Ben got ‘tension last winter cause he was in that one snowball fight. This dildo Eric tattled on him to Ms. Gagnon. Said Ben hit him with an ice ball on purpose. Ms. Gagnon went apeshit, giving out ‘tensions left and right. 

Some out-of-town douchebags shot up the school with BB guns over the weekend. No one got hurt or nothing but all the windows had these tiny spiderweb cracks in ‘em. As with most things, Ben got called into the office. He swore it wasn’t him but they didn’t buy it. It was usually Ben. Lucky for him when they called home his pops came through with an alibi. But Ben wasn’t off the hook yet. They knew he knew who did it. There was this full blown interrogation. But Ben didn’t crack. 

Before you got to the swamp there was this hill and on top was this 1000 or something year old oak tree everyone called “the tree.”  Mostly it was the girls who sat up there. They didn’t really talk to the boys unless they needed a ride to go get Slurpees. A girl would stand on the pegs of the boy’s bike and hold his shoulders for dear life as they bombed hill after hill. Nobody wore a helmet.      

Everyone was French-Canadian but Ben. There were only a few who weren’t: Ben, a girl named Naomi, and the principal, Mr. Greenbaum, who the F-Cs all called “Beak” because of how he looked. Beak saw Ben’s ma a lot. She was always bringing his inhaler in when he forgot it at home, which was often. A lot of days Ben had to go home early cause he had an allergic reaction or some shit. He’d talk about what the doctors did to his back, like 100 shots with this bullet thing. Then they’d wait like 5 minutes to see if his back changed colors. He was allergic to dogs, dust, mold, mildew, smoke, dander, horses, and hickory wood.  The doctors figured this all out. Beak was always supportive of Ben when he was sent to the office, especially when Barb, Ben’s ma, was there. 

The F-Cs were brutal. Beak ran the school, but when he was out where the busses were, some French kid would throw a penny out the window, and about 10 others would chant ethnic slurs and Jump, Jump, Jump! until he picked the penny up. Then they’d laugh their Frenchie asses off. Beak was a wuss and didn’t do anything about it. He knew when he was outnumbered. 

Ben sat in the dirt with Girard, this F-C. They both had ‘tension. The school removed the bench so now there was just the dirt mound where the bench used to be to sit on. Watching all the kids who hadn’t lost their ree privileges, it looked like a dust bowl. There were all these mini-tornadoes that whipped around, swirling trash, Zip-Loc bags with peanut butter jelly stains inside, straw wrappers, leaves. 

Ree was hell. Sadistic townies would attack anyone who wasn’t one. Cliques of Catholics, roamed in squads of four, bullying and giving beatdowns at random. Like in prison movies, out in the yard, things escalated quick. Everyone ran eagerly out the caf to catch the scuffle at ree. The lazy-ass teachers would never step up. Sometimes they’d go out like a half-hour later to break it up. 

The F-Cs would do this thing where they’d sneak chocolate milks out of the caf, right by the teachers, open them up and put them in hidden secret spots on the playground. They’d curdle and smell stank-ass in the sun. Bees would show up in swarms. Then some low ranking F-C would quickly close up the cartons, trapping five or six bees inside each one. Then all hell broke loose. They’d all run out en masse chasing down losers and shove chocolate-chunk-bee-bombs down the kids underwear. The victim would get stung on his ass and writhe around until he somehow clawed the bomb out. He’d also absolutely reek the rest of the day. The girl gangs did the same thing but to other girls. 

If a high ranked F-C was gonna get into it, everyone at ree could tell. The war field would go quiet and the lookouts would give the signal when the teachers weren’t looking. Then a circle of bodies would shark around and close in on a group, boys, girls, it didn’t matter. Then the chant started Beef, Beef! BEEF! BEEF! It grew into this vicious German Shepard bark. BEEF! BEEF! BEEF! BEEF! Every so often, some teacher would wave their arms in some half-assed please don’t fight. BEEF! BEEF! BEEF! and the two combatants involved would start swinging. Fighting. Bloody lips. French swear words. In the rare event the ones in the fight got caught, it was off to Beak’s office, where they usually got a week of ‘tensions.   

In peacetime, kids hacked. Hackysack was the only game anyone ever played. The school was broke. There was no kickball, no swings, no monkey bars, no baseball, nothing. Nobody gave a shit about sports or exercise. Ben hacked with Girard, even in ‘tension. Ms. Gagnon would get ripshit, but she was all bark. Girard got this new sack and it was stiff and hard to use. He asked Ben where there was some concrete so he could break it in by stepping all his weight on it and rolling it back and forth. Ben told him about this kid Heath who cut his open, took a few beans out, then sewed it back up.  It seemed like the kids who listened to the Grateful Dead never had to break theirs in. Like their sacks were perfect because they were theirs. 

Ben didn’t even like Girard.  They were just stuck together in ‘tension. And it was always a good idea to stay off your cellmate’s bad side. Ben’s only actual friend was called B. His real name was Beaumont. B got abused by his parents and was kinda retarded. For some reason, he actually enjoyed getting choco-bee-bombed. It was funny to him. The F-Cs got so worked up about how unaffected he was. They eventually realized how nutso B really was and left him alone. One day, B brought a switchblade into school and that was that. He got the boot right away. A part of Ben really missed the little psycho shit. 

Ms. Gagnon was a constant twat to Ben. She had a problem with boys who couldn’t sit still. One day he was at the blackboard doing math problems with chalk. He asked to be excused to the lav and she said not until you subtract to my liking. 

When the bus dropped Ben off at home, he went straight upstairs to his room. He took out his own BB gun. Some F-C sold him Ms. Gagnon’s home address for two days’ lunch money. Her car will be parked right out front, the kid told him. Her windshield would be one big spiderweb in the morning.