He put his tongue out at Jeremy and swaggered off.
Jeremy stood there. He was hurt as he had never been before in his young life; he had, indeed, never known this kind of hurt.
Someone came in.
“Hullo, Stocky! Coming up to chapel?”
“All right,” he answered, moving to get his books out of his locker. But he’d lost something, something awfully jolly. . . . He fumbled in his locker for it. He wanted to cry—like any kid. He was crying, but he wasn’t going to let Stokoe see it. He found an old fragment of liquorice stick. It mingled in his mouth with the salt taste of tears. So, dragging his head from his locker, he kicked Stokoe in amicable friendship, and they departed chapel-wards, tumbling over one another puppywise as they went.
But no more miserable boy sat in chapel that morning.
VI
Two days later, turning the corner of the playground, he heard shrill crying. Looking farther, he perceived Baltimore twisting the arms of a miniature boy, the smallest boy in the school—Brown Minimus. He was also kicking him in tender places.
“Now will you give it me?” he was saying.
A second later Baltimore was, in his turn, having his arms twisted and his posterior kicked. As Jeremy kicked and twisted he felt a strange, a mysterious pleasure.