of the playground, and Yazmin and Azura and Arman and Jahan went to the last corner.
The only student left was Benny. Mr. Guterres told Benny he could play over by the pond, but to try not to disturb the other students.
A few minutes later, Farid threw a stone, which hit Benny in the back. “Ouch!” cried Benny. He looked at Mr. Guterres, who was watching the students, but Mr. Guterres acted like nothing had happened.
The other students noticed this, and Arash and Tariq smiled and started pelting Benny with stones as well. One of them opened a gash on Benny’s cheek, which started bleeding. Benny wasn’t sure what to do. Weren’t teachers supposed to prevent this kind of thing?
When a rock thrown by Arman hit him in the back of the head, Benny had had it. He picked up a rock of his own, and whipped it at Arman. It hit Arman square in the mouth, and Arman started crying.
“Benny!” yelled Mr. Guterres, leaping to his feet. “Is that how we play on the playground?!”
“But Arman…” Benny started to explain.
“I don’t want to hear excuses, mister. Stop throwing rocks. You know it’s not okay.”
Benny hung his head in shame. Mr. Guterres was right. He knew better. What had he been thinking?
As he thought this, another rock smacked him in the forehead, and blood started flowing down his face. Wiping it away, he could see that it had been thrown by Faisel. This was just too much for Benny. He ran over to Faisel and put him in a headlock.
“Are you going to stop throwing rocks at me?” Benny shouted at him.
Mr. Guterres ran over and pulled Benny away from Faisel. “What are you doing?!” he shouted at Benny. “This isn’t even your area to play in! Maybe if you would stay where I told you, the other students wouldn’t be taking things into their own hands and getting rowdy. Now go back by the pond and leave the other students alone!”
Benny lowered his head, but his fists were clenched. This was so unfair, he thought. But Mr. Guterres was the teacher. What could he do. So he shuffled back towards the pond, when an enormous stone hit him in the small of the back. He fell down, crying out.
Mr. Guterres did nothing.
Suddenly, the students in each of the corners started throwing rocks and stones at Benny, before he even had a chance to get up. One of the attackers shouted at him, “That’s what you get for attacking Arman! We knew you were just looking for an excuse to go and play in his area!”
Layla ran up to Benny and kicked him, but ran back to her area before he could even react.
Benny thought for a long moment, He ran to the big garbage can and grabbed the lid. He held it up like a shield. He kept turning in different directions, managing to block the incoming barrage from the other students.
Mr. Guterres yawned.
Benny was getting the hang of this. It got to the point that he could see where the next rock was coming from, and block it before it got a chance to hit him. But his luck ran out when Jahan whipped a flat rock sidearm, and it hit him in the side of the head.
Benny didn’t cry this time. He ran over to Jahan and punched him in the face. Jahan dropped to his knees, crying in pain and outrage. But his outrage was nothing compared to that of Mr. Guterres, who ran over to stop Benny.
But Benny dodged Mr. Guterres and ran from student to student, knocking down every student who had thrown a rock at him with a single punch. He was careful to leave the other students alone. After all, they hadn’t had anything to do with the attacks.
When he went to punch Gamal, Gamal grabbed Aisha and pulled her in front of him, and Benny’s punch hit her instead.
“Mr. Guterres,” cried Gamal. “Benny’s beating up girls now! He hit Aisha, and she hadn’t done anything at all to him!”
Mr. Guterres was furious by this point. “Benny Nathan, you come here this instant! Is that what your parents told you to do? Beat up on girls who were just trying to play?!”
Benny set his jaw and decided to ignore Mr. Guterres. It wasn’t his fault Aisha got hit. He wasn’t aiming for her. He was just trying to defend himself. Mr. Guterres hadn’t said a word when the other students were attacking him, so his shouting at Benny seemed like a nightmare. The teacher who was in charge clearly wasn’t going to be fair. He was as bad as the students who were attacking him, if not worse. Benny gave a moment’s thought to attacking Mr. Guterres, but he couldn’t bring himself to hit a teacher. You just don’t do that.
But Benny held on to the lid, his shield, and decided that his time of being victimized was over. Anyone who attacked him was going to be stopped, by whatever means necessary.
And that’s what he did.
"[Benny] couldn’t bring himself to hit a teacher" -- true; that's what parents are for.