A shortcut home.

Feeling on top of the world and with the rulebook in your rucksack, you decide to live on the edge and take the shortcut through the park. Its not something you would ordinarily do on your own, but it halves your walk back from here to your house. A minute after leaving the security of the streetlights you realise this was a mistake. Some movement in the bushes makes you hasten, but up ahead you can see a figure step out from behind a tree and block your route. Spinning on your heel you are about to retreat when you see that way is blocked by another two bulky figures.

You think well on your feet in times of panic. Everything in life seems to slow down, You dive headfirst off the path into the bushes, getting scratched by wicked thorns where with a moments cover you ditch the rucksack containing the rulebook under a clump of brambles. before you're hauled rudely by the wasteband of your pants back out into the clearing.

You recognise your assailants.

They recognise you.

"Hey its the Dweeb!" says Connor Fernandez, a knuckle dragger who had left school the year before and not done anything meaningful since.

"H, hi guys." you try to **** a smile.

"Fuck. Hows it been Dweeb? Still wearing your moms old panties?"

"what? No, I." You start then get cut off as you are hoisted off your feet by Rico, Connor's older brother, who behind you has grabbed the waist band of your shorts and had pulled them so hard, he has lifted you off your feet in an **** wedgie. The pain in your poor bollocks which have served you so well tonight is horrific, but nothing to when you land again and Connor swings his large combat boot straight between your legs and you crumple to the ground in a fetal position, gasping for breath like a fish out of water.

This brought about howls of laughter, and beyond your caring someone slips their hands into your pockets and relieves you of your mobile phone (a $10 cheapo, locked and with no credit) and your wallet (with $15, your library card and a smiling picture of a nude Summer Fauna, a porn star with immensely inflated boobs).

You care nothing now about any of those posessions, and writhe helplessly on the footpath cradling your poor nuts while they wander off with all your worldly goods. Well almost all.

Eventually you get back onto your knees and then your feet and dust yourelf down. your bollocks are aching like you have a migraine between your legs. You retrieve the rucksack and arrange your underwear which is stretched so far it has torn at your crotch.

You quite literally dont have the cojones for it tonight, but you swear you will have your ****.

Luckily you make it back home without further incident and go straight to bed, nursing your plums.

In the morning, you get up early, with the pain a distant memory, but chastened with the thought that maybe you need to be a little more careful, you wash, dress and eat and youre out the door by 8, but should you get your **** yet or go to school and think about it a little longer? Or maybe just chill out and have fun with the rulebook.