Gauntlet challenge - day 12

Prompt: What are your character's strengths and weaknesses? Write a scene in which the one thing your character needs to succeed is their most defining weakness. Allow them to find a way to use their strengths to persevere (eh? eh?) and overcome the situation.

I see a group of kids up ahead, and they look like they’re clustered around something on the pavement in front of the school. There are taunting voices, but I can’t make out the words.

I consider crossing the street to avoid them, but just then I hear a voice I know as well as my own. Instead of moving away, I rush toward the kids, my heart racing.

“No, no!” I hear Jonah crying as I approach the group. Something small flies up into the air, only to disappear back again inside of the crowd with Jonah’s anguished howl.

The kids ahead of me blur, and I realize my eyes have filled with tears.

“Leave him alone,” I yell, as I race forward into danger.

Three of the teens turn to look at me as I approach. I recognize their faces. A few of them I might have even counted as friends.

“What are you doing? Why would you do that to him?” I’m trembling, and having a difficult time keeping my voice steady.

“He’s just a retard, Kelly,” Marcus Harding sneers at me. “He’s too stupid to know any better. Tomorrow he’ll be smiling and waving to us in the quad.”

Until this moment, I never knew what it meant to see red. My vision turned a fiery shade as I took in his words.

“Don’t you dare call him that! Or judge him for things you could never understand. When it comes to empathy, my brother has more intelligence than all of you put together!”

I can see Jonah twisting his hands together in the center of the group, rocking back and forth slightly as he cries down at something on the ground. But before I can rescue my brother, or the broken Thomas train I see smashed at his feet, I need to get these loathsome bullies away from him.

“How would you feel if someone picked on you for your skin, Marcus?”

He winces as he puts a hand up to his acne pockmarked face. Then he remembers where he is and who he’s with. “No one would dare,” he scoffs, holding his head higher.

“Why? Because you’ll make sure to hurt them worse if they try? That’s not brave. And it’s not something to admire or emulate.” I address this to the rest of the crowd.

Sandy Cox steps toward me, her long black-dyed hair swinging forward to cover half of her face. “What would you know about it, tranny? Poor Jonah. He doesn’t even have a brother to stand up for him. Just a sad excuse for a phony sister.”

A lump forms in my throat, and I stare at her, not believing the words she just said to me. Sandy had been one of my closest friends in elementary school. She comforted me and lent me a swim skirt when my suit didn’t hide my genetic origins. How could I defend my brother, when I couldn’t bear to open my mouth and defend myself in this moment?

“Kelly is my sister!”

I hear Jonah’s yell before I look past Sandy to where he stands, suddenly taller as he straightens his back, his hands clenched in fists at his side. He steps over Thomas and away from the kids who had been standing still and watching the scene unfolding around them.

“You can’t talk to her like that! She’s my best sister!” He comes to stand next to me.

“She’s your only sister, dummy,” one of the other kids calls, causing the boy next to him to hoot with laughter.

“I don’t care. She’s the best sister in the world. She helps me, and she loves me, and she never ever calls me dummy! And she is a real girl. The doctor made a mistake, because she was born with a penis. But she’s a girl!”

“Thanks, Jonah,” I murmur, my face turning hot. “Maybe a little too much information there, kiddo.”

The other kids are howling with laughter now.

“It doesn’t matter what you think. Kelly loves me and I love Kelly.” He put a protective arm around me, Thomas forgotten on the pavement.

“Let’s go home, bud.” I give him a quick hug as we turn away from the bullies, together. I know they’re still laughing about Jonah’s last comment. But like he also said, it doesn’t matter.

Imagine that . . . I thought I was rescuing Jonah, but it turns out we rescued each other.

Word count - 746