Britt and the Bullies

The last bell rang, signalling the end of the day. Students rushed into the hallway, eager to get home for the weekend. Brittany slowly sauntered out of her Calculus class. There was no need to rush. The student parking lot was dangerous enough without being exposed on the back of a motorcycle. She popped her headphones in and began blasting the latest Fall Out Boy album. If she was lucky, she could talk her dad into buying her a ticket, not that she had anyone to go to the concert with. She hadn't had the best luck making friends at her new school. Although, to be fair, the permanent "back off" vibe she had wasn't helping any.

The hallways quickly emptied and Brittany began making her way out of the building. As she passed the doors to the gym locker rooms, she heard some yelling over the screaming music in her ears. She removed one headphone to see what all the commotion was.

The noise had been coming from the guys' locker room. The vile, homophobic slurs were vaguely distinguishable over the sound of flesh being struck. Ronny, the only openly gay kid in the school, was getting beat up again. This was one of the downsides to moving from New York City to a small town in the middle of nowhere. So much small-minded thinking.

Knowing that the gym teacher didn't know, or didn't care, about what was happening, Britt pushed her way into the room. The six jocks stopped dead when they realized there was a girl in the room with them. Ronny was curled into a protective ball on the floor, bleeding slightly from his lip.

"Come on, Ronny," Britt called, "let's get you home." The poor kid slowly stood up, shaking.

"Wow, you need a chick to come save you, Ronald?" One of the bullies said, shoving Ronny as he walked past. "Be sure to thank her properly when she takes you home. Maybe getting some real action will straighten you out!" The jocks all chuckled, but Brittany was furious. She wasn't happy about the poor kid getting beat up on a daily basis, and they weren't exactly friends, but the oversized meatheads had just gotten her directly involved.

"How about I decide who I want to screw, thanks," she said.

"Wow. Rejected. Is that why you're gay? Did all of the available girls reject you so you had to switch teams?" The big oaf gave Ronald another little shove, and Brittany started swinging. It took all of about sixty seconds for the whole group to be laid out on the floor of the locker room, clutching various body parts and moaning. Her many years of Jiu-Jitsu and self-defense classes were quite useful every once in a while. She quickly ushered the poor kid out of the locker room.

"Wow, that was... thanks," Ronald said in awe.

"Yeah, don't mention it. Maybe try to not to get yourself cornered again, okay, kid?"

"It's not like I tried to get trapped," he mumbled. "I just forgot my phone charger in my gym locker."

Brittany let out a long sigh. She knew it wasn't the kid's fault. "Alright, do you need to call someone?"

"No, I have theatre rehearsal tonight. Thank you again!"

Of course he had theatre practice. The poor guy was a walking stereotype. She turned and walked out the front doors to the parking lot, shaking her head and chuckling to herself the whole way to her bike.

Author's Note: This week's story is based on an encounter in the Fairie Queen section. Britomart, the protagonist, is a girl who disguises herself as a knight to go find a man she saw in a magic mirror and fell in love with. She treks all across the country in search of this mystery man. In this particular encounter, she comes upon a knight being beat up by six other knights for not wanting to renounce his love for his wife and pledge loyalty to their mistress. Britomart rescues the lone knight fights off all six of the attackers with her enchanted spear. By winning the fight, despite being outnumbered, she is invited in to claim her reward- their lady's hand in marriage and the six knights' sworn loyalty. The second half of this tale was considered a separate story. Britomart can't take off her armour or everyone would know that she is a woman. Upset that her "betrothed" won't show his face, the lady of the castle breaks into Britomart's room after she has gone to bed. Upon discovering Britomart's true identity, the fair lady screams, awakening her knights. The knight she saved earlier comes to Britomart's aid, but not before she takes an arrow to the side. The two escape into the night. I decided to do a modern rewrite about a punk rock chick fighting off a bunch of bullies. If you go looking for the original version of this story on my blog, it's currently titled "I'm Bad at Titles."

Bibliography:

How Britomart Fought with Six Knights, A. G. Walker

Cover Photo: WikiMedia Commons

Imbedded Photo: Pixabay