Cardinal Rules

Prologue

So much for the heroine narrative.

I've been wary for too long the inevitable hazard of abuse when you expose your true colors to society.

Nobody is as pissed as I do. I don't feel the need to care or empathize a crying seat mate with his scratched and wounded knees bleeding, or a crying girl in pigtails over stolen sandwiches or toys. I see those things my issue.

"Hahahaha!" Sabay nilang tawa sakin nang pagbukas ko ng backpack kong napupuno ng alikabok at buhangin ay nakasilid ang isang malaking piraso ng bato na kasing laki ng isang niyog. Kahapon, hollow blocks.

This is not the first time this has happened, and sometimes I wish I didn't understand that this bullying game they try'na play with me is so ancient and tactless, but I do. So I apathetically threw the huge stone away and got my bag and left the room to eat my lunch.

"Galit ka ba, Florentin? Ba't ka aalis agad? Hoy naglalaro lang tayo!"

I have more vile and cruel ways to bully kids than putting rocks inside their bags, and I have them in my mind every single day since the start of this school year, but they're merely ideas— an imagination I created inside my head as a defense mechanism.

I am way too different than these kids my age, and I have been made aware of that since I was 9. They don't like that they see me differently so they are trying to damage me and see if they can mold me into an exact replica of the air-head that they are.

And to refuse to conform to the system costs quite the sacrifice.

They seem pissed at the idea that I take lunches with girls, and the fact that most of the girls they like, infatuates over me. It is not my fault if they refuse to suck up, and more so not my fault if girls can see it.

And these girls are the only friends I have, except that each of them tries to win me over, or make me notice them. Knowing the arrogant and pathological sociopath that I am, they seem determined to pester my life.

When I arrived at the school canteen with them, I took out my lunch box and opened the food mama gave me.

It was several chunks of burnt tocino. Some are edible, and some not. But I am hungry and pissed, and I love them too much to waste it away.

"Wag mo na'ng kainin yang sunog na tocino, Cardinal! Masama yan sa katawan, nakaka-cancer daw yan." Sabi ng pinaka-matalinong babae sa mesa habang nginunguya ko ang sunog na tocino.

I am not supposed to mind about it, but they all took my food away at nagpapaunahan sila ng pagbigay ng ulam nila sakin.

When I got back to the classroom, boys are glaring at me again. This I realized now that I am in 7th grade, palapit ng palalapit sa akin ang gulo.

Hula ko, nakita nila kanina yung paguunahan ng mga crush nila ng pagbigay ng pagkain sakin.

"Nananadya ka ba, Cardinal?" Panghahamon ng lalaking mas matangkad sa akin. He's the tallest in the class, pero patpatin at mahina ang utak.

"No wonder Cassie ignores you. Your breath smells like your own piss." Binangga ko lang ang balikat niya at umupo sa upuan ko ng tahimik. I took the book mama gave me that I have been liking to read recently. It's the Art of War by Sun Tzu.