Quote:The school bell rang echoing through the long corridors throughout the musty-smelling school. Even before the teachers had dismissed their students, the pupils started to pack up their belongings. Each of them desperate to get their books to their lockers ahead of running to the queue for the cafeteria before the “good” food was taken.
Ben Closs didn’t move at the same speed as the rest of his fellow classmates. Instead, he purposefully loitered so as not to bring any further unwanted attention to himself. He already had a hard enough time dealing with the other students. Or rather, avoiding them.
Maybe it was because Ben was quiet by nature, but the other kids in the school seemed to prey on him as though he were easy pickings. A cruel word here, a taunt there and - proving their “strength” - they were deemed “big” and “clever” in front of their fellow pupils. Whenever they came spouting their poison, or pushing him around, he never tried to stand his ground. He let them walk over him. Possibly because he knew he wasn’t the biggest of ten-year-olds and, therefore, wouldn’t do well in a physical fight. Or, more likely, because he was scared about what his cancer would tell them to do or, more specifically, that he would actually listen to it.
Ben had ignored the cancer for as long as he could recall. He couldn’t remember when it started, other than recalling times when he thought someone had said something to him which he’d misheard.
‘What did you say?’
‘Didn’t say a word...’
‘Oh, I thought you had.’
They would laugh. They would say, ‘Hearing things, huh? First sign of madness.’