Reality

A twelve year old, brown haired boy, raced up the stairs to the front entrance of the school he went to: Saint James Middle School. Why was he racing? Well, it certainly wasn't for being late to class, class started in ten minutes, and the final bell rang in fifteen. No, this was much worse. He had to find his friend group.

The rush to find where his friends were was because the leader of the friend group was the most popular girl in school. Actually, scratch that. She was the most popular person in school. No one dared to get on Cynthia's bad side, and those who did regretted it.

The friend group had an interesting dynamic, almost daily, there would be a new inside joke. If you're not there to hear it, no one explains it. And if you don't get the joke, you feel awkward around everyone. Then Cynthia decides you're not good enough to be in the friend group, and then you're out, but instead of being just a normal student again, you become an outcast, and that's no good at all. At least, that was how Noah understood it.

Noah ran around the hallways, looking for the group. After running around the first floor twice, he booked it for the stairs, hoping to find them on the second floor. While running up those stairs, he finally finds them all standing in a circle on the little platform half-way up the stairs, which also blocked the stairs, making it much more inconvenient for other students, some gave small dirty looks at the group.

One of the group members noticed Noah and shouted. "AYY, MR. PUNCHBAG IS HERE!" This made the others look at Noah, and made Noah look down to hide his blushing from embarrassment. He hated his last name, and was often teased by the others for it.

Cynthia stepped over to Noah and socked him in the arm quite hard, yelling 'punchbag' at the same time. Noah let out a small cry of pain but quickly turned it into laughter, not wanting to take any chances of upsetting the group.

Everyone went back to their loud discussions and laughter, while Noah was listening, and looking around. Although, there seemed to be a missing voice. Noah glanced everywhere, but didn't see someone. Cayden wasn't there.

Noah started to panic a bit, as if Cayden was gone when there was an inside joke, that would be it, and Cayden's three days of being popular would be done. Noah liked Cayden the most because he hit the lightest. He was still rude and rowdy like the others, but didn't hit as hard for the punchbag gag. Still hard, but not as hard.

Everything was going fine for a minute, until someone said something. 'Brogle' was what they said and everyone burst out into laughter. Noah didn't get it, but thankfully the same person was holding out their phone with a picture of a piece of broccoli with the caption of 'brogle'. Noah didn't get what was so funny, but laughed anyways.

Although, while he didn't know why the joke was funny, he did know that he wouldn't be seeing Cayden for a while.

After the first four classes were done, they were now on lunch break. Noah sat down at the usual lunch table the group sat at, and took out his lunch. His lunch consisted of: A turkey sandwich with a slice of medium cheddar cheese, a grape flavored Gatorade, and a small cup of store bought butterscotch pudding. The rest of the group were there in the next two minutes and they started talking.

Thinking about Cayden, Noah looked around the cafeteria and saw Cayden, sitting at the 'outcast' table. Cayden looked quite sad and uncomfortable sitting there and being surrounded by the students he would pick on. In fact, the outcasts were whispering to each other, snickering at him.

What surprised Noah the most was how quickly Cayden was thrown out of the group. It was scary to think of how quickly they could locate you, talk to you, find you awkward, and decide that you're not good enough. There was only a five minute break between classes as well. It was like they were vultures.