Ray was caught up in his thoughts watching the clouds outside the window. Some of the kids were playing with paper planes and others just chatting. Their teacher had gone out. And when he returned there was a boy with him. Ray was suddenly brought back to earth . He was newly admitted. He looked so tired and his clothes were ragged and dirty. The teacher introduced him to the class, the boy’s name was “ Richard” . He went and sat at a nearby seat behind Ray.
After the class Ray and his friends were chatting together. They heard the new boy’s conversation with the nerd of the class Ben. He was saying that he belonged to a low class family and he was really looking forward to study hard and get good marks. This caught the attention of Ray and his friends . So they called out to him “hey new boy , what’s up with your clothes??”. Another called out “ didn’t have enough money to buy yourself a decent clothing ?. Do you have enough money to buy food atleast?”, “poor deaarrrr” “and your name’s Richard , Rich for short , kind of opposite of what you are”. Ray and his friends burst out laughing.
Richard felt embarrassed and he went away with Ben. The next day the same thing happened, they were taunting him.
During the evening, Ray was taking a walk across the street. He saw Richard who was feeding a bread to a puppy which was tied to a pole in front of a very dirty old shattered house as if it had done a terrible crime and was about to be executed. The puppy was having difficulty in breathing , it was tied so tightly around the neck. Richard tried to remove the rope but as it was about to come out, a tall drunk man came out from back. He grabbed him around the neck and lifted him upwards . Richard was pleading him to leave him alone and that he wouldn’t come again but he was not putting him down .
Then suddenly the man was thrown forward and Richard fell . He saw that Ray had kicked the man. Ray lifted Richard up and removed the rope from the puppy and released it . The puppy was so happy and grateful and it ran away immediately. The man got up and he was in a really bad anger that he was ready to hit Ray with a glass bottle . But both Ray and Richard kicked the man hard in the stomach and ran away from there.
After some time they stopped running and Richard thanked Ray. Ray apologised for his behaviour and said “ I never should’ve done that , I’m so sorry, when I joined this school I was bullied more than you..but then I gained good friends and I’m really happy now”.
Richard didn’t stress more , Ray didn’t feel like telling him why he was bullied . The next day, Ray and his friends were so close to Richard that he didn’t feel like he was in a new atmosphere . Out of curiosity he asked one of Ray’s friends that why was he bullied and he said “ didn’t he tell you, he is an orphan”.
–END–
