The Billionaires Club (11 page)

It didn't. The boy, whose name I found
out was Daniel Delp, decided to make a game out of stalking and
terrorizing me every chance he got. At the bus stop, he'd get kids
to gather around and call me Tara the Terror until I broke down
into tears. On the playground, he'd chase me around and throw rocks
at me. It seemed like he was friends with half the school, and he
turned all the other kids against me. I was alone, scared, hating
school. Every day became a struggle to get me out of bed. I cried
when my Mom dragged me out to the bus stop in the
mornings.

Finally, it got so bad that she had a
meeting with the principal and Daniel's parents. That stopped the
harassment for a little while, from Daniel at least. His cronies
picked up where he left off, making my life a living hell. As soon
as his parents took him off restrictions, he was back at it again,
joining the rest in their mocking of my horrible name and big green
eyes.

I'm not sure if a five-year-old ever
had lower self-esteem. Days and weeks and months of being told I
was ugly and hideous and horrible made me cry so much that my
mother worried my face would be tear stained forever. I begged my
parents to move, but they told me that this was just a part of
getting initiated into a new school. It didn't make sense to me,
but I chose to trust them.

Making friends was impossible with
Daniel Delp on my back day after day. If I did happen to find
someone to play with, Daniel would start making fun of them too,
and that would quickly end my play session. No one wanted to be the
target of his nastiness, and I couldn't blame them.

Instead of being something I looked
forward to, I dreaded recess like the plague. It was a time to be
feared, a time when Daniel and his gang would find me and torture
me. It was a time spent playing a seemingly never-ending game of
hide-and-seek, and not the fun kind either. I tried staying in the
bathroom throughout recess, but the teachers took notice and forced
me out. I tried hanging around the teachers during recess, but that
only gave Daniel and his friends something else to tease me about.
I asked if I could stay in the classroom during recess, and that
worked for a while, but then my teacher became concerned that I was
developing anti-social behavior, so she sent me back out into the
gladiator pit again.

Living in fear never becomes a routine
that you can settle into. You just push through it, hoping and
praying that things will get better. If it wasn't for one fateful
day, I might have had to endure Daniel's torment for the entire
school year, maybe even for the rest of my adolescence.

The day started like any other. The
clock ticked down to recess, and I watched it with a sick feeling
in the pit of my stomach. While all the other kids were thinking
about what games they were going to play, I pondered where I would
hide. Where could I go that would take Daniel the longest to find
me? The previous day, I hid out around the jungle gym. There had
been a lot of kids playing on it, and I managed to blend in for a
while. It took almost ten minutes before one of Daniel's friends
pointed me out. It would be the first place they looked for me
today.

When the bell rang for recess, I made a
mad dash for the tunnels. There are only so many hiding spots on a
playground, and I knew they wouldn't give me refuge for long, but
it was better than being out in the open.

Breathlessly, I crawled inside, jumping
when I noticed that the tunnel I had chosen was already occupied.
Thankfully, it wasn't an enemy. The boy who was curled up at the
other end of the tunnel barely paid me any mind. He was reading a
book, lost in his own world.

“
Can I come in here?” I
asked timidly, praying he wouldn't refuse me entry. By that time, I
was sure Daniel was out looking for me.

The boy grunted, and I settled down
beside him. Anxiety was already getting the better of me. I knew it
was only a matter of time before Daniel found me, a matter of time
before my nightmare began. I wrapped my arms around myself,
fighting back tears. You'd think I would have gotten used to being
called ugly, to having rocks thrown at me and my hair pulled, to
being pushed down and mocked. But every single day opened a new
wound that I worried would scar me forever. I mewled silently as I
waited for today's dose of torture, trying not to be too loud, lest
the boy beside me suddenly decide to kick me out for
crying.

Apparently, I wasn't being quiet
enough. After a while, he sighed and set his book down before
asking me, “What's wrong?”

“
Daniel Delp is going to
come bully me,” I whimpered.

“
Why?”

“
Because he says I have big
eyes.”

The boy looked at me thoughtfully. “You
do have big eyes.”

His comment only made me sink further
into myself. Tears streamed down my face and stung my eyes. Why did
everyone hate me so much?

“
They're very pretty,” he
added.

“
Huh?” I looked over at
him.

“
You have pretty eyes.
They're like emeralds. Very unusual.”

His vocabulary and demeanor confused
me. He was so serious and strange. Why wasn't he out playing with
the other kids?

I took a moment to look the boy over.
He was short, with hair so blonde that it was almost white. His
eyes were the brightest blue I had ever seen, like the waters of
the Caribbean. They were amplified by a pair of thick glasses. This
boy probably got picked on too, I decided.

I was about to thank him when Daniel
Delp popped his ugly head in through my side of the tunnel. Panic
filled me as I realized my sanctuary was over. It was time for my
daily dose of hell to begin.

“
Look what I found, boys.
It's Tara the Terror. Tara the Terror, Bug-Eyed Tara.” He pointed
at me for his friends to see and then laughed. “Get out of that
tunnel, so we can chase you,” he told me.

“
No.” I wrapped my arms
around myself, trembling in fear.

“
Then we'll throw rocks at
you until you get out of the tunnel.” He reached down and picked up
a fistful of rocks. His friends followed suit, preparing to force
me out of the tunnel with stone projectiles.

“
Yo,” the boy beside me
said, leaning over to look at Daniel.

“
What do you want, Four
Eyes?” Daniel scoffed.

“
You're Daniel Delp,
right?”

“
Yeah. So? What of
it?”

“
I'm Darren Jones. Your
father works for my father.”

“
Who cares?” his voice rose
in irritation.

“
If I tell my father to fire
your father, he will. Leave this girl alone.”

If Daniel was scared, it didn't show.
“You can't do that.”

“
Try me. If your father gets
fired over this, you'll have more than a week of being grounded to
look forward to. Try the entire year, maybe even your whole life.
If you go away now, I won't have to tell my father
anything.”

Daniel huffed. “You're lucky your
family owns half the town.” He turned his attention to me,
“Tomorrow, Terror.” And then, by some miracle, he took his gang and
left.

I was in utter shock and disbelief of
what had just happened. Was I actually free of ridicule for one
day? Who was this kid sitting beside me?

“
Thank you,” I
muttered.

“
You're welcome,” he
replied.

“
I'm Tara.”

“
I know.”

For the rest of recess, I sat quietly
beside Darren while he continued to read his book. It felt good to
know I was safe, if only for a little while.

That night, I told my parents about
Darren and what had happened with Daniel Delp. They tried to
explain to me that his parents were important people in our town.
His father owned most of the restaurants and shops, and his mother
ran a real estate agency. That didn't matter to me though. All I
knew was that Darren was my savior, and I needed to stick close to
him if I wanted to survive public school.

The next day at recess, I found him in
the tunnels again. Quietly, I slipped in beside him. When Daniel
came looked for me, he could only glower at me from a distance.
Darren was my shield.

Of course, it didn't take him long to
realize I was following him. The one day he wasn't in the tunnels,
I tracked him down sitting against the gate at the far end of the
playground. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, I sat beside
him, curling my knees up to my chest as I watched the other
children play. Darren never played, and I didn't understand why,
but I didn't question it. As long as I was safe by his side, I
didn't care what we were doing.

“
You're following me,” he
commented, barely glancing up from his book.

“
Yes,” I admitted
sheepishly.

“
Why?”

“
Because when I'm with you,
Daniel doesn't pick on me.”

He sighed but said nothing
more.

It took us a while to develop anything
even remotely resembling a friendship. At the beginning of our
relationship, I followed him like a shadow. He was never cruel to
me, and he never turned me away, but he didn't seem particularly
interested in me either.

Eventually, it bloomed into something
more. We were together all the time, and my parents finally asked
me if I wanted to invite him over for dinner. When he arrived, my
mom fell in love. She couldn't get over how polite and
well-mannered he was. It made me feel a bit embarrassed for the way
I acted at home. He was all "Yes ma'am”s and “No ma'am”s, “Please”s
and “Thank you”s. I looked like a little Neanderthal by
comparison.

Then it was my turn to go to his place.
My eyes bugged out as we pulled up in front of his gargantuan
house. It was hard to believe that only three people lived there,
but that was the truth of it. Darren had everything a kid could
want. Every new video game console that came out, his own computer,
a big trampoline in his backyard, a basketball hoop, and an
in-ground pool. Despite all that though, he seemed most interested
in his books. One of the walls in his bedroom was nothing but a
giant book shelf. His other walls were decorated with posters of
authors, composers, and scientists. The kid was a brain. How he
didn't get bullied was beyond me.

After the initial introductions between
our parents, we found ourselves staying at each other's houses
quite frequently on the weekends. It seemed like every weekend I
was either at his house, or he was at my house. His father was a
stern man, but his mother was sweet and fun. She was always
grateful for my company, telling me she wished she could have a
daughter, but after having Darren, she had gotten ovarian cancer
and could no longer have children. His parents talked about
adopting, but his father didn't seem too interested in the
idea.

I loved Darren's mom. She spoiled me
rotten when I was there. We'd go out shopping, and she'd buy
clothes for me that my parents could never afford, dressing me up
like a doll. Darren seemed to approve, but I could tell it made my
parents uncomfortable when I came home from his house with new
things.

Education was at the forefront of
Darren's parents' list of priorities for him, and for me too when I
came over after school some days. They'd send us up to his room and
make us finish our homework before we could do anything else. His
dad was more of a stickler on it than his mom, though he assured me
that she was only being lenient with him because I was
around.

Our homes were so different; it was
like being in two separate worlds. When I'd go to Darren's house,
it was all about studying and superficial things. When we'd go to
my house, it was all about having fun and family time. I thought we
balanced each other out well. Darren helped me to understand my
schoolwork better, and I helped him to relax and just be a
kid.

By the end of the school year, we were
inseparable. Best friends to the end. We did everything together,
from studying to going on vacation to sleeping in the same bed when
we stayed at each other's houses. I was so used to us being
together that I got upset when his father wanted to take him on a
boys-only fishing trip without me.

“
I don't understand why I
can't go with you,” I complained, sitting on his bed and staring at
my feet.

“
Because you're not a boy,”
he told me.

“
I still don't understand.
What's so different between boys and girls?”

He thought for a minute. “Well, I have
a penis, and you don't.”

“
What's a penis?” I gave him
a quizzical look.

He scratched the back of his head,
obviously uncomfortable. “You know, a penis.”

“
No. I don't know. What's a
penis?”

“
It's what I pee out
of.”

“
Oh, well, I have a penis
too.”

“
No, you don't.” He shook
his head.

“
Yes, I do,” I
insisted.

Darren sighed. “Do I have to show
you?”

“
Show me what?”

“
My penis.”