Pagewalker Read Online Free

living in the wrong world. I was meant to live in
the time of the Great Irish legends, surrounded by magic and
sorcery. Not stuck in school learning Pythagoras’ theorem and the
biology of flowers. In the summer of my 4 th year I had a
traumatic experience of bullying at its height. One morning a boy
named Ryan, a snotty nosed, spoilt brat that felt he had seniority
over most of us because of his dad’s “community worker” status. If
you are from Northern Ireland you already know what a so called
“estate community worker and resident committee head” is, to all of
you that don’t, it is a thug, gangster “ex”-paramilitary, drug
running scum bag that longs for the 70’s and “the troubles” because
they felt important then.
    Ryan thought he was a big man in school
bossing people around, me most of all, he hated me! REALLY hated
me. Maybe it was the baggy jeans, the skateboard in my school bag,
the Metallica t-shirt, the chain on my wallet. The spiky hair? I
don’t know but he hated everything that I stood for.
    This particular week he had it in for me with
style. Pushing, shoving, hitting, and threatening. He arrived that
morning before class when we were lining up and proceeded to punch
and stab me in the stomach with a mathematical compass.
    I remember slumping to the floor with tears
in my eyes, it was only a skin deep point but I saw blood and it
really hurt.
    As he and his friends laughed on the way out
the door, he said it was my brother next, who had just started the
school a few years below me. I saw red!
    I got to my feet, Opening the latch on the
front of my school bag, I lifted my skateboard and ran at him from
behind, and I swung that board with all my strength, so hard it
snapped as it connected with his back. He fell to the ground and
before he even made it to the cold, polished marble floor I was on
top of him. I had his tie pulled tight and was slamming my fists
into his chest and face. I could feel my knuckles hurt. The bones
were swelling in my hand but I continued to punch.
    His friends just watched, either out of shock
that “big Mahood”, the hippy, Goth, looser was actually fighting
back or maybe they wanted to see a bit of justice for a change.
Either way they let me lay rip into him. It felt like hours I was
hitting him, all the repressed feelings came to a head it was
therapy for my body and my soul. After what was probably only
seconds, but felt like hours, I was pulled of him. My teacher had
seen what I was doing and knew I had gone too far. He didn’t see
the years of bullying before that lead to this zit head being
popped. He only saw a larger boy on top of another slamming his
fists into his face. I fought my teacher off for a while but when
he got me to my feet I was a mess of blood, tears and sweat. I was
exhausted and in a frenzy. I had no control over what I was doing.
When my breathing slowed down I was numb. I could see my teacher
screaming at me, another teacher helping Ryan to his feet; blood
stained the floor and the door, all over Ryan’s and my shirt. It
sounded like I was underwater. Everything was blurry.
    Something stands out to me now, as clear as
glass however.
    I remember that while I ran at him with my
skateboard in hand, I got a flash, a minute flash of someone
running along beside me. I could not think at the time but I felt
like I knew him. A man in Celtic armour, a blade as long as he was,
raised above his head, a long blonde beard blowing in the wind as
he ran. Boots caked in mud and kid knees scraped under his kilt. I
saw myself in the man, or at least, who I wanted to be. Looking
back now, that was the moment I created Dertrid. A warrior and hero
of stories and tales not yet written. As we both charged into
battle I got a small reminder as I looked into his eyes before we
collided. I saw the deepest green. Green like the eyes of the
little man I met years before in the forest. Eyes that reminded me
of magic. Reminded me of what he said about my blood.